Following the Equator by Mark Twain (mobile ebook reader TXT) đ
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To succeed in the other trades, capacity must be shown; in the law, concealment of it will do.
âPuddânhead Wilsonâs New Calendar.
MONDAY,âDecember 23, 1895. Sailed from Sydney for Ceylon in the P. & O. steamer âOceanaâ. A Lascar crew mans this shipâthe first I have seen. White cotton petticoat and pants; barefoot; red shawl for belt; straw cap, brimless, on head, with red scarf wound around it; complexion a rich dark brown; short straight black hair; whiskers fine and silky; lustrous and intensely black. Mild, good faces; willing and obedient people; capable, too; but are said to go into hopeless panics when there is danger. They are from Bombay and the coast thereabouts. Left some of the trunks in Sydney, to be shipped to South Africa by a vessel advertised to sail three months hence. The proverb says: âSeparate not yourself from your baggage.â
This âOceanaâ is a stately big ship, luxuriously appointed. She has spacious promenade decks. Large rooms; a surpassingly comfortable ship. The officersâ library is well selected; a shipâs library is not usually that . . . . For meals, the bugle call, man-of-war fashion; a pleasant change from the terrible gong . . . . Three big catsâvery friendly loafers; they wander all over the ship; the white one follows the chief steward around like a dog. There is also a basket of kittens. One of these cats goes ashore, in port, in England, Australia, and India, to see how his various families are getting along, and is seen no more till the ship is ready to sail. No one knows how he finds out the sailing date, but no doubt he comes down to the dock every day and takes a look, and when he sees baggage and passengers flocking in, recognizes that it is time to get aboard. This is what the sailors believe. . . .
The Chief Engineer has been in the China and India trade thirty three years, and has had but three Christmases at home in that time . . . . Conversational items at dinner, âMocha! sold all over the world! It is not true. In fact, very few foreigners except the Emperor of Russia have ever seen a grain of it, or ever will, while they live.â Another man said: âThere is no sale in Australia for Australian wine. But it goes to France and comes back with a French label on it, and then they buy it.â I have heard that the most of the French-labeled claret in New York is made in California. And I remember what Professor S. told me once about Veuve Cliquotâif that was the wine, and I think it was. He was the guest of a great wine merchant whose town was quite near that vineyard, and this merchant asked him if very much V. C. was drunk in America.
âOh, yes,â said S., âa great abundance of it.â
âIs it easy to be had?â
âOh, yesâeasy as water. All first and second-class hotels have it.â
âWhat do you pay for it?â
âIt depends on the style of the hotelâfrom fifteen to twenty-five francs a bottle.â
âOh, fortunate country! Why, itâs worth 100 francs right here on the ground.â
âNo!â
âYes!â
âDo you mean that we are drinking a bogus Veuve-Cliquot over there?â
âYesâand there was never a bottle of the genuine in America since Columbusâs time. That wine all comes from a little bit of a patch of ground which isnât big enough to raise many bottles; and all of it that is produced goes every year to one personâthe Emperor of Russia. He takes the whole crop in advance, be it big or little.â
January 4, 1896. Christmas in Melbourne, New Yearâs Day in Adelaide, and saw most of the friends again in both places . . . . Lying here at anchor all dayâAlbany (King Georgeâs Sound), Western Australia. It is a perfectly landlocked harbor, or roadsteadâspacious to look at, but not deep water. Desolate-looking rocks and scarred hills. Plenty of ships arriving now, rushing to the new gold-fields. The papers are full of wonderful tales of the sort always to be heard in connection with new gold diggings. A sample: a youth staked out a claim and tried to sell half for L5; no takers; he stuck to it fourteen days, starving, then struck it rich and sold out for L10,000. . . About sunset, strong breeze blowing, got up the anchor. We were in a small deep puddle, with a narrow channel leading out of it, minutely buoyed, to the sea.
I stayed on deck to see how we were going to manage it with such a big ship and such a strong wind. On the bridge our giant captain, in uniform; at his side a little pilot in elaborately gold-laced uniform; on the forecastle a white mate and quartermaster or two, and a brilliant crowd of lascars standing by for business. Our stern was pointing straight at the head of the channel; so we must turn entirely around in the puddleâand the wind blowing as described. It was done, and beautifully. It was done by help of a jib. We stirred up much mud, but did not touch the bottom. We turned right around in our tracksâa seeming impossibility. We had several casts of quarter-less 5, and one cast of half 4â27 feet; we were drawing 26 astern. By the time we were entirely around and pointed, the first buoy was not more than a hundred yards in front of us. It was a fine piece of work, and I was the only passenger that saw it. However, the others got their dinner; the P. & O. Company got mine . . . . More cats developed. Smythe says it is a British law that they must be carried; and he instanced a case of a ship not allowed to sail till she sent for a couple. The bill came, too: âDebtor, to 2 cats, 20 shillings.â . . . News comes that within this week Siam has acknowledged herself to be, in effect, a French province. It seems plain that all savage and semi-civilized countries are going to be grabbed . . . . A vulture on board; bald, red, queer-shaped head, featherless red places here and there on his body, intense great black eyes set in featherless rims of inflamed flesh; dissipated look; a businesslike style, a selfish, conscienceless, murderous aspectâthe very look of a professional assassin, and yet a bird which does no murder. What was the use of getting him up in that tragic style for so innocent a trade as his? For this one isnât the sort that wars upon the living, his diet is offalâand the more out of date it is the better he likes it. Nature should give him a suit of rusty black; then he would be all right, for he would look like an undertaker and would harmonize with his business; whereas the way he is now he is horribly out of true.
January 5. At 9 this morning we passed Cape Leeuwin (lioness) and ceased from our long due-west course along the southern shore of Australia. Turning this extreme southwestern corner, we now take a long straight slant nearly N. W., without a break, for Ceylon. As we speed northward it will grow hotter very fastâbut it isnât chilly, now. . . . The vulture is from the public menagerie at Adelaideâa great and interesting collection. It was there that we saw the baby tiger solemnly spreading its mouth and trying to roar like its majestic mother. It swaggered, scowling, back and forth on its short legs just as it had seen her do on her long ones, and now and then snarling viciously, exposing its teeth, with a threatening lift of its upper lip and bristling moustache; and when it thought it was impressing the visitors, it would spread its mouth wide and do that screechy cry which it meant for a roar, but which did not deceive. It took itself quite seriously, and was lovably comical. And there was a hyenaâan ugly creature; as ugly as the tiger-kitty was pretty. It repeatedly arched its back and delivered itself of such a human cry; a startling resemblance; a cry which was just that of a grown person badly hurt. In the dark one would assuredly go to its assistanceâand be disappointed . . . . Many friends of Australasian Federation on board. They feel sure that the good day is not far off, now. But there seems to be a party that would go furtherâhave Australasia cut loose from the British Empire and set up housekeeping on her own hook. It seems an unwise idea. They point to the United States, but it seems to me that the cases lack a good deal of being alike. Australasia governs herself whollyâthere is no interference; and her commerce and manufactures are not oppressed in any way. If our case had been the same we should not have gone out when we did.
January 13. Unspeakably hot. The equator is arriving again. We are within eight degrees of it. Ceylon present. Dear me, it is beautiful! And most sumptuously tropical, as to character of foliage and opulence of it. âWhat though the spicy breezes blow soft oâer Ceylonâs isleââan eloquent line, an incomparable line; it says little, but conveys whole libraries of sentiment, and Oriental charm and mystery, and tropic deliciousnessâa line that quivers and tingles with a thousand unexpressed and inexpressible things, things that haunt one and find no articulate voice . . . . Colombo, the capital. An Oriental town, most manifestly; and fascinating.
In this palatial ship the passengers dress for dinner. The ladiesâ toilettes make a fine display of color, and this is in keeping with the elegance of the vesselâs furnishings and the flooding brilliancies of the electric light. On the stormy Atlantic one never sees a man in evening dress, except at the rarest intervals; and then there is only one, not two; and he shows up but once on the voyageâthe night before the ship makes portâthe night when they have the âconcertâ and do the amateur wailings and recitations. He is the tenor, as a rule . . . . There has been a deal of cricket-playing on board; it seems a queer game for a ship, but they enclose the promenade deck with nettings and keep the ball from flying overboard, and the sport goes very well, and is properly violent and exciting . . . . We must part from this vessel here.
January 14. Hotel Bristol. Servant Brompy. Alert, gentle, smiling, winning young brown creature as ever was. Beautiful shining black hair combed back like a womanâs, and knotted at the back of his headâtortoise-shell comb in it, sign that he is a Singhalese; slender, shapely form; jacket; under it is a beltless and flowing white cotton gownâfrom neck straight to heel; he and his outfit quite unmasculine. It was an embarrassment to undress before him.
We drove to the market, using the Japanese jinrikshaâour first acquaintanceship with it. It is a light cart, with a native to draw it. He makes good speed for half-an-hour, but it is hard work for him; he is too slight for it. After the half-hour there is no more pleasure for you; your attention is all on the man, just as it would be on a tired horse, and necessarily your sympathy is there too. Thereâs a plenty of these ârickshas, and the tariff is incredibly cheap.
I was in Cairo years ago. That was Oriental, but there was a lack. When you are in Florida or New Orleans you are in the Southâthat is granted; but you are not in the South; you are in a modified South, a tempered South. Cairo was a tempered Orientâan Orient with an indefinite something wanting. That feeling was not present in Ceylon. Ceylon
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