Part 23 (1/2)
CHAPTER XXVI
THROUGH EASTERN STRAITS AND ISLANDS
In every long journey there comes a time when one feels a little dreary.
So many new things have been seen that the mind and eye are tired. Then maybe there is just a touch of home-sickness mingled with it, and when one gets to a part less beautiful than what has gone before all at once there is a longing to turn and fly back to all that we are accustomed to. It seems to me that you and I are suffering from that now. We have left Burma behind, and for two days have ploughed down the Gulf of Martaban toward Penang in the Straits Settlements. We did not want to make friends with anyone on board, and were just a trifle grumpy even toward each other. We felt the parting from Joyce and her mother, who had made Burma so enjoyable, and we weren't ready to begin making new friends all at once.
Burma forms the western part of a great peninsula, and stretching out southward from it is a long arm, the shape of an Indian club, narrower in the neck and broadening out, to run up finally to a point. Alongside of the broadest part is the great island of Sumatra, belonging to the Dutch, who are our princ.i.p.al rivals in this region of the world.
”The captain's compliments, and we're going to set off some rockets to scare the sea-birds,” says one of the officers, suddenly appearing beside us. ”We're pa.s.sing close by that little island there--Pulo Pera.”
Now there is something to see we wake up at once. Sure enough there it is ahead, a little island rising like a cliff out of the water. It is evidently deep close in, for we go quite near to it. Just as we are abreast off goes rocket after rocket, and in a moment the scene is transformed as if by magic. A dense ma.s.s of shrieking, screaming birds springs to life. The moment before the sun was s.h.i.+ning in a clear sky, now in an instant it is obscured as by a thick cloud. You never saw anything like it! The birds on the Ba.s.s Rock are fairly thick, but here--day is turned to night and the commotion and uproar are wildly exciting, like the clash of legions in the sky.
Long after we are past we can see them thinning down gradually as some keep dropping back on to their island home, while the more restless, nervous spirits still circle and swoop in loops and curves.
A marvellous sight!
Penang itself is an island, and as we swing round to the capital town, Georgetown, on the inner or land side, we see an astonis.h.i.+ng ma.s.s of green, with a great hill clothed almost to the summit rising behind the town. We can go up there to-morrow if you like, as we have a day to spend here owing to a change of steamers.
As we come to anchor in the bay a perfect swarm of small boats, called sampans, dance round the s.h.i.+p, and the owners offer their wares with astonis.h.i.+ng noise. Looking down you can see the yellow faces of the men who have narrow eyes and pigtails coiled round their heads under enormous hats. It looks as if we had tumbled into China by mistake, for these are nearly all Chinamen, and yet the inhabitants of this country are Malays. The Malay, however, is like the Burman in that he does not care to exert himself if he can help it, so he lets the c.h.i.n.k, as the Chinamen are familiarly called, do all the business. The rich earth yields a hundredfold, and the Malay has only to scratch a very little of it very gently, and plant or sow a small quant.i.ty of something, and he is provided for for a year! The Chinaman is an industrious soul and an uncommonly good market-gardener, so he grows vegetables for sale and makes a good thing out of it; half these boats are full of vegetables grown by the very men who are selling them.
Soon we are in a sampan, being rapidly rowed sh.o.r.e-wards. The man works the boat standing up and faces the way he is going; he does it very easily, with the ends of his long oars crossed over and worked almost entirely by wrist play. We are right under a high, old-fas.h.i.+oned-looking trading s.h.i.+p now; do you see that great eye painted on the bows? There is another on the other side. That shows it is a Chinese s.h.i.+p; the men have a superst.i.tion that the s.h.i.+p cannot see without these eyes. They say, ”No got eye, no can see; no can see, no can savee.”
Great rocks stick out from the foliage on the hillside, and nearer is the town, with its pretty thatched houses and palatial mansions and avenues of greenery. It is all slightly different from the countries we have seen already, and yet it is difficult to say quite where the difference lies. Here is our old friend the rickshaw man, only he is a Chinaman, of course, and some of these rickshaws are two-seated, so we can both get into one; the man who pulls starts off gently as if it were no trouble. He wears nothing above the waist, and we can see the well-developed muscles moving under his sun-browned skin. On the road we meet many Chinese women dressed in trousers; you must have seen some in Hyde Park, I think, for people often bring them over to England as nurses for their children, they are so clean and reliable. They all wear trousers like that, just plain, straight down, shapeless trousers, with a tunic falling over them; it is a neat and effective dress.
[Ill.u.s.tration: CHINESE LADY IN TROUSERS.]
Whew! It's hot! I don't feel inclined to move a limb; this steamy heat is so much more trying than the heat we had in the dry zone of Burma, where you and Joyce got lost; there the nights were always cool, almost sharp sometimes. That building you are pointing at, with the dragons over the doorway, is a Chinese temple, and I don't suppose they would mind our going in at all. It looks nice and cool, anyway. We stop the rickshaw man and pa.s.s through several courtyards enclosed by high walls.
In one is an open upper storey like a first-floor room with a wall knocked out; this is a stage. You may well ask how anyone in the courtyard can see the play--they can't! Only the favoured few who sit in the galleries get a good view!
In all the courts a few Chinamen lounge about on the steps; they are probably half-stupid with opium, for they are not naturally lazy.
Pa.s.sing on to the inner shrine we see a much-decorated screen, behind which an image is hidden, but we are not allowed to pull it aside. The room in which it stands is crowded with hideous figures, squat devils, grinning dragons, and other disagreeable forms. Before them are empty tin biscuit-boxes full of sand, in which are stuck messy little tapers.
There is a funny smell of incense mixed with tallow in the air. It is a creepy, uncomfortable place, and the Chinese religion is not one that would attract a stranger; I expect you would have to be brought up in it to understand it!
Unfortunately next day our expedition to the mountain is spoilt by torrents of rain which stream down unceasingly, and time hangs heavy on our hands.
”It always rains here, all the year round, more or less,” says a friendly Englishman in the hotel. ”If you like I'll take you to see a well-to-do Chinaman who is a friend of mine. The Chinamen are all rich here, lots of them keep motors.” We gladly accept and go off under borrowed umbrellas to the outskirts of the town. The house stands by itself in a clump of trees and is very imposing with its great white marble pillars; as we get near we see huge gold letters in weird characters all across the front. Then before we have time to notice any more we are in the hall looking at a great bowl of gold-fish, and in another minute our host is bowing before us. He is wearing a very magnificent embroidered coat of red silk with great wing-like sleeves; the embroidery is a marvel, dragons in blue and gold, and fishes of rainbow hues disport themselves all over it. Under it is a short black satin petticoat, rather like a kilt, and black boots with thick white felt soles. The gentleman is tall and well made, a fine figure of a man, and on his head is a little round black cap, from which escapes his pigtail. He stands bowing before us and shaking hands with himself, which, as a method of greeting, is perhaps better than our own way. He takes us into a dark gloomy room full of cabinets of black lacquer richly decorated with gold and mother-of-pearl. There are sombre carved wood chairs set back against the wall. It is all very costly, but to us it seems uncomfortable and funereal. The chief things that attract us are rows of little red pieces of paper of odd lengths hanging over strings from the ceiling, as if they were drying after a was.h.i.+ng-day.
The Englishman explains that the Chinaman is very proud of these, for they are all New Year's greetings from his friends, and the number of them shows what a popular man he must be. As the Chinese New Year's Day is on April the first, and that was only a week ago, these are all new; but if we had arrived at any time of the year we should have seen them just the same, for they are left hanging all the year round till the next lot arrives.
[Ill.u.s.tration: A CHINESE GENTLEMAN.]
[Ill.u.s.tration: INTERIOR OF CHINESE HOUSE AT SINGAPORE.]
On the whole we are not sorry to leave Penang; we have felt limp all the time, worse even than we did in the Red Sea. The steamer we board this time is the _Khyber_ of the P. & O. Company. She belongs to the Intermediate Line, which comes right out to j.a.pan from England, taking about six weeks on the way. For anyone who wants change and rest and no worry that's a fine voyage, as the boats stop at many places. We shall go on with her to j.a.pan. As we are starting on the steamer we hear various cracks and snaps from the boats near, where crackers are being exploded. The captain happens to pa.s.s on the way to the bridge and smiles as he hears them. ”They're not firing salvos in our honour,” he says; ”they think the s.h.i.+p is full of devils, and in case a few have escaped and might land in their blameless boats, they're frightening them back again before it is too late.” It makes a great difference to have a captain who takes an interest in his pa.s.sengers and bothers to tell them incidents as they happen, though to him they may be dull as ditch water, as he has been through them all dozens of times already.
The next time we meet the captain it is growing dusk, and he points ahead to what looks like a black rock looming up sheer from the sea.
”Curious thing that,” he says meditatively; ”it's an island, Pulo Jarrak,--islands are all Pulo here,--and owing to the quant.i.ty of rain which falls here the vegetation grows so thickly it makes the island stand right out; even on a dark night you can see it ten to twenty miles off. It looks quite black.”
We have only one stop on the way to Singapore, exactly midway between it and Penang, at Port Swettenham.