--- title: Improvement Era description: Monthly periodical of the Mormon church, 1897 onward. This library holds the issues of November 1897 to December 1930. authors: - Hewlett, Frank J. collections: - periodicals tags: - magazine - improvement-era periodical: Improvement Era volume: 12 number: 9 published: 1909-07 publisher: Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations publisher_place: Salt Lake City language: en type: magazine reference: 'Frank J. Hewlett, "People and Places in the Orient—II. On the Wave," *Improvement Era* 12, no. 9 (July 1909): 737–742.' source: url: https://archive.org/details/improvementera1209unse transcription: Transcribed from the Internet Archive scan of each issue (the item for each issue is named in the issue's own source); unnumbered advertising leaves are omitted, printed page numbers are kept as page markers. identifier: improvementera1209unse start_page: 737 end_page: 742 rights: status: public-domain basis: US publication 1930 or earlier (published 1909-07) source: https://archive.org/details/improvementera1209unse publication_year: 1909 note: The Internet Archive item metadata carries a blanket "© Copyright by Intellectual Reserve, Inc." notice. The library owner judged it inapplicable because this issue was published in 1909, before 1931; a scan-level notice does not restore copyright. --- # People and Places in the Orient—II. On the Wave PEOPLE AND PLACES IN THE ORIENT. BY FRANK J. HEWLETT, DIRECTOR OF THE UTAH STATE FAIR AND PRESIDENT OF HEWLETT BROS. COMPANY. II.— ON THE WAVE. The Pacific Mail S. S. Siberia is 592 feet long, with a depth of 40 feet, beam 63 feet, tonnage 18,000, horse power 18,000, speed eighteen miles an hour. It takes 156 tons of coal every 24 hours to make the black smoke that belches through her two large funnels. The item of expense for fuel alone on a voyage from San Fran- cisco to Hongkong, China, and return, is $65,000. Her coaling stations are San Fran- cisco, Honolulu, Yokohama, and Nagasaki, Japan. These figures are furnished me by A. E. Moncaster, chief en- gineer. Her commander is A. Zeeder, a genial,intelligent Deck Scene on the Siberia. gentleman, who is fast win- passengers. The officers are all ning the love and respect of his Chinese. The Chinese are en- Americans, the crew and servants, Next they are weighed, their gaged with an ironclad contract. all birth marks are carefully height taken, the color of their eyes, the last two trips out from examined and registered, and during with the company s Hongkong, they have actually been branded This is to prevent others being substituted mark in India ink. 738 IMPR VEMENT ERA for the return voyage. They live together in the steerage. The company allows them extra compensation so that they can buy their own kind of food and cook it to suit themselves. When not working they are playing fan-tan, smoking opium, and keeping up an incessant chatter. There is a clause in the contract which is strictly adhered to, and that is if any of them die on shipboard, they shall not be buried at sea, but embalmed and carried on to China. Our table waiters are also from the "flowery kingdom," and it is rather amusing to watch them. They wear blue suits for breakfast and lunch; but at dinner, they dress in long, white — well I them call night-shirts. They also wear white gloves to match. We order by number from our bill of fare, or menu card, and it is surprising how readily these Chinese waiters remember the numbers. My seat is near a group of tea- buyers, several of them on their fifteenth annual trip, Portion of Dining Saloon. and one, Otis A. Poole, holds the high record for those aboard, being on his twenty-sixth long sea journey. Of course, some of the others have not crossed quite so often. Some are booked for Formosa, w^ere the Oolong teas grow. Others are going to Kobe, Shidozuoka, and Yokohama, Hankow, and Amov, China. While a few will travel still further to Ceylon and India. All are going to one or the other of the great tea centers of the world. We are living in a cosmopolitan, floating city. So many nationalities are represented, and so many veteran travelers are gathered together on one of these Pacific steamers, that the com- placent young tourist, whose town and family viewed him as a Stanley, or Columbus, when he started to circle the globe, shrinks into nothingness beside the tea, silk, or opium merchant at his elbow who is making his twentieth or perhaps thirtieth round. PEOPLE AND PLACES OF THE ORIENT. 739 Members of the consular service representing the big governments of the earth are returning to their fields of labor. Their tales of travel and work in the diplomatic field are very interesting and well worth listening to. A Manila or Java planter, a teak-wood, or pearl merchant from Siam, the swarthy Anglo-Indian from India, the serious Englishman in the Consular service, and last but not least the ever smiling, happy-go-lucky drummer with both eyes wide open awaiting an opportunity to scoop an order. We are also honored with the presence of former Queen Liliu- okulani of Hawaii, who has been in Washington since last November pressing her claim of $250,000 against Uncle Sam, for lands and personal property taken from her at the time the Islands were annexed to the United States. She has been ably represented in Congress, and is now on her way home, where she will await results, which we hope will be satisfactory; for, up to the present time, it looks "might makes like a case of right." Her large state room is a perfect bower of beautiful flowers. She is ac- companied by her maid and her secretary, J. D. Aimoka. The first two days at sea is monotonous for rather Playing Shuffleboard on Boat-deck. some of the amateurs, and when you ask them, "How are you feeling?" that far-away smile ?s means volumes to those who understand;— well, let us forget it merely a tiny phantom of the past. The second night out there was real excitement. An inci- be remembered for some time. Just after dent occurred that will whistle gave three tremendous blasts, the midnight the ship's whirl, and the boat was brought almost to a machinery ceased to Thoughts of a collision were foremost in the minds of stand-still. tumbled out of their the now bewildered passengers, as they Would like to have taken a picture of beds, and into the aisles. variegated costumes, but was scared like some of them in their the rest of the good people. One nervous old lady shrieked in my ear,"I know we are going to the bottom!" On the top deck the passengers clambered, and there we saw a beautiful sight. The bright stars above, the dark sea beneath, while a short distance away was another liner, her electric lights flashing from bow to stern, and numerous signals that we could not understand, were constantly shot skyward. It was the S. S. Manchuria, 27,000 tons, bound for San Francisco. A few minutes later a life boat was lowered and manned by six Chinese and an American officer. They were soon alongside of the Siberia, and two stowaways who had crept aboard at Honolulu were transferred to our ship, put in irons and taken below to be sent back to Honolulu. The time wasted was forty minutes, besides the danger of launching the boat in the night. For information I asked one of the officers if that were not an expensive bit of work. His answer was, "As near as I can figure, the cost will be about $210, stopping and start- the two boats, loss of time, etc." "Would it not have been better to have put them to work and let them earn their passage?" He answered, "No; for Swimming Pool on S. S. the reason it would encourage others to Siberia stow themselves away, and it is a writ- ten law with our company that where it is possible to make the transfer, to do so, and turn them over to the proper authorities." The passengers went back to their beds to dream of stowaways, ship-wrecks, etc. Next day sea-sickness had worn off with most of the pas- sengers, and, becoming better acquainted, they were in for hav- ing a good time. A notice was tacked up on the bulletin board in the social hall, calling for a meeting in the dining room at 2:30. Two committees were appointed, one on finance, the other on amusements. Before leaving, a collection was taken up, which amounted to $130, and this was formed into different sized purses, and used as prizes for which most of the passengers contested. It was a sort of Olympic game held in mid- ocean, in which ladies PEOPLE AND PLACES OF THE ORIENT. 741 and gentlemen joined. There was considerable rivalry among cer- tain factions; for instance, Germans and English. Among the sports entered into by the ladies were the spoon-and-egg sprints, and the potato-race. In the spoon-and-egg race, a hen's egg is laid on the deck at a certain spot and the girl contestants must run and scoop this up with a spoon, and carry it back to the goal, without letting it fall. The distance is about fifty yards. It requires skill to get the egg into the spoon, and a steady hand to carry it. Next came the potato race. Twelve raw potatoes are laid upon the deck, the Irish apples being about three feet apart. There is a small box at the end of each row. In this game three girls can contest at one time. Each takes a row and attempts to gather her potatoes quicker than the others. The potatoes can only be picked up one at a time, and all must go into the box at the end of the row. The one who finishes first, putting her full dozen into the box, the winner. is The contest was between German, English, and American ladies. Sturdy England won the day, amid much cheering and clapping of hands. Another sport in which both sexes contested was threading the needle. Two ladies stood at one end holding a needle in posi- tion to be threaded. Two boys start from the opposite end on a dead run, thread in hand to perform the expert feat of putting the thread through the eye of a needle in about two seconds, if he expects to be declared the winner; then running back to the coveted goal. Next time the movements were reversed, the ladies doing the running part. There were many exciting contests which created considerable amusement. The next was a cracker-eating contest. Ten small boys stood on ten stools, and the way they stuffed cracuers, covered had been with blackberry jam, was a caution: and if the contest for a cracker famine of long duration the prospects looked bright aboard. As for games for the men, they were many and mostly ridicu- lous. The pillow fight was the most laughable, as well as the most themselves astride interesting. In this contest two men balancing fought each other with pil- a pole with a mattress beneath them, the mattress. There lows until one was knocked off the pole onto were about thirty contestants for this prize. An American with Yankee cleverness won it. Next was the love chase, ring and shuffleboard contests, pitching quoits made of rope, punching the bag,and other games too numerous to mention. Of all the games provided none other seemed so well suited to provide a clean, exciting amusement as the hotly contested and old sea-game of shuffleboard. In this game wooden discs about six inches in diameter and one and one-half inches thick are used. There are four red and four white ones- They are pushed by means of a long stick, widened at the end, and the discs made to slide across the deck, the attempt being made to have them stop at advantageous positions in courts marked off on the deck with certain numbers; or attempts are made to knock your adversary's discs out of good positions which he may have attained. That which makes the game especially in- teresting is to figure correctly on the motion of the boat, which by inclining the deck, changes the course of the sliding discs. With the exception of the second day the sea was compar- atively smooth all the way to Honolulu. Some "globe trotters" may imagine the voyage monotonous, but I beg to differ. What is there more delightful after the sports are over, than to lounge in an easy chair on the top deck and watch nature in her differ- ent moods. You see the restless, deep and dark blue rolling, ocean, and the cloud- checkered sky meeting it along the level hori- zon all around. The modifications which the setting sun makes as this brilliant orb peeps through the rifted clouds lighting up their fringes in gorgeous colors, and throwing a broad level highway of silver and goldenshimmer upon the ocean in front of us, com- bine a picture of elegance and sublimity which only the most beautiful rainbow in all its grand array of colors can equal. Though simple the scene, yet because of its magnificence, one never becomes weary of watching, till finally the sun disappears like a ball of red fire into the blue sea. At daybreak, on the morning of April 2, with the aid of our field glasses, we beheld the faint outlines of land ahead. When the sun rose in unclouded splendor, Koko point stood out in bold relief, all its rugged out- ] ines sharply defined against a tropical sky. We had a full and unobstructed view of the coast as it was slowly revealed like an un-