V.
Hong Kong, China, and the Denizens of the Underworld
A Trip to Canton—“Happy Valley” the “Epsom Downs” of the Far East—Discovery of an American Actress in an Opium Joint—A “Rough House” in which Guns are Drawn—Moonlight Meditations on the Quarter-deck of the Rainbow—Encounter with a Victim of Brain Storm.
I had made numerous trips across the China Sea, and had been up and down the Chinese coast from Taku to Saigon several times, on board the United States Cruiser New York, during the Boxer campaign. On this particular trip, however, I was serving on board the United States Flagship Rainbow, in the capacity of orderly to the junior commander of the Asiatic fleet, the late Rear Admiral Wilde.
This trip had been looked forward to with great pleasure as our ship was scheduled for dry dock and this meant lots of shore leave for the crew.
Leaving Manila we steamed across the China Sea, which required about three days. After the usual quarantine inspections we entered the land-locked harbor and cast anchor near Kowloon, a town on the mainland of China.
Hong Kong is situated on Victoria Island and is a British possession; the island rises to an immense altitude on the slope of which, facing Kowloon, spreads the City of Hong Kong. The entrance to the harbor is well fortified and from a light-house on a cliff a powerful light is cast at night for miles over the China Sea.
Having visited Hong Kong several times, it was my desire this time to pay a visit to the more typical Chinese City of Canton. So, accompanied by the Japanese steward of the Rainbow, I secured passage on the British side-wheeler Moonlight.
The passengers seemed to represent every nation on earth. There were Bombay and Chinese merchants, American and European tourists, East Indian Sikhs, Japanese waiters, and Chinese sailors.
After an all night run on the Pearl River, dawn broke with our eyes fastened on this great Chinese city, Canton. Here years could be spent without learning a great deal about its historical calendar.
Entering through a gate of the old stone wall, we found the only European hotel in the city, the “Victoria,” where, after having had breakfast, we engaged two sedan chairs carried by coolies, and sought the places of interest. The streets are so narrow that two chairs can just barely pass each other. We visited the ancient pagodas, the execution ground and block where highbinders are beheaded, the markets, bazaars, and opium dens, and finally witnessed a Chinese wedding.
One of the interesting sights of the Pearl River is its floating population. It is estimated that three million Chinese live in junks on this river.
I was not at all reluctant to leave this relic of the dark ages for the more up-to-date city of Hong Kong. We know the nations of the earth are represented in our New York, but for real cosmopolitanism the “Queen’s Road” in Hong Kong makes old Broadway look like a street in a country village.
The principal enterprises of Hong Kong are shipping, the manufacture of chinaware, silk goods, sedan wood-work, and pyrotechnics. Labor is very cheap, and, as British imports are entered free of duty, the living in this city of the far East is very cheap.
Many Hong Kong Chinamen are educated in the English language, have adopted the customs and manners of the English people, and for cleverness in business and practical affairs are unexcelled.
A tram-way leads up the mountain-side to the Peak Hotel, from which you can be conveyed in sedan chairs to the zenith of Victoria Peak. At the Peak Hotel I met two American prospectors, with whom I played several games of billiards; these men had spent three years in Sumatra and were awaiting a liner for “Frisco.” With them I visited Happy Valley, the Chinese Court, the Dairy Farm, Douglass Castle, Kennedy Road, the Chinese market, the Royal Naval Canteen, the barracks of the Welsh Fusileers, the Highlanders, the Scots Guards, and the Sikhs, old Chinese joss houses, and the famous Traveller’s Inn, where British bar-maids do the honors.
Horse-racing is the favorite sport in Hong Kong, and the track at Happy Valley is the Epsom Downs of the Far East. A Derby is a signal for the suspension of business, and the excitement in the paddock, grand stand, and along the rail is akin to that at Sheepshead Bay on the day of the Brooklyn handicap.
The Chinese are born gamblers, whether playing at “fan tan” or picking the winners on the track. They will carry complete data of a horse: the distance he can go at his best; the weight he can best carry; whether fast or slow in starting; and whether a good or bad animal in mud; all this a Chinaman will study over before placing his money, and it is usually safe to follow his system.
Hong Kong, like all other cities of the earth, has its underworld. These labyrinthal subways, where flourish the opium dens, are as thickly infested with thugs as are the darkest recesses of Mulberry Bend. Having accompanied a party of Highlanders and Welsh Fusileers into these dimly lighted caverns, for the purpose of seeing opium smoked, we fell upon sights which seemed degrading even to a party of slumming soldiers; here and there in deep recess were cots on which reclined the sleeping forms of seminude victims of the yenhock. Further on, an American girl in a kimono approached me with the query as to what part of the United States I was from. Her flushed face indicated that she was under the influence of “samshu,” a popular native intoxicant. She told me how eager she was to get back to her native land, but how impossible it seemed to raise the price of the transportation. Her home she said was in St. Louis, that she had accompanied a theatrical troupe from San Francisco to Australia, which had stranded and disbanded in Sydney; from Australia she had accompanied a troupe through the Straits Settlements, and finally arrived in Hong Kong, only to fall a victim to the plague, from which she recovered, and finally drifted penniless into the abode of the denizens of the underworld. Her story was a sad one, but you meet the same class and hear similar stories in all cities of the world. As we bade her adieu and passed on through this “chamber of horrors,” we could hear her voice, singing, “Give me just one little smile; every little bit helps.”
There were some ugly-looking heathens in this underground bee-hive, and, before leaving, we played at “fan tan,” having considerable luck, which seemed to irritate an almond-eyed highbinder to such an extent that he broke up the game. This caused a Highlander to hand him a jolt on the eye, and this started a “rough house,” in which I was compelled to declare peace along the barrel of my Colt automatic; it looked like work for a coroner, but Chinese are afraid of a gun, and the resumption of order was momentary.
Having visited every nook and cranny of this quaint city during my ten days’ shore leave, I returned to the arduous duties about the deck of a “man-of-war.”
The Rainbow had changed her position from the anchorage ground in the bay to a dry dock in Kowloon opposite the City of Hong Kong; here she was undergoing a process of renovation.
On board a “man-of-war” the hours for performing duty are divided into three watches, each watch commencing at eight bells. At eight o’clock commences what is known as the first watch, this watch is relieved at twelve o’clock by the mid watch, and this is relieved at four o’clock by the dog watch, the night watches being regulated the same as the day.
In the navy the non-commissioned officers of the guard exercise no authority over the orderlies of the admiral and “skipper,” and there is no posting an orderly, as in the case of a sentry, there being a mutual compact that each relief report promptly on the hour.
At night it is customary for each orderly to waken his own relief. As eight bells struck for the dog watch, I was in the bulkhead leading to the admiral’s cabin, testing my annunciator and receiving any verbal orders which might have been left by the flag-officer or officer of the deck. On this particular night Admiral Wilde, who “by the way” commanded the Boston of Dewey’s fleet at the battle of Manila Bay, accompanied by Commander Staunton of the Rainbow, had left the ship to attend a dinner party on board the British commerce destroyer Terrible.
The old man being away, I spent my watch in leisure, as an admiral’s orderly takes orders from no one but the admiral. After sampling a few of his mild Manila cigars and running off a few letters on the typewriter, I climbed aloft to the quarter-deck, where the capstan and brass tompions of the big aft eight-inch guns shone bright in the moonlight.
What a night this was! Never on such a night could Dewey’s fleet have passed unseen the forts of Corregidor. There, stretching over the mountain-side of Victoria, lay the illuminated City of Hong Kong; the wavelets of the Pearl River, with its myriads of junks and sampans, seemed to dance in the moonlight; off at the entrance, from the tower of a light-house, a powerful revolving search-light cast its rays beyond the horizon of the China Sea. Here and there dotting the harbor were the “dogs of war” of the American, British, German, and French navies; large junks with colored Chinese lanterns at the bow, which trembled in the soft breeze, and an eye on either side, to guide it on its way, passed to and fro, like phantoms of the mist.
All was silent about the deck. The tramp, tramp, tramp of the big East Indian Sikh who patrolled the water front was the only sound to disturb the tranquillity of this dream-like night. As I leaned on the taffrail of the quarter-deck, in deep meditation, I thought of what a prodigious subject this scene would make for the pen of a Byron or a Browning, and that it was on such a night in Venice that Desdemona eloped with her tawny Moorish warrior.
As my eyes feasted on the grandeur of these moonlight scenes, the tongue of the bell tolled seven; it was half past eleven and time to call my relief. With a dark lantern I started for the berth-deck; near the entrance to the conning tower I was approached by an excited sailor, who asked my opinion of the terrible massacre in Hong Kong. I informed the fellow that I had heard nothing of a massacre, whereupon he volunteered to show me a bulletin; leading the way to the pilot-house, he found it locked; gazing through the window, the man exclaimed, “Look there! read that!” The light was on, and, sure enough, there was a scrip attached to the wheel, the writing of which it was impossible to read.
Having aroused my curiosity, I further inquired as to the circumstances leading to the massacre. For several minutes the fellow was non-committal, acting surprised at my ignorance in not even having heard the report of the guns. Impulsively he shouted, “Look there! see that cloud of smoke? The Inniskilling Dragoons have fired on the Royal Artillery, and, as the result of the conflict, ten thousand natives lie strewed in death.” This unusual surprise did not exactly paralyze me, but it was the cue for me to make my exit, which I did with symptoms of the ague, having made an excuse to go below for a pair of binoculars that we might gaze on the scene more clearly.
This was my first experience with a victim of brain storm, and, although I shrink from the admittance of “having cold feet,” I must admit that the atmosphere on this occasion was unduly chilly.
On the main deck I met some coal-passers who had been gambling in the engine-room; apprising these fellows of there being a crazy man on deck, we concurred in the advisability of notifying the master at arms and having him put away for safe keeping. In a short time the fellow was manacled and led to the brig, protesting his innocence of having been a party to the massacre.
Upon examination by the surgeon, the man was removed to the “sick bay,” where it developed that the unfortunate fellow was suffering from acute melancholia. During the investigation to consider the advisability of sending him to a sanitarium in Yokohama, he tried to cough up a ten-inch shell which he claimed to have accidentally swallowed. Having undergone a course of treatment on the Island of Hondo, Japan, the fellow fully recovered, and I have since learned that he regained his normal health and is prospering in the middle West.
Upon completion of our ship in dry dock, we bade adieu to the land of the heathen Chinee and steamed into the China Sea en route to the Sula Archipelago, spending Thanksgiving in the harbor of Puerto Princessa on the Island of Palawan.