Ranching, Sport and Travel Part 10

From Pau a short run took me to Lourdes, with its grotto, chapel, etc.

From Pau to Bordeaux, a handsome, busy town. Then Paris and home.

CHAPTER XII

THIRD TOUR ABROAD

Salt Lake City--Canada--Vancouver--Hawaii--Fiji--Australia--New Zealand--Tasmania--Summer at Home.

The fall of 1908 saw me off on a tour which finally took me round the world. s.p.a.ce will only permit of its itinerary and a few of my impressions and experiences. From Amarillo I trained north to Salt Lake City, pa.s.sing through the wonderful gorge of the Arkansas River and the canon of the Grand; scenery extremely wild and impressive. At Salt Lake found a large, busy, up-to-date city. Visited the tabernacle, and heard the great organ, the largest in the world; and a very fine choir. The acoustics of this immense and peculiarly-shaped building are most perfect. The Temple Gentiles are not allowed to enter. Outside the irrigation limits the country has a most desolate, desert, hopeless aspect. What nerve the Mormons had to penetrate to such a spot.[3]

[Footnote 3: _See_ Appendix.]

It may be noted here that one Sidney Rigdon was the compiling genius of Mormonism; and it was he who concocted the Mormon Bible, not Joe Smith.

And what a concoction! No greater fraud was ever perpetrated.

Hence by b.u.t.te, Montana, the great copper-mining city, to Great Falls, where we crossed the Missouri River, there 4000 miles from the sea, yet twice as large as the Thames at Windsor. On entering Canadian territory a remarkable change in the character of the people, the towns and the Press was at once noticeable. From Calgary by the C.P.R. the trip through the Selkirk range to Vancouver was one of continuous wonder and delight--n.o.ble peaks, dense pine forests, rushing rivers and peaceful lakes. Arrived at Vancouver city, a city of illimitable ambition and bright prospects. I there met in the lobby of the hotel two very old friends whom I had not seen for many years. They dined with me, or rather wined and dined, and we afterwards spent a probably uproarious evening. I say probably, because the end was never evident to me till I woke up in my bed, whither someone had carried me, with my stockinged foot burning in a candle; another such illuminant had been lighted and placed at my head. My waking (and I was "waked" in two senses) endangered, and at the same time prevented, the probable burning down of the building. Next morning I was taken suddenly ill, but not due to the evening's carousal, so went across the bay to Victoria and hunted up a doctor, who immediately ordered me into hospital (the Victoria Jubilee) and operated on me the very same day. The operation was the most painful that I have ever undergone but was entirely successful, though it detained me in the hospital for over a month.

From Victoria I trained to San Francisco, pa.s.sing through lovely Washington and Oregon States, and Northern California; and from San Francisco took steamer to Honolulu. San Francisco was rising from its ashes, but still presented a terrible aspect, and gave a good idea of how appalling the catastrophe must have been. At Honolulu I spent a most enjoyable two weeks, golfing a little, surf riding, etc. The climate is ideal, hotels are good, parts of the islands lovely. They are all volcanic, and indeed some are nothing but an agglomeration of defunct craters.

On one of the islands, Maui, is the largest crater on earth (unless perhaps a certain one in j.a.pan), its dimensions being 2000 feet in depth, eight miles wide, and situated on the top of a mountain, Haleakala, 10,000 feet high. Its surface, seen from the rock-rim, exactly resembles that of the moon. I of course also visited the largest island of the group--Hawaii--pa.s.sing _en route_ Molokai, the leper settlement. Hawaii has two very high volcanic mountains, Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa, some 13,000 feet. The land is very prolific, the soil consisting of pulverized lava and volcanic dust, whose extreme fertility is due to a triple proportion of phosphates and nitrogen. On the slope of Mauna Loa is the crater of Kilauea, and in its centre the "pit," called Haleamaumau, the most awe-inspiring and in other ways the most remarkable volcano in the world. Landing at Hilo, by train and stage we went to see it. My visit was made at night when the illumination is greatest. Traversing the huge crater, four miles in diameter, the surface devoid of all vegetation, seamed and cracked, and in places steam issuing from great fissures, we suddenly arrived at the brink of the famous pit, and what an astonishing sight met our gaze! The sheer walls of the circular pit were some 200 feet deep: the diameter of the pit one quarter of a mile: the contents a ma.s.s of (not boiling, for what could the temperature be!) restless, seething, molten, red-hot lava, rising from the centre and spreading to the sides, where its waves broke against the walls like ocean billows, being a most brilliant red in colour! Flames and yet not flames. Now and then geysers of fire would burst through the surface, shoot into the air and fall back again. The sight was to some people too awful for prolonged contemplation, myself feeling relieved as from a threat when returning to the hotel, but still with a desire to go back and again gaze into that awful maelstrom. The surface of the pit is not stationary, at one time being, as then, sunk 200 feet; another time flush with the brim and threatening destruction; and again almost disappearing out of sight. At any time and in whatever condition it is an appalling spectacle and one never to be forgotten.

Sugar and pineapples are the main products of the islands; but one should not miss visiting the aquarium at Honolulu to see the collection of beautiful and even comical-looking native fishes; some of extravagant colouring, brilliant as humming-birds, gay as b.u.t.terflies; of shapes unsuspected, and in some cases indescribable, having neither length nor breadth, depth nor thickness; hard to distinguish head from tail, upside from underside; speed being apparently the least desirable of characteristics. Do they depend for protection and safety on their grotesque appearance? or do their gaudy robes disarm and enchant their ferocious and cannibalistic brethren?

One of the funniest sights I ever saw was a base-ball game played here between Chinese and j.a.panese youngsters. What a commanding position these islands occupy in ocean navigation, as a coaling or naval station, or as a distributing point. America was quick to realize this; and now splendid harbours and docks are being constructed, and the place strongly fortified so as to rival Gibraltar.

In January 1909 I joined the new and delightful New Zealand Steamship Company's steamer _Makura_ bound for Sydney. On board was, amongst a very agreeable company, a gentleman bound for New Zealand on a fishing-trip, who told me such marvellous tales of his fishing prowess in Scotland that I put him down for one of the biggest liars on earth.

More of him afterwards. Also on board was a young English peer, Earl S----, a very agreeable man, whose company I continued to enjoy for the greater part of this tour. We had a delightful pa.s.sage, marred for me, however, by a severe attack of neuritis, which continued for three solid months, the best doctors in Sydney and Melbourne failing to give relief.

Our ship first called at Fanning Island, a cable station (delivering four months' mail), a mere coral atoll with its central lagoon, fringe of cocoanut trees and reef. The heavy swell breaking on the reef, and the wonderful blue of the water, the peaceful lagoon, the bright, clear sky, and the cocoanut trees, formed a picture never to be forgotten. A picture typical of all the many thousands of such Pacific islets. After pa.s.sing the Union and Wallace groups we crossed the 180 meridian, and so lost a day, Sunday being no Sunday but Monday. Then arrived at Suva, Fiji Islands. The rainy season having just begun it was very hot and disagreeable. The Fijians are Papuans, but tall and not bad-looking.

Maoris, Hawaiians and Samoans are Polynesians, a much handsomer race.

The Fijians were remarkable for their quick conversion to devout Christianity. So late as 1870 cannibalism was general. Prisoners were deliberately fattened to kill. The dead were even dug up when in such a condition that only puddings could be made of them. Limbs were cut off living victims and cooked in their presence; and even more horrible acts were committed. The islands are volcanic, mountainous, and covered by forests.

Our visit was about the time of the Balolo worm season. The Balolo worm appears on the coast punctually twice a year, once in October (the Little Balolo) and once about the 20th November (the Great Balolo). They rise to the sea surface in writhing ma.s.ses, only stay twelve hours and are gone. The natives make a great feast of them. The worm measures 2 ins. to 2 ft. long, is thin as vermicelli and has many legs. Never is a single worm seen at any other time.

Leaving Fiji, we pa.s.sed the Isle of Pines, called at Brisbane, and arrived at Sydney on the 25th November. Of the beauties and advantages of Sydney Harbour we have all heard, and I can only endorse the glowing descriptions of other writers. Hotels in Australia and New Zealand are very poor, barring perhaps one in Sydney and a small one in Melbourne. A great cricket match was "on"--Victoria versus New South Wales--so I must needs go to see, not so much the game itself as the very famous club ground, said to be the finest in the world. In the Botanical Gardens, near a certain tree, the familiar, and I thought the unmistakable, odour of a skunk was most perceptible. Hailing a gardener and drawing his attention to it, he replied that the smell came from the tree ("malotus"

he called it), but the crushed leaves, the bark and the blossom certainly gave no sign of it and I remained mystified. Fruit of many kinds is cheap, abundant and good. Sydney is not a prohibition town! Far from it. Drink conditions are as bad as in Scotland. Many of the people, especially from the country, have a pure c.o.c.kney accent and drop their h's freely; indeed I met boys and girls born in the colony, and never out of it, whose c.o.c.kney p.r.o.nunciation was quite comical. It struck me that Australians and New Zealanders are certainly not noted for strenuousness.

Of course the tourist must see the Blue Mountains, and my trip there was enjoyable enough, I being greatly impressed with the Leura and other waterfalls (not as falls) and the wonderful and beautiful caves of Janolan. Wild wallabies were plentiful round about, and the "laughing jacka.s.s" first made himself known to me.

February 2nd.--S---- and myself took pa.s.sage to New Zealand, the fish-story man being again a fellow-traveller. During the crossing numerous albatrosses were seen. In New Zealand we visited all the great towns, Wellington, Auckland, Christchurch, Dunedin and others, all of them pleasant, agreeable places, Christchurch being especially attractive. What a grand, healthy, well-fed and physically fit-looking people the New Zealanders are. Scotch blood predominates, and really there is a great similarity between the two peoples. At Rotorua we met the Premier and other celebrities, S---- being very interested in Colonial politics. Rotorua is a very charming place; I did some fishing in the lake, where trout were so numerous that it was not much sport catching them. Illness unfortunately prevented my going further afield and fishing for larger trout in the rivers. A Colonel M---- and sister who were in New Zealand at that time claimed to have beaten the record, their catch averaging over 20 lbs. per fish (rainbows), as they told me on again meeting them in the Hebrides. We did the w.a.n.ganui River of course; and the geysers at Whakarewarewa, under the charge of Maggie, the Maori guide.

As you no doubt are aware, the Maori fashion of salutation is to rub noses together. As long as they are pretty noses there cannot be much objection; but some of the Maori girls are themselves so pretty that mere rubbing is apt to degenerate and one's nose is liable to slip out of place. Maggie, the Maori guide, a very pretty woman and now at Shepherd's Bush, can tell all about it and even give a demonstration.

Here in Whakarewarewa one is impressed with the fact that this little settlement is built on what is a mere shallow crust, under which, at the depth of only a few feet, is a vast region of boiling mud and water.

Everywhere around are bubbling and spluttering mud-wells, some in the form of miniature geysers; steam is issuing everywhere from clefts and crannies in the ground; and one almost expects a general upheaval or sinking of the whole surface. The princ.i.p.al geyser was not and had not been for some weeks in action. It can be forced into action, however, by the singular method of dropping a bar of soap down the orifice, when a tremendous rush of steam and water is vomited out with terrific force.

Sir Joseph Ward, the Premier, is the only person authorized to permit this operation: but though he was at our hotel, and we were personally intimate with him, he declined to favour us with the permission, it being explained that the too-frequent dosing of the geyser had seemed to have a relaxing effect on the activity.

At Dunedin S---- left me to visit Milford Sound. Too unwell to accompany him, I continued on to the Bluff and then took steamer to Hobart, Tasmania. New Zealand has a great whale-fishery and it was my hope to see something of it by a short trip on one of the ships employed; but the opportunity did not present itself.

May I here offer a few notes picked up on the subject of whales, etc.

The sperm or cachalot whale is a dangerous and bold fighter and is perhaps the most interesting of all cetaceans. His skin, like that of the porpoise, is as thin as gold-beaters' leaf. Underneath it is a coating of fine hair or fur, not attached to the skin, and then the blubber. He has enormous teeth or tushes in the lower jaw, but has no baleen. He devours very large fish, even sharks, but his princ.i.p.al food seems to be cuttle-fish and squids, some of them of as great bulk as himself. These cuttle-fish's tentacle discs are as big as soup-plates, and surrounded by hooks as large and sharp as tiger claws; while their mouths are armed with a parrot-like beak capable of rending anything held to them by the tentacles. These disc hooks are often found in ambergris, an excretion of the sperm whale. The sperm whale spouts diagonally, other whales upwards. So-called porpoise leather is made of the skin of the white whale. The porpoise is the true dolphin, the sailor's dolphin being a fish with vertical tail, scales and gills.

Bonitoes are a species of mackerel, but warm-blooded and having beef-like flesh.

Near Hobart I saw the famous fruit and hop lands on the Derwent River.

It was midsummer here and extremely hot, hotter than in Melbourne or anywhere else on this trip. From Hobart I railed to Launceston and thence steamer to Melbourne.

Melbourne is a very handsome city as we all know. It was my hope to continue on with S---- north by the Barrier Reef, or rather between the reef and the mainland, and so on to China, j.a.pan, Corea, and home by Siberia; but my doctor advised me not to attempt it, so I booked pa.s.sage for Colombo instead, and S---- and myself necessarily parted. But it was with much regret that I missed this wonderful coasting trip, long looked forward to and now probably never to be accomplished. On my way home I visited beautiful Adelaide, and the younger city, Perth, which reminded me much of the West American mining towns. Colombo needs no call for notice. At Messina we saw the ruined city, the devastation seeming to have been very terrible; but it presented no such awful spectacle of absolutely overwhelming destruction as did San Francisco. Etna was smoking; Stromboli also. Then Ma.r.s.eilles, Paris, and home.

During that summer at home I was fortunate enough to see the polo test matches between Hurlingham and Meadowbrook teams, otherwise England versus America. It was a disheartening spectacle. The English could neither drive a ball with accuracy nor distance; they "dwelt" at the most critical time, were slow in getting off, overran the ball, and in fact were beaten with ease, as they deserved to be.

An even more interesting experience was a visit to the aviation meeting at Rheims, the first ever held in the world, and a most successful one.

Yet the British Empire was hardly represented even by visitors. Such great filers as Curtis, Lefevre, Latham, Paulhan, Bleriot and Farman were all present.

In the autumn I had a week's salmon-fishing at Garynahine in the Lews.

The weather was not favourable and the sport poor considering the place.

Close by is the Grimersta river and lodge, perhaps the finest rod salmon fishery in Scotland. A young East Indian whom I happened to know had a rod there, and was then at the lodge. On asking him about fishing, etc., he told me, and showed me by the lodge books, that the record for this river was fifty-four salmon in one day to one rod, all caught by the fly! The fortunate fisherman's name? Mr Naylor! the very man I had travelled with to New Zealand! I have vainly tried for three seasons now to get a rod on this river, if only for a week, and at 30 a week that would be long enough for me. I also this autumn had a rod on the Dee, but only fished twice; no fish and no water. During this summer I golfed very determinedly, buoyed up by the vain hope of becoming a first-cla.s.s player--a "scratch" man. Alas! alas! but it is all vanity anyway! What does the angler care for catching a large basket of trout if there be no one by to show them to? And what does the golfer care about his game if he have not an opponent or a crowd to witness his prowess? At Muirfield I enjoyed the amateur championship--R. Maxwell's year.

CHAPTER XIII

FOURTH TOUR ABROAD

Yucatan--Honduras--Costa Rica--Panama--Equador--Peru--Chile--Argentina--Brazil--Teneriffe.

October 1909 saw me on board the steamer _Lusitania_, bound for New York and another long trip somewhere. What a leviathan! What luxury! Think of the Spanish dons who crossed the same ocean in mere cobble boats of fifty tons, and our equally intrepid discoverers and explorers. What methods did they adopt to counteract the discomfort of _mal de mer_?

Which reminds me that on this same _Lusitania_ was the Viscomte D----, Portuguese Amba.s.sador or Minister to the United States of America, who confidentially told me that he at one time was the worst of sailors, but since adopting a certain belt which supports the diaphragm the idea of sea-sickness never even suggests itself to him. For the public benefit it may be said that this belt is manufactured by the Anti Mal de Mer Belt Co., National Drug and Chemical Co., St Gabriel Street, Montreal, Canada. Bad sailors take note! On this steamer were also, as honoured guests, Jim Jeffries, the redoubtable, going to his doom; "Tay Pay"

O'Connor; and Kessler, the "freak" Savoy Hotel dinner-giver; also, by the way, a certain London Jew financier, who gave me a commission to go to and report on the Quito railroad.

When travelling west from New York in the fall one is filled with admiration for the wonderful colour of the maple and other trees. Europe has nothing at all comparable. This wonderful display is alone worth crossing the Atlantic to see.

I found that the past summer had been a record hot one for Texas. The thermometer went to 115 in the shade. Eggs were cooked (fried, it is to be supposed) on the side-walk, and popcorn popped in the stalks. In November I sailed from New Orleans for Yucatan to visit at Merida a Mexican friend, who turned out to be the King of Yucatan, as he was popularly called, he being an immense landed proprietor and practically monopolist of the henequin industry. Henequin, or Sisal hemp, is the fibre of _Agave Sisalensis_, a plant very like the _Agave Americana_, from which pulque is extracted. Thence round the corner, so to speak, to British Honduras, where we called in at Belize, whose trade is in mahogany and chicklee gum, combined with a deal of quiet smuggling done with the Central American States. Quite near Belize, among the innumerable islands and reefs, was the stronghold of the celebrated pirate Wallace (Scotchman). Many man-o'-war birds and pelicans were in the harbour. From Belize to Porto Barrios, the eastern terminus of the Guatemala railway. Here we are close to the scene of that wonderful and mysterious Central American prehistoric civilization, which has left for our antiquarians and learned men a life-work to decipher the still dumb symbols carved on its stupendous ruins. In Guatemala, and near this railway, are Copan and Quirigua, and probably other still undiscovered dead cities. Some of these Guatemala structures show a quite extraordinary resemblance to those at Angkor in Cambodia. Mitla and Palenque are in Mexico and are equally remarkable. The latter is still difficult to get to. Here again (Palenque) the temple shows a strange similarity to that at Boro Budoer in Java. Was it Stamford Raffles who said that, as far as the expenditure of human labour and skill goes, the pyramids of Egypt sink into insignificance when compared with this sculptured temple of Boro Budoer. Chichen-Itza, Labna, Sayil and Uxmal are all in Yucatan and approached from Merida. How many more of such very wonderful ruins are still hidden in the dense jungle of these countries it will be many years yet before we may know. Some I have seen myself, and it is still my hope very soon to visit others.

Among the wild animals of Yucatan and Honduras are the jaguar (_Felis onca_) with spots, ocellated or eyed; and the panther (_Felis concolor_) called puma in Arizona; the vaca de aqua or manatee, shaped like a small whale but with two paddles; the howling monkey, largest in America, and the spider monkey; the iguana, largest land lizard known to history, and alligators. Alligators are confined to the Western Hemisphere; crocodiles were supposed to be peculiar to the East, but lately a true crocodile (_Crocodilus America.n.u.s_) has been identified in Florida. The alligator covers its eggs with a heap of rubbish for warmth and so leaves them; the African crocodile, on the contrary, buries them in the sand and then sits over them. The cardinal bird and the ocellated turkey must not be forgotten. Here may be found the leaf-cutting ants, which store the leaf particles in order to grow a fungus on, and which they are very particular shall be neither too damp nor too dry. Also another ant, the _Polyergus Rufescens_, a pure slave-hunter, absolutely dependent on its slaves for all the comforts of life and being even fed by them.

In Honduras there are many Caribs, still a strong race of Indians, having a strict and severe criminal law of their own. They are employed mostly as mahogany cutters, and are energetic, intelligent and thoroughly reliable workmen. Puerto Cortez in Honduras has the finest harbour on the whole Atlantic coast of Central America.

Note.--St Thomas is supposed to have visited and civilized the Central American Indians, as Quetzalcohuatl did in Mexico.

On leaving New Orleans it had been my intention to enter Nicaragua and report to a certain New Orleans newspaper on the conditions in that most distressful country; said paper having commissioned me to do so.

Entrance to the State could only be made from Guatemala, but that country's consul in New Orleans refused to issue the necessary pa.s.sport.

Had I gone as an Englishman, and not as an American, there might have been no difficulty. As said before, Central American States have a dread and suspicion of Yankees. This was at the time that two Yankee revolutionists had been shot by the President of Nicaragua.

The next place of call was Limon, the port of Costa Rica. Every foot of land on these coasts, suitable for the growth of bananas, has been bought up by the great American Fruit Co., a company of enormous resources and great enterprise. Limon is a delightful little town from whence the railway runs to San Jose, the capital, which stands some 4000 feet above sea-level. Costa Rica is a peace-loving little state, prosperous, and enjoying a delightful climate. Much coffee and cocoa is grown, shaded by the Bois immortel or madre de Cacao. The live-stock industry is also a large one, and the animals seen on the high gra.s.sy plains are well grown and apparently well bred enough. I visited Cartago, a city which soon afterwards was destroyed by an earthquake.