Seven Legs Across the Seas Part 5

[Ill.u.s.tration: JIM FISH WAS THE SWIFTEST PULLER THAT EVER WORE A BRACE OF HORNS.

DURBAN, SOUTH AFRICA.]

"Jim Fish!" "Jim Fish!" they will call to a pa.s.serby, at the same time ringing the small bell on the shafts, while advancing and acting in a manner that suggests the person being approached had forgotten to call a puller. Jim Fish was the swiftest puller that ever wore a brace of horns. In a three mile race with a trolley car Jim came out ahead, but, like Pheidippides, the Greek of the dusty past, after whose run the Marathon has been named, he fell dead when he had crossed the finish line. By calling out "Jim Fish" the Zulus imagine the name suggests a fast ride.

The puller appears at his best when traveling down grade. Just at the head of the decline he jerks the shafts upward--this movement bringing his back close to the dashboard--when his arms rest akimbo on the thills. He maintains his full height during this change of position, which is in accordance with professional ricksha pullers' custom. The sulky naturally tilting backward--also the occupants--his body is nearer the axle of his vehicle than when traveling over a level or inclined surface. Aided by the weight of his pa.s.sengers, the ricksha is then almost evenly balanced. Riding on the shafts, he throws to one side, like a jumping-jack, the big leg bearing the painted design of the sky or openwork, and his unpainted leg to the other. He also moves his body from side to side and a.s.sumes a labored expression, although resting while being borne on the shafts. His body movement and stern appearance are affected, and are, as he believes, in keeping with that of a racehorse when coming down the home stretch, which he is imitating. His horns and their adornment, together with the colored gra.s.s streamers, feathers, monkey tails, checkerboard designed jacket, calabashes, braid, flowers--all his trappings are then set full to the wind, as the Zulu seems to actually fly through s.p.a.ce.

In stormy weather, which means good business for the puller, the hood is raised, and a piece of canvas that covers the front of the ricksha is b.u.t.toned to the sides, which protects the occupant from rain both from above and in front. Off the Zulu goes, after he has tucked the rug under his pa.s.senger's feet and has seen to it that the canvas shelters his fare. The rain may be coming down in torrents, and the water half knee deep in the streets, with the handicap of the raised hood and front canvas against him; but patter, patter, patter he will continue, watching for depressions, in order to sidestep them so that his pa.s.senger will not be jolted, until he has reached the place at which his fare wishes to alight. He will take one home in any sort of weather, as his strong legs and body rarely fail him.

The puller will often have nothing on but the jacket, short, split-leg pants and trappings. He does not go to his living quarters--the ricksha stable--and get dry clothes, as one might expect him to do, but trundles his sulky about in the rain looking for another fare. He pulls a ricksha from two to three years, when consumption generally claims him as a victim.

Twelve hundred of these stalwart natives were formerly engaged in this kind of work, but now there are less than a thousand. The extension of street car lines from time to time accounts for the decrease.

The rickshas are owned by a company, and 60 cents a day is paid by the puller for its use. All he makes over 60 cents is his own. It is said he often earns from $2 to $3 a day, but there are also days when his fares do not exceed the rent charge. Most of the pullers work but four days a week.

A "curfew" bell rings at 9 o'clock each evening, and the only native seen about the streets who is immune from arrest after that hour is the ricksha puller. After "curfew" a native carries a pa.s.s or a note from his employer, either of which will save him from being taken to a police station. It is very amusing at times to watch a Zulu policeman question a native as to why he is out late. His only protection is the note or his pa.s.s, which the policeman makes pretense at reading, though he does not know A from B.

This dusky guardian of the peace is next in interest to the ricksha puller. His uniform is a jacket, dark blue in color, that reaches just below the waist band. His pants are of the same material, reaching to and covering the kneecap, where it is b.u.t.toned tight. His legs from his knees down are bare and shine like polished ebony, for they are oiled every day. He wears a stingy head piece called a forage cap, generally made of blue cloth, which covers about one-third of the head--the side--from the arch of the ear to within two inches of the crown. This is held in place by a string looping under his chin or resting between the chin and lower lip. Some caps have a red stripe across the top, and all have a dent or crease. His weapon is a k.n.o.bkerry, a stick an inch round, with a k.n.o.b on it as large as a croquet ball. A pair of handcuffs is also included among this Zulu officer's equipment.

The European policeman of Durban, as many European women of that city, have an easy job. The native police do any "rough" work required to subdue black offenders, as Europeans, to whom the white policeman would give his attention, are as a rule law abiding. The native carries his superior's raincoat, overcoat, or any burden that the white officer might need while on duty. A black policeman is not permitted to arrest a European, no matter how serious the offense against the law might be. The worst offenders are Indians; but big thefts, safe-blowing, house breaking, hold-ups, sand-bagging, etc., are few, which indicates the respect people have for the law in this British stronghold. White policemen receive $75 a month, and natives $15 a month and board. The working time is eight hours a day, with three shifts.

A large building without an entrance door would appear as something unusual in Northern cities; and yet one can find such an oddity in the far Southland. The one in question is built of brick, three stories in height, and contains a hundred furnished rooms. The entrance is a high archway, and just inside is an elevator and stairway. It is an English custom to leave one's shoes outside his room door on going to bed, so that "boots" can polish them in the morning. In front of each room, on each side of the aisles, in this hostelry could often be seen from one to four pairs of shoes, yet every pair would be found in the morning where they had been placed the night before, although no porter guards the entrance of the building nor a night watchman the interior.

Meat is about the same price in South Africa as in America. Beef, mutton, chicken and pork cannot be had for less than 15 to 25 cents a pound. Irish potatoes are expensive, as most of this standby is imported. Eggs sell at 35 to 60 cents a dozen. Apples are imported from Australia and Canada.

Pineapples, oranges and bananas are found on the table of nearly every household the year round. Then there are, among other varieties of seasonable fruit, the mango, guava, grenadilla and avacada pear.

The pineapple, when picked ripe, is as soft as our pear. These native fruits sell at a reasonable figure. A hundred bananas can often be bought for six cents.

Hotel expenses are reasonable, $2 a day insuring good accommodation.

In boarding houses, good board and lodging can be had at from $30 to $35 a month. Splendid furnished rooms can be rented at from $10 to $15 a month. Meals in popular priced restaurants cost 30 and 35 cents.

The sun rises from the Indian Ocean here and travels during the day on an almost straight course, shining on the south side of the street, the north side being partly shaded. For this reason the princ.i.p.al business street of Durban is roofed on the south side, as it is exposed to the sun from morning until sunset. The cold and warm winds also come from a different direction than those above the equator--the warm winds from the north and the cold winds from the south. Even the sun seems to rise in the west and set in the east.

Wages paid mechanics range from $3 to $4 a day of eight hours' work.

Such employment as teamster, hod carrier, street laborer, 'longsh.o.r.eman, and park worker is all done by Indians and natives. The native is paid from 25 to 50 cents a day, the latter figure being considered good wages, while the Indian works for 10 to 15 cents a day. Hotel work, waiting on tables, kitchen work, and even cooking, with a few exceptions, is done by blacks, chiefly Indians.

A white man "on his uppers" in Durban, or in any black center, for that part, is to be pitied. If he be a mechanic, his chances for work are none too good, and if he be an unskilled worker there is no chance for him at all, as blacks do all the work of that sort. The United States and Canada are the only countries--possibly Mexico, too--in which one can travel on railroad trains without paying fare or being put into a penitentiary. Walking on a railway track in Europe is a prison offense. So, taking that as one's cue, a man caught stealing a ride on a train might be tried for treason. As Durban is 7,000 miles from England, 4,500 miles from the Argentine, 6,000 miles from Australia and 5,000 from India, a fellow "broke" in the coast cities of South Africa is in a sorrowful plight. The cheapest steamship pa.s.sage from South African ports to England is $80 to $100.

Labor unions exist in South Africa, and the members take an active part in politics. Not long since a spirited campaign was on for a seat in the Senate. One of the foremost business men of that country was a candidate for the office, and a union labor man, a locomotive engineer by trade, was the opposing candidate. The lines were tightly drawn between capital and labor in that senatorial contest. The "one-man-one-vote" clause has yet to be drafted into the const.i.tution of the Union of South Africa. Only a citizen paying a certain amount of tax during the year is allowed to vote. On the other hand, a man holding much property, and this scattered about the country, can, as in England, vote in as many districts as his property is located. A wealthy man may cast half a dozen votes at an election, while the workingman taxpayer will not, as a rule, have more than one vote. The capitalist candidate for the Senate in this election had four votes to cast, while the railroad man had but one. A widely known man from the Transvaal was imported to Natal to do "heavy work" for the wealthy candidate, and prominent labor men from the Transvaal and the Cape of Good Hope Provinces were saying and doing all they could to make votes for their candidate.

"We must all hang together, or a.s.suredly we shall all hang separately," a labor campaigner was heard to say at one gathering, quoting Benjamin Franklin's cynical epigram. "Of the people, by the people, and for the people," Abraham Lincoln's immortal words, were also used during the campaign. But the speakers of both parties were tyros compared to the American brand of spellbinder. Election day came, and he who had plural votes cast them, and he who had one vote cast it. The result of an election is made known by a judge announcing the figures from the balcony of the Town Hall. "Hear, ye! Hear ye!" a voice was heard to command, the judge addressing the people a.s.sembled. The engineer had 36 more votes than his wealthy compet.i.tor, and was the third labor legislator elected to the South African Upper House.

Every mechanic has his "boy"--the bricklayer, carpenter, plumber, electrician, painter--to wait on him. One might be located in the black belt for years and not see a mechanic carry even a pair of overalls. A mechanic may be seen any time, when working, asking his "boy" to hand a tool that would not be two inches beyond his natural reach. A bricklayer becomes so painfully helpless that he will neither stoop nor reach for a brick; that is what his "boy" is for. The carpenter must saw boards, because the native cannot saw straight, but in every other respect he is just as helpless as the bricklayer.

Clerks even have a "boy" to hand a pen or any other thing they might need in connection with their work. The only tradesman observed who did his work without the aid of a "boy" was the printer and linotype operator. And what applies to printers may be said of editors and others engaged in the printing trade. They really work in the old-fashioned way. Were one to take a spade in hand to prepare the garden for vegetables, merely that act of manual labor would be very apt to prove a bar to a further continuance of the respect of his European neighbors, and a.s.suredly so by the natives and Indians.

The white man is always at his minimum energy where the black man is depended on to do the work. We need not go farther than our Southern States to learn that lesson.

Vasco da Gama, a Portuguese explorer, discovered the Province of Natal five years after Columbus set foot on the North American Continent. Da Gama's first visit to Natal was on Christmas Day in the year 1497. As Christmas Day is the natal day of the Savior, and as the word natal in the Spanish and Portuguese languages is used as is the word birth in the English language, this will explain the origin of the naming of Natal.

For more than three hundred years that section of South Africa remained as Da Gama found it before white men made a settlement among the Zulus. In 1824 a few Englishmen built temporary dwelling places on the sh.o.r.es of the Indian Ocean, more Englishmen joining them from time to time, until Durban has become one of the leading seaport cities of the African continent. The coast section of the Province of Natal is the only part of South Africa in which the Dutch were not the pioneers.

A great many humpback whales inhabit the Indian Ocean in the stretch of sea, nearly a thousand miles long, separating Durban from Capetown.

Of late years whales have been hunted on a large scale, and each season finds a new whaling company in the field to share in the profits of this lucrative industry. Eight or ten factories, or stations, most of these located a few miles from Durban, are now engaged in utilizing the by-products of the whale.

Harpooning whales, or whaling--to use the general term--is engaged in at places separated by thousands of nautical miles, and, like other water industries, has its season. Whales, like wild fowl, migrate at certain seasons to some particular part of the great water expanse, and return again the succeeding year. By nature, this cetacean prefers a cold climate to a warm one. The season for their migration is at a different period to that of the wild fowl, for the "spouter" leaves the zone of the hot sun and swims great distances until he reaches cooler water. Sometimes it is from the North Atlantic to the South Atlantic or Indian Oceans, and at others from the Indian Ocean southeasterly to the South Pacific Ocean, the water of which is cooled by the icebergs of the South Pole section. Whales leaving the North Atlantic in early summer for the South Atlantic Ocean know it is cooler south of the equator than north of it.

Americans and Norwegians engaged early in the whaling business in the North Atlantic Ocean, and up to a few years ago American whaling ships made frequent visits to the South Atlantic and Indian Oceans in quest of the oil-producing leviathan. But it is to the Norwegian that credit must be given for building up the whaling industry in the Indian Ocean, thereby putting in circulation a large sum of money each season that, until recent years, had been overlooked.

From 600 to 800 of these monsters of the deep are harpooned and rendered into oil in the Durban factories in a season--from June to November, inclusive--the cool season in that part of the world. Thirty tons is the average weight of whales killed in the Indian Ocean. Those on exhibition in museums give one some idea of the size of a whale, yet the cured specimen is a poor subst.i.tute for one which had been "spouting" an hour before.

Whaling boats are little larger than a big tug-boat. The whaler is equipped with one mast, and twenty feet above the deck a long barrel is secured to this, in which one of the crew is stationed when hunting the great monster of the sea. The barrel is called the "crow's nest,"

and from here the "lookout" scans the ocean in every direction for the "spouting" mammoth. On the bow of the boat a cannon is secured, out of which a harpoon is shot into the whale. The harpoon looks like a small boat anchor. The length of the harpoon bar is four feet, and at one end are four hooks ten inches long. The hooks are attached to the bar by a spring, and, before being used, are bent down to the bar, and kept in this position by strong cord. Over the end of the bar fits a spear-pointed cap a foot long, and in this cap has been placed a dynamite bomb. Whales are shot within thirty yards of the boat--sometimes twenty feet. The cannon can be adjusted to any angle.

When the spear-pointed cap enters the whale, the bomb explodes, snapping in two the cord with which the four hooks were tied to the bar, when the hooks spring outward--like an open umbrella--inside the whale.

The vital spot aimed at is the lungs. If the aim proves true, the large mammal falls a victim to the ugly weapon, and dies instantly. If the harpoon goes wide, the whale heads for the bottom. A long, strong rope is secured to one end of the harpoon bar, and the whale is given liberal lat.i.tude for his deluded effort to escape. Soon the rope slackens, when the whaler knows the "spouter" is coming to the surface to breathe. In the meantime, another harpoon has been placed in the cannon, and when the whale appears this one is shot into the crippled monster, putting an end to his fight for life. It sometimes occurs, however, that the whale breaks the rope fastened to the eye of the harpoon, when he escapes, carrying the treacherous weapon in his ponderous frame.

When dead, the great "catch" is drawn to the side of the boat by the rope secured to the harpoon. His tail flippers, which are from 10 to 12 feet long, are cut off, to allow of convenient handling of the c.u.mbersome carca.s.s. A chain is then put around his delimbed tail, the winches revolve, and, when his tail has been drawn up close to the bow of the boat, a start is made for the wharf, leaving behind a wake of red sea, discolored by the blood running out of his mouth and from the rent in his body where the harpoon entered.

At the wharf, the boat chain is loosened and the harpoon rope cut. A chain from the sh.o.r.e is next wound round his tail, a signal given the engineer to start the machinery, and the great cetacean is slowly drawn up a slipway out of the water. When drawn to the head of the slipway, the body continues moving on to a wide flat car, the railway track on which the car rests being sunk to a depth level with the top of the slipway. One flat car is not long enough to afford room for the huge wanderer of the deep, and a portion is drawn on to a second car.

An engine backs down, is coupled to the "whale train," and a start made for the factory. The harpoon remains in the whale until the body is cut to pieces.

At the factory, the whale is drawn off the car on to the "dissecting"

platform by another chain secured to the tail. Men, with long-handled knives, then make deep cuts--one in its back and another in the underpart--from the point of the jaw to the tail, and another deep cut the full length of the carca.s.s. The s.p.a.ces between these incisions are three feet at the underpart and from five to six feet on the back.

This part of the process is called "flencing." At the point of the jaw a piece of flesh is cut until it is released from the bone, and a small hole is cut out of the released part. A kafir, bare-headed and bare-footed, brings a chain, and the hook of it is put through the hole made in the released end of flesh at the whale's jaw. A signal being given a man at the winches to start, the piece of released hide begins to peel from the jaw, then down to the shoulder, and further still. When the winches stop, a slab of hide 40 to 50 feet long, six feet wide, and six inches thick--from the point of the jaw to the whale's tail--is stretched out on the platform inside up. The skin from the back and sides of the whale peels off almost as smoothly as does the skin of a banana from that fruit. The skin at the underpart, however, does not peel so freely, requiring cutting of the flesh by the flencer in a similar way to that of severing threads when ripping a seam in a garment. The underpart of the hide is but three inches thick. These slabs or strips of flesh, of which six or seven are procured from a whale, is the blubber, and from the blubber comes the best grade of oil.

Kafirs, with long-handled knives, cut chunks--about 18 inches long and 12 inches wide--from the slabs, which are thrown into a hopper in which are revolving knives, these cutting the flesh into small pieces, which drop into elevator buckets, later emptying into boiling tanks located on a floor above. In these vats the oil is boiled out of the blubber.

The whalebone, located in the enormous mouth, is yet to be removed.

The flesh to which the bone grows is cut with long, strong knives around the inside of the jaw. A point of the flesh is released, a chain hooked to it, the winches again start revolving, and the whalebone begins peeling off the inside of the mouth as freely as did the blubber off the back. Half of the whalebone still remains in the mouth, and this is removed in the same manner as the first half.

A great blood-red hulk is all that now remains of the whale. A chain is again wound about and secured to the tail of the carca.s.s, the winches, for the last time, revolve, when the colossal frame is moved up an incline to a floor above the platform on which it was skinned.

Then kafirs, with axes, begin cutting the hulk to pieces, which are thrown into rendering vats. Different parts of the body are thrown into different tanks, as certain portions of the flesh produce a better grade of oil than other parts. The only portion not boiled is the bone in the mouth. The blood is the only particle not utilized, and it would add proportionately to the whale's value were it shed on sh.o.r.e instead of in the sea. The flesh, after the oil has been boiled out, is sold to farmers for fertilizing purposes. Thirty to thirty-five men take part in disposing of a whale at the factory, and from four to five hours' time is required to get the carca.s.s into the rendering vats.

From $700 to $800 is the value of a humpback to the manufacturer. The average quant.i.ty of oil rendered is 50 barrels, and a barrel of oil sells at $12 to $15. Most of the oil from the Durban factories is shipped to Glasgow, Scotland, the whalebone to Paris, France.

Some whalers say the food of a whale is small fish, while other authorities give it, owing to the gullet of some species of these cetaceans being but two and three inches wide, as very small, nutritious marine organisms, or insects, many not visible to the eye, called invertebrates. When feeding, the whale takes great mouthfuls of water, its whalebone serving as a strainer and repository in which the minute sea denizens lodge. The water is then forced out of the mouth, the food extricated from the meshes of the whalebone and advanced to the throat. The mouth is so well protected with this bone, which looks like a low, dense brush thicket, that nothing can enter the throat until it has proved palatable.

The whale breathes through two slits, 18 inches long, located on top of the head. Forty-five minutes is as long as the great mammal can remain under water without breathing; but when swimming fast it will be seen spouting at intervals of from five to seven minutes. The spouting is caused by the slits or air-holes being slightly under the surface. The tube through which air pa.s.ses to the lungs is said to be three inches in diameter.

The color of the back and sides is black and the skin smooth. The underpart of the body and flippers is white, save for an occasional black speck and fine black lines--mottled. Flutes, four inches deep, corrugate the beast's underpart from tail to neck. In these grooves are to be seen a great many small barnacles, and on the neck and lower jaw barnacles grow as large as goose eggs.

From $8,000 to $10,000 is the value of a ton of whalebone from a "right" whale, 800 to 1,000 pounds of this elastic substance coming from the mouth. The bone grows in the form of strips, from 6 to 10 feet in length, and 6 to 12 inches in width. One end of a strip is fringed with fine, black hair-fiber, this part of the whale finding its way to the top of persons' heads, as out of it some "human-hair"

wigs are made. A "right" whale, 10 to 15 feet longer than a humpback and in value equivalent to eight of the latter, is worth from $5,000 to $7,000, but of the hundreds killed in the Indian Ocean during a season not more than half a dozen of this specie will be among the number. The whalebone from the humpback is in little demand, growing but two feet long, and is of inferior quality. The bone in the mouth of the "right" whale calf--strips a foot long and tender--is of great value. These are shredded, the fine, soft fiber being made into artists' painting brushes.

The cow whale brings forth young each year, but triplets or even twins are unknown in the cetacean family. A calf first opens its eyes in the sea and soon finds its way to its mother's side, where, securely snuggled by a strong fin, it remains from three to six days. When able to "paddle its own canoe," the baby whale--a born swimmer--keeps close to its mother's side, either up to the surface to "blow," adding a tiny whitecap to the bounding main, or to accompany its maternal guardian to feed in salty pastures of the deep. A whale calf nurses like a colt. When a nursing cow whale is harpooned, whalers generally kill the calf also, as it would starve if left without its mother's nourishment.

At certain times of the year whales move in pairs--male and female.

When a hunter meets a couple the female is first selected for slaughter; the s.e.x is known by the cow being larger. The male whale will not desert his dead mate, and thus becomes an easy victim of the hunter's harpoon. On the other hand, if the male be shot, the female immediately takes flight.

A whale is 17 feet long when born. At three years of age it has attained a length of 30 feet, and during the succeeding eight or nine years reaches its full length--from 45 to 50 feet; so that it requires ten to twelve years to reach its maximum size. Old whalers are loth to hazard a statement concerning the natural lifetime of the cetacean.