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We sailed from Tacoma for
the Orient again in 1903 on the steamer "M. S. Dollar," with a list to
starboard of about 10 degrees. For two days after we sailed the crew was
busy moving coal and everything that would move, trying to straighten
her up. The third night after dark, when there was considerable sea
running, the Captain made an attempt to get her on her feet. He put the
wheel hard over and got her up, but no sooner got her straight when she
fell over to port and kept going until it looked as though she would
turn turtle. I told the Captain that it was no use to try to save the
deck load and we had better get rid of it. So he called all hands and by
the time they had gotten to work she was listing over 25 degrees. It was
impossible to walk on the deck as there was a heavy sea on. They had
great difficulty working, and it went slowly. The lashings were very
tight, and if they cut them the whole thing would go, so we tried to dig
a hole under the lashings to get a start. They had thrown over some, old
dunnage that was in the way and two large lumber shoots, when the
Captain came and said she had stopped going over and not to do any more
as he would try to shift some of the things they had moved.
We consulted, and came to
the conclusion that some of the tanks must be partly empty, so he
remained on deck arid I went below. We found water on top of the
fireroom plates, and the Chief Engineer got the floor up to make an
investigation and found the engine room tank (that we were sure was
full) half empty, and what had run out of it had gone into the boiler
room tank and filled her bilges. We got all the pumps going to empty the
bilges and the boiler room double bottom, and started to fill up the
engine room tank, when we discovered leaks in the tank top, which we
temporarily closed. All this, with what the Captain was doing on deck,
soon got her up to 12 degrees, which was the. best we could do, and she
ran with a list from 5 to 12 degrees all the way over.
When we discovered the
real cause, we felt like people who had been walking over a powder mine.
But we learned one thing: that she was a very stiff old ship and would
stand anything in reason.
HONG KONG
While we were anchored in
the harbor at Hong Kong a red cone was displayed one morning from the
observatory, which indicated that there was a typhoon three hundred
miles distant. As soon as it was seen, junks, sampans, lighters, and
every other kind of craft began to make for the harbors of refuge, of
which there are three in this harbor. There was one near where we were
anchored, so we had a good chance to see the sights. In three hours the
harbor was full of vessels under sail, all heading past us for the
little bay. They kept passing us in this way for three or four hours
when the wind ceased and then small tugs were employed. They would make
four junks fast on each side, six to eight wide, then others attached
behind until they had from fifty to sixty in tow like a great floating
island. They kept this up until after dark, and at 10 o'clock that night
they were still passing. The next morning the harbor was clear of all
small craft, only large steamers remaining at their anchorages. As soon
as the signal was hoisted the lighters alongside of our ship quit work
at once and scurried away. I think there were about twelve there, and in
a couple of hours there was not a thing near us. All this time there was
only a light breeze. The approach of a typhoon seems to terrify them,
and they have good cause, as during one storm over one thousand boats
were wrecked and six thousand people lost their lives. All the families
live on board, and, with women and children, they average from six to
fifty people to a boat.
Although the signals were
still up the next day no typhoon came, but every one was watching for
it. I went ashore to the Typhoon Bay, as it was called, to see how so
many boats would look. I found it landlocked on three sides and
perfectly sheltered, something over eighty acres in extent. The boats
had been put in the bay in perfect order, all in rows and as tight as
they could be packed, the end rows made fast to the shore and the others
all tied to them. The whole bay was packed so full there was not room
for another. It would be impossible to tell how many boats there were
but I estimated that there were over two thousand, which, averaging ten
people to a boat, would make twenty thousand souls. This seems
incredible, but I am sure I am under the mark. Peddlers were busy on
shore and on the boats and were doing a lively business, and so they
might, when one thinks of a town of twenty thousand people and no store
in it. This was only one harbor, and with two others like it, you can
imagine the people there must have been all crowded together. I was told
that in Hong Kong harbor and Canton River, below Canton, there are over
three hundred thousand people living on these boats.
All we got of the typhoon
was a heavy rain storm, the wind having passed twenty miles north of us.
NANKING
We then visited Nanking,
staying there a few days, endeavoring to sell lumber for the new
railroad that they were just starting.
The only hotel at
Shaiquan, a suburb of Nanking, was called the German Hotel and was kept
by a man named Diasang. It was about the toughest place I was ever in,
and although it was the middle of winter and very cold, the window in my
room was without glass, as there was none to be had in town.
Notwithstanding my discomforts, it turned out that I had better
accommodations than my son Harold, who had to sleep on the floor of a
clothes closet.
TONGKU
Proceeding to Shanghai we
left that interesting city for Tongku, and had a very pleasant trip up
the coast. Although the sea was like glass when we arrived and we
started
to discharge, we had to
cast the lighters adrift very shortly as it got so rough and they
pounded so hard it was impossible to do any work. It blew a gale all
night but calmed down the next morning so they commenced work, all hands
moving cargo, to get the ship on an even keel to cross the bar. They got
her to draw ten feet, three inches; but nine feet, six inches was the
most water there was on the bar, so they had to give it up and we went
ashore in a small tug. We passed Taku on the left bank of the river, a
long straggling village of mud huts, where there are probably
seventy-five thousand people living. We landed at Tongku a little
farther up the river and on the opposite side.
MRS. DOLLAR IN A GATEWAY OF THE GREAT WALL OF CHINA
We proceeded to Peking on
the railroad, which is a first class road, a good deal on the English
style although there is a passage from one end of the car to the other
on one side. The second class cars on this line have plain board seats,
and the third class are regular coal cars, flat with sides on them, no
roof nor seats; when people, get tired of standing they can sit on the
floor. When animals are carried they are put on these cars with the
passengers, who are mostly Chinese.
The country above Tongku
is perfectly level and as they have large engines they haul a very heavy
train, and, considering the length of the trains, make fairly good time.
At Tientsin there are a great many large European houses.
From Tientsin we took the
tram for Port Arthur, which proved to be a long and tedious journey.
However, it was all new to us, and we were very much interested. We took
a branch road from Tongku. which ran along the south side of the Gulf of
Pechili. The country around the gulf is level and of a rich black soil.
There were several irrigating canals on which large junks and lighters
were sailing.
TUNGCHOW
Tengchow or Tungchow, in
1903. was a coal mining center with several pits in operation, which
were producing a very good grade of coal. The coal also made a good
grade of coke. This is a very important portion of Northern China.
A large English flag was
flying from each coal pit. There is said to be trouble in the company,
as some Germans have bought stock in it and are trying to change its
rationality. For a few miles beyond the mines the country is rolling
with low hills, up to Chinwangtao. There was a good breakwater here on
which a double railroad track was laid, at the outer end of which there
are nineteen feet of water at lowest tide, and three hundred and fifty
feet in from the outer end there are eighteen feet. The company that
owns this dock owns the Tenchow mines, so most of the coal goes over it.
I consider Chinwangtao to be the key of Northern China. A direct
railroad could be built to Peking (about one hundred and twenty miles),
and, as it is a very rich, populous country, would pay very well.
Taku as a seaport is no
good and will never be any good, as it is silting up all the time, but
Chinwangtao has no river emptying into the harbor and in time I think it
will be the principal Chinese seaport of Northern China. I say Chinese
seaport as I do not mean Russian China. All harbor work was stopped and
nothing was doing except shipping coal, as the whole place is a military
camp. French, German, Japanese, Russian and Italian troops and two
English soldiers garrison the place, each one claiming it and all there
watching one another. They all had staked out a place and had their
flags stuck up on bamboo poles all over the place, so it was impossible
to know which nation claimed any certain place or piece of property. All
this looked to me more like school boys playing soldiers than anything I
ever saw. It was impossible to get any ground to store lumber. The
Standard Oil Company's manager was there trying to find a place to
locate large warehouses for oil, but he could not get a site without
provoking an international controversy, so gave it up, seeing that there
would be no chance of our Government backing him up. The company that
owns the harbor and land is English, a Hong Kong corporation, but as the
English have only two soldiers left it looks as if they were not going
to fight for it. How the other nations will settle it is a question. The
Chinese look on with indifference and do not seem to care who gets it
and make no claim to anything, being completely cowed by the foreign
soldiers. Truly China is in a bad way, and what the end will be is hard
to foresee; it certainly looks as if the European nations will gobble up
the whole land. The only hope for China seems to be to have some leader
spring up that will unite and organize the nation to act as one man.
then they could clean out the foreigners without any trouble. But
apparently there is no prospect of anything but ultimate division, and
each nation as it gets a slice will endeavor to keep the trade in its
own hands and for its own people.
THE GREAT WALL OF CHINA
We arrived at Shanghai
Quan after dark so could not see anything until the next morning when we
had a good chance to examine the Great Wall of China, one of the seven
wonders of the world. I must say it is a great sight to see the terminus
of this great work where it enters the sea. The wall is something over
one hundred feet thick at the base, made up of two paralleled walls
about twelve feet thick at the base and six feet thick at the top, the
space between being filled with earth. This having been dug up from the
outside of the wall makes a great, deep trench. The parapet on top of
the wall runs up higher than a man's head and is four feet thick,
pierced with loop holes. The back part is causewayed with flat stones,
making an excellent roadway the whole length. It is sixty feet high from
the ground to the causeway and where it crosses a level country it runs
zigzag for greater protection, so that an enemy would be exposed to a
flank fire. It is hard to realize the immensity of this great work,
though we know it's fifteen hundred miles long, crossing hills and
plains, and, in crossing mountains it always goes on the highest peaks
for greater defense.
We saw one gateway of
solid masonry and as perfect an arch as I ever saw, when one considers
that this arch was built long before the Christian era and is in such a
perfect state of preservation that I did not see a crack or a displaced
stone in it. All this goes to show what a wonderful people the Chinese
were.
The outer wall is one
hundred feet through, the arch about twenty-five feet high, and the
roadway about twenty feet wide. Inside of the wall proper is a large
square about three hundred feet each way across. This is surrounded by
high walls all around, the same height as the main wall. The gate going
out of this enclosure leads out at right angles from the main gate, so
if the outer gate were forced they would have the enemy in this
enclosure with still another gate to force. The gates are old cumbersome
wooden structures, strongly put together with large iron rivets. These
are shut every night. The masonry is perfect. The stones are backed up
with brick 16x8x5 inches thick. They are tearing down the wall in places
to get stone and brick to build dwelling houses, which seems to be too
bad.
Outside the wall there
were evidences that the Manchus were not to be despised, as the remains
of their walls and well planned forts are still in a good state of
preservation. A large high tower on the top of every hill for a hundred
miles along the railroad leads one to believe they were experts in the
practice of signaling. The Chinese method of signaling was, to build a
projection out from the wall every three hundred feet, almost like a big
buttress, where men were stationed to pass any verbal message that might
be sent, so that in a short time a message could be passed the entire
length of the wall. In addition to this, there were forts of about two
hundred feet square nearly every thousand feet apart, or at every corner
where the point of the zigzag occurred.
The old civilization has
gone to decay, but the new one is very much in evidence and very active.
The Russians have built a large walled-in barracks right in the town and
a few feet from the wall, the inside being China proper (Manchuria being
outside where they have built a large military post with a large force
of soldiers). The French also have not been idle as they have a large
encampment inside the wall and outside of the town.
The trains do not run at
night so we left Shanghai Ouan the next morning at 7 o'clock. It was hot
and dusty, and the cars very poor: first class being like our caboose,
with board seats. On account of the Boxer trouble the train service was
badly disorganized.
Before reaching Taliendio,
a notice was posted in the car saying that they had torn up the old
bridge to build a new one across the river, and that we could be carried
across the river on the backs of coolies for five cents and our baggage
taken over for five cents a picul (133 pounds). We found that there was
a 3 x 12 plank on top of the trestle, so we walked it rather than ride
over on a coolie's back. There was no preparation for taking the
passengers across the river to New chwang when we arrived opposite it,
so we got a small tug that was towing a barge to take us across for
$1.00 each.
NEWCHWANG
The town of Newchwang is
Russian in every sense of the word. It is filled with soldiers, and as
the place is walled in they patrol the wall as well as the streets, day
and night. The municipal affairs are carried on by Russian officials,
the head man of the Customs also being a Russian, A short time ago it
was reported in the papers that the Russians had evacuated Newchwang,
which was true. Our Consul informed us that they all left, and
immediately commenced to return in companies of from six or eight to one
hundred, then by the hundreds, until the place was full of them, and no
matter what the government or the press say, I say without fear of
contradiction from any one who knows, that the Russians are in Newchwang,
Dalny, Port Arthur and in the whole of Manchuria to stay forever, or
until displaced by force of arms.
I asked the Consul if he
had kept our Government informed, as the papers only reported the
evacuation of the town but never got the news that they returned the
next day. What a joke those nations play on each other!
While I am on the subject
I will also give you facts and my opinion about our chance for trade in
Manchuria. Our principal exports into this section are cotton goods,
kerosene, flour and lumber, their importance being in the order stated.
Now, since the Siberian railroad is completed, it is possible to deliver
other cotton goods cheaper than our American product. Oil can be brought
from the Black Sea cheaper than from the United States, and while not of
as good quality, there is no doubt that, as they have the steamers
available, the Government will insist on their using the native product.
"American flour," on which we so depend to keep up our trade, has also a
short life before it.
The country around Harbin
is well adapted to wheat growing, and the industry has grown to such an
extern that they grind out two thousand barrels of flour daily. Our
compradore, who is agent for Allis Chalmers & Company, has a request to
bid for two separate mills, one of two hundred and fifty barrels and one
of five thousand barrels a day capacity. All the Russians with whom I
talked were quite confident that our flour would be stamped out within
two years. I doubt this statement but it will not be long, if we can
believe half of the accounts of this rich country.
It takes a good deal of
wheat to feed an army of one hundred thousand men, and I believe they
have fully this number with attendants, etc.
(What changes take place
in the world and how little we know what is ahead of us! The foregoing
-was written fifteen years ago and the prediction that the Americans
-would lose the trade they were enjoying has fully come to pass. Our
lumber and flour have long disappeared with our cotton goods, and our
kerosene oil or what little is left of this business is on the ragged
edge.
At this wiring, 1903,
Russia appeared to be completely and permanently established and there
to stay. Who could have been bold enough (at that time), to have even
thought that little, insignificant Japan would be able to oust the big
bully out of such an apparently firm and substantial position?)
TSAO CHAU
At last we came to Tsao
Chau. The Russian Government has formed a company of seven million
roubles capital to open up the Yalu River country, that is the dividing
line between Manchuria and Korea. The Russians want to get firmly
established on the frontier, and have a large number of men logging on
the river and floating the logs to tide water. I have seen quantities of
the wood, and I must say it is as good as Oregon pine. I am told there
are plenty of trees four feet in diameter. These are hewn in the woods
either on two or four sides, and are then whip-sawn by the natives at
the place of consumption. The great market for this wood is Port Arthur,
Dalny, Newchwang, Chefuo and Tientsin. and it is against this wood that
we now have to compete in the ports named, with our Oregon fir.
Now the Russian
Government proposes to manufacture all the lumber required in their own
country, and, in fact, all that is used in the Gulf of Pechili. For this
purpose they have plans out for a mill and are looking for the machinery
and will build at once, the capacity to be about one hundred million
feet a year. They are also getting out plans for three steam schooners
with a capacity of about four hundred thousand feet each with a draft of
from ten to eleven feet to carry the lumber, and in the event of war to
carry men, supplies, etc., into that Yalu River country. They claim
there is an abundant supply of standing timber, and as the Chinese have
been lumbering there for a great many years and carrying it out with
their junks, I expect there is plenty of it so far as Russian
requirements are concerned.
The Russians have spent
millions in Manchuria, and as a prominent Russian put it to me: "We have
spent millions upon millions of Russian money to open up and develop
Manchuria, and do you suppose we have done all this for the benefit of
foreigners? This has all been done for the benefit of our people and we
propose to keep it, sure."
And there is no doubt
they will. Our Government claims we must keep the Open Door, and they
will keep the outside door open but they will also make sure that we
cannot get in, either by competition or by cumbersome regulations that
will make it impossible for us to do business. Even under present
circumstances it is not easy to do business there.
Contrast this policy with
ours in the Philippines, where I heard Mr. Taft make a speech before the
American Chamber of Commerce, saying that the Philippine Islands were
for the Filipinos and not for the Americans. He has made his word good,
and I am told that the American population there has decreased fifty per
cent since last year.
We had a little trouble
finding out about the trains leaving Newchwang. We had a Russian (none
of the officials talk English) telephone the station master to find out
when the train left for Port Arthur, but that official said he did not
know. We finally got in touch with a higher official who said a train
would leave at 2 p. m. and connect at the junction of the Great Siberian
Railroad at Tsao Chau with the train from St. Petersburg, which runs
twice a week. The train, however, did not start out until 4 p. m. It is
impossible to get information ahead of time as to when you can get a
train for any place, and this is on the great highway from St.
Petersburg to Peking.
We had to hire a tug to
take us from the city to the station, three miles further up the river
than the town, but were landed about a mile below and walked the balance
of the way. There was no hurry as the train did not start for two hours
after the time they said. The train on the main line was very fair, as
it had sleepers and a dining car, which for Russia were fine. The
waiters and porters all talk some French, so we got on all right and
arrived at Dalny three days from Tientsin. We went to the hotel, and had
a great time getting breakfast. After waiting one and a half hours we
got boiled eggs, coffee and bread and butter, the last made in Odessa
was similar to axle grease. However, we were glad to get anything, as
the regular breakfast is served at noon. The people here stay up half
the night and rise about noon.
PORT ARTHUR
From Dalny I proceeded to
Port Arthur on business, but traveling was so difficult and
uncomfortable that we decided to have Mrs. Dollar and the young people
go to Japan, where I was to join them at a later date.
It was blowing a gale and
a sand storm came up making it so disagreeable that we did not leave the
hotel at Port Arthur. There are no hotels worthy of the name, but we
were glad to get anywhere as the place was very crowded. We found a
hotel where the landlady was French, so we had the satisfaction of
asking for what we wanted and got along fairly well.
AN IRRIGATION DITCH—JAVA
Port Arthur is a military
town situated on a small bay and in itself does not amount to much, but
the military work going on beat anything I had ever seen. On the streets
at any hour of the day we were continually meeting squads and companies
of soldiers going from and to, no one seemed to know where. On the top
of every hill great gangs of them were working. It was just a great bee
hive of industry, all doing the one thing, fortifying the place at every
conceivable point. (No one surmised that in a very few weeks this would
be the center of one of the world's great wars.)
There is a very good dry
dock here, but not much room for merchant ships. Eight to ten would fill
the place, but at Dalny there is plenty of room. There were fourteen
large men-of-war lying at anchor outside the harbor, and a small fleet
of small ones inside. Everywhere there seemed to be a feverish haste to
get ready. To look at it one would think that a war had been declared.
I had been in many hard
and tough places before during my lifeline, but Port Arthur certainly
beats them all for vice and iniquity of all kinds.
We left Port Arthur in
the evening and went through the Russian fleet shortly after. It was
certainly a formidable sight. The next morning we were at Chefoo, and
there went through the American fleet of twelve men-of-war— poor China
had two there. Then at Weihaiwei the English have a large fleet and at
Kiaochaw, seventy-five miles further, the Germans have twelve to fifteen
large men-of-war. Northern China has probably more warships and men
concentrated than anywhere else in the world. In fact the eyes of the
whole world are turned this way at the present time, no one knowing what
all this preparation means. A short time ago the Russian and Japanese
governments bought up all the available flour in the Orient, and they
had every bakery shop in Hong Kong and Shanghai running their full
capacity on hard tack. |
