A TRIP TO THE EAST.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume XLVIII, Issue 8938, 3 July 1905, Page 2

A TRIP TO THE EAST.

By F. W. WILKIE.

MANILA, May 13. In fulfilment of my promise I am sending you a few notes by the way, which may be of interest to some of your readens. So far I have found the Eastern trip most interesting and enjoyable, and accord- i ing 'to those who have been this way before I we have not yet reached the interesting ! part.. Leaving Sydney by the s.s. Eastern on April 22, a week was spent in doing the trip round the eastern coast of Australia, calling at a number of ports, and finally reaching Port Darwin. As our passenger list included the Governor of South Australia, and some Senators, etc., every consideration was given us by the company for seeing the spots of interest by the way. The most pleasing of these was at Cairns, where we chartered a special train and spent the day at the celebrated Barron Falls, on the Barron river. This in indeed a beauty spot of no mean order, the falls being some 400 to 500 , feet in height. With the Alps Gorge clad in tropical vegetation this forms a spectacle which, if more easy of access, would be one of the most popular beauty 6pots of the world. At Port Darwin our boat played a cricket match with a Port Darwin team, and beat them by one run amidst great excitement. We were also favored during the night with a corrobboree given by the blacks as a welcome to the Governor, but this fell a bit flat after a good old Maori haka. Tho bulk of the population of Port Darwin is Chinese, and advocates of a. white i Australia have a knotty problem to solve j , in developing Western and Northern Aus- | tralia without the assistance of colored i labor. My own impression is that a white i • Australia, is impossible. The- climate of ! Port Darwin is hot, in fact I am assured . there is only one place hotter, and lam j not prepared to dispute it. The trip . i through the Eastern Archipelago forms one , I continual panorama, as the steamer tlireads { its way through the thousands of tropical 3 islands that stud the sea in all directions. 5 A deal of speculation was rife on the . boat as to what would be the position . of the respective fleets when we reached ftf t Manila, and we find on reaching that port s » on May 12 that the two fleets were likely . to meet in the neighborhood of Hongkong within 48 hours. As that was about the time we should be reaching that port it " was very questionable if wo should, pro- '" ceed, as the Eastern was bound for Japan s and supposed to be carrying contraband 0 cargo. ' xxowever, we steamed for Hong- . Kong, and the next two days will show ," whether the shippers have been too venlS turesome. s Manila is a very busy city, and shows |" wonderful improvements under the ener- ?" getic Government of Uncle Sam. Breakwaters, harbor defence, electric trams and Z many other works have been undertaken by the United States Government. There T is still, however, a lot to be done in the y way of improvements in the Philippines, SS f ' and the Americans are no doubt finding >.c. c their newly-acquired colony a very epapensive luxury. I have metydhany experienced Americans who hold that the r s best thing for the States' Government to V do is to let tho Filipinos elect a responsible government of their own and work

out their own salvation. Cockfighting is the national sport of the Filipinos, and the gamecock forms a muchrespected member of -the average family. The run across from Manila- to Hongkong produced nothing more exciting than the sighting of a cruiser or two m the distance, but they did not examine our papers, and we were allowed to prooed on our way. At Hongkong we learned that the Baltic Fleet was still south, so that we were not likely to fall in with them for the present. Hongkong presents a fine appearance from the harbor, being built on the side of the hill, and is a good illustration of what British capital and enterprise can do. The buildings are very fine, everything very up-to-date, and there is no doubt that the prosperity and advancement, is due almost entirely to the millions voted •annually to the upkeep of the British navy in the East. The strength of the Hongkong fleet at present is about forty vessels all told. A trip to Canton in the river-boat is the sight of a lifetime, and is one of those things that has to be seen to be realised. Mounted in a sedan chair, with four stalwart coolies at the handles and a. good ' guide in the lead, we plunge into thei seething mass of Chinamen, and for a few) hours say good-bye to all that is bright, wholesome and happy. The buildings are high and the footpaths so narrow that two fair-sized men can only pass comfortably, and overhead the light of day is almost completely shut out by the business signs that artf hung from every window] so that it is almost impossible to see the sky. Our guide took us to the prisons, where scores of criminals, manacled and herded together in what might be , termed big pens, fought for the coins that we threw them through the bars of the gaol, like hungry animals fighting for food. I asked the guide why these men were so eager for money, knowing that they had only a few hours to live, and ho informed me that they wanted to have a- good feed before they died. We also went to the execution ground to see an execution, but were a little late, and had to content ourselves with a sight of the black blots on ,the dust, which told too well their gruesome tale. There are over a million Cantonese living on the water, and I was told that Ihcso dwellers in sampans (the native boat) «ro able to maintain a family on about seven cents a day (about lsd English money). At Canton there appears to be not the slightest attempt to adopt labor-saving machinery, and the whole work of this city, with its various manufactories and public works, is done entirely by hand. The dredging of the Canton river is done with a scoop on the end of a long pole- and manipulated by about half a dozen Chinamen to each scoop. The whole of the water supply of the city is taken from wells in the street, and in some cases frcm under the houses, the wells containing the accumulation of centurios, while tho atmosphere — well, we took what he had to through our handkerchipfs. saturated with eucalyptus. And yet they live and increase and appear to be fairly contented with their lot. YOKOHAMA, May 30. Shanghai is undoubtedly the city of the East, and few westerners have any idea of the extent of its shipping, corinnerce and general prosperity. There is a large section taken up by tho English, German and French, but the old city is purely Chinese It was here that I saw justice administered in rather a summary manner , by means of the bamboo. The culprits— Chinese, of course — were herded together m pens in full view of the public. They were taken out one at a time by the pigtail, and led before the two Magistrates to receive their sentence. After being sentenced to so many strokes they were led back to a mat, where they were prostrated and divested of their nether garments, a big constable taking the head and another the feet, while a third laid on the bamboo. In cases where only a few strokes were administered the punishment did not appear very severe, but when it was increased, as in one case that I witnessed, to so much as three hundred strokes, it was niuchniore acute, and the blood was showing through freely. The unfortunate victims when released had to kneel before the Magistrate and admit the justice of their sentence, and were then dismissed with the tears streaming down their faces, feeling no doubt very penitent. Most of the offences for which they were bein^ punished were petty gambling offences" and one queries how the youths cf our colony would accept such drastic measures if put into force to wean them from their pet vice. On the run from Shanghai to Moji, in the south of Japan, we were overhauled by a Japanese cruiser, and after a short delay allowed to proceed on our way. At Moji. where we stopped a day to coal, we heard heavy firing in the distance, and arriving in Yokohama yesterday we found that a great naval battle was fought in that locality, m which the Japanese accounted for nineteen of the Baltic fleet. Had we instead of taking the inland sea trip from Mdji taken the outside passage we should probably have run into the thick of the fight. It is really marvellous to see how little excitement there is amongst the Japs over their great victory. Beyond the flying of bunting there is nothing to indicate any unusual occurrence. At this instant my hotel clerk comes up with a bow and announces that word has just been received that four more Russian men-of-war have succumbed, in about the same manner that he would announce tiffin. I am spending a few days here, where the hotel' accommodation is excellent, to get my land legs, prior to going inland to see Japanese life under natural conditions. All the seaport towns in the East are a great mixture of European and Asiatic, and give no idea of the lives and habits of the