1901

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1901 Aden, Arabia.

January 1 We had ice tea for New Year’s dinner; such a treat! Thermometer 92º.

Anchored off Steamer’s Point, Aden at 4 p.m. In the evening the crew gave a minstrel show on the quarter deck. A curtain painted by one of them and, in fact, the whole thing was equal to, or better than most amateur performances. The men cracked jokes at the officers with the greatest freedom, but there was nothing vicious said and no vulgarity in the performance. One number was entitled the Davis Sisters. The manager of the performance, a first class boatswain’s mate, had seen one of the junior officers talking to one of three concert dances of the above name at Smyrna. This caricature, though the most questionable, was yet the funniest part of the performance.

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Aden. Jan 2.

Coaled ship, native labor. 845 tons at $12 per ton. The ‘natives’ are negroes from Somalia, across the Gulf of Aden in Africa. They are little skinny fellows, dressed in simplicity itself; and nothing else, except a turban and a towel about the loins. They are thin because they do not ever get enough to eat. The coal was handled in ordinary bags which when shaken out caused a cloud of dust, and the ship was dirtier next day then ever before.

[photograph of Aden]

Some of the Somalis were little boys not more than twelve years old, good looking

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and strong, though underfed. They carried the bags with less effort than some of the real old, starved, gray headed men, who tottered under the weight while the little boys ran under their load laughing. I weighed one small fellow, he weighed 72 pounds and his bag 120. The average bag weighed 108 pounds and these they carried, with almost nothing to eat, from seven in the morning till ten at night. January is a Mohammedan fast month, so the Somalis brought no lunch with them, it being forbidden to eat between sunrise and sunset. But they have little to bring even when it is allowed. I attempted to feed them with hard tack, went up on the superstructure with a can full, the lid open. They all forgot the word of the Prophet for a time, because, instead of keeping the fast, they mobbed me to get the hard tack, fought and scrambled for it, making it impossible to distribute properly. After trying several methods, I stood in the gangway at the top of a ladder, and kicking down the rest, allowed one at a time to come up, and gave him two or three pieces. This worked well enough, but they crowded up on the hammock rails, stuck their hands over my shoulders into the box, and when I’d slam down the lid on their hands, they would go away with scratched hands and a piece of hard tack, a good bargain. I cut my own hands occasionally, and the crowd getting more unmanageable, when a Senneb [?], one of their chiefs, offered to distribute the can. I gave it to him. The mob hardly respected his dignity. They rushed for him and buried him under a pile of black, squirming bodies; but the Senneb sat on the box, and when one by one the mass disentangled itself, the Senneb walked away with his box, down to a lighter. I expected him to distribute the bread there, and leaving another Cadet in charge of the operations went to get my own lunch.

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When the Senneb had had time to rest he was told to begin the distribution. He replied that he wouldn’t do it. Just then a tug began to tow the lighter away. Someone hit the Senneb in the head with a piece of coal as payment for his dishonesty, but he sat on his can of hard tack as calmly as ever.

Jan. 3. Changed from Engineer to Deck duties.

Aden was bought from an Arab chief in 1639. It is an imitation Gibraltar, in purpose and appearance. The isolated mountain on a peninsular is larger than Gibraltar and very soft stone instead of hard. It is strongly fortified. The city is on the opposite side of the hill from where we anchored. I did not go ashore, duty and the Executive Officer preventing, but those who went said there was nothing to see except the tanks of Solomon, [i] and that you couldn’t see them because they were full of water. Some British officers and some other officers wives came off to the ship. They told me of an expedition being organized to punish a tribe of Somalis across the Gulf, saying that punishing meant killing all they could catch, but those they couldn’t catch were pardoned. The Somalis had murdered an English commissioner. [ii]

4. In Aden it rains “less than once in several years.” The country is perfectly barren; not a cactus grows on the mountains. The mountain is 1776 feet high. The population 30,000. Austrich [sic] feathers are the principal things sold to tourists.

5. Indian Ocean. Aden to Colombo.

Started for Colombo at 5:20 a.m. Two Cadets being on the sick list, I and the other Deck Cadet stood the morning watch to Colombo and “Navigated” during the day.

13. Colombo, Ceylon.

Arrived at Colombo at Noon, and moored in the great artificial harbor in which were twenty-four other large steamers tied within half a ship’s length of each other. The breakwater forming the seaward side of

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the harbor is thirty feet wide, and a similar one is being constructed on the other side.

Colombo is probably the most beautiful city in the world. It is spread out over a large area of low land, and throughout the city are lakes and bridged streams, houses of rich woods set among banana trees and beneath cocoa-nut trees. There are enormous banyan trees with their shoots grown into the ground and into their own limbs, and others; having been trained and trimmed growing like an immense umbrella, covering a wide area and decorated with red berries. There are many rather fine buildings, especially the hotels, but the majority of the houses are small and unpretentious, yet rich in their tropical surroundings.

The majority of the inhabitants are Tamils and Singhalese, two Indian races. They are Buddhists, most of them, though some are Bramins and a few Mohammedan and Christian. The men wear a loin cloth. The Singhalese women, a short skirt and a little, thin, muslin waist which covers part of their upper half but does not meet the skirt. The Tamir women, instead of the white waist wrap a flowing strip of cloth around them and over the shoulders. One wonders why it doesn’t come off; the thin strip of calico flaps in the breeze, it is neither pinned nor tied, and yet it stays on and covers them as completely as a dress with buttons. It’s like a turban. The average barbarian can twist anything, from a pocket handkerchief to a bed quilt around his head, and it stays on. He puts his money in it, his tobacco and his lunch, and two or three hours later his headgear is still in place firm and tight. No civilized person can put on a turban, to stay on, even

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if he pins it.

In Colombo one sees everything that he has never seen before. The queer variety of boats--a long round bottom, with a very narrow upper part, not more than eight inches wide, and a floating outrigger to keep it balanced. Little naked “savages” row around on three logs lashed together. In the city are the rickshas, the humpbacked-bull carts, temples and arches of all descriptions with paintings of all the pagan gods of the orient and statues of the twenty-six Buddhas. In one temple the last Buddha, made of teak, ebony and alabaster lay on a shelf and was twenty-eight feet long. The next coming Buddha stood at his head, and the twenty-four past Buddhas sat in a line, with an offering box in front of each.

The Buddhas celebrate the new and full moons, and pray only at these times. We saw the new moon festival. The church decked with banners, the priests beating the tom-toms and blowing on reeds, the suppliants carrying shoots of red-beetle nut as offerings, between their thumbs and placing them on the shrine.

Bramin priests wear robes of flowing yellow. The robes look as if washed too often for they are faded. The priests do not give the same impression; washing would improve them.

The big, airy city, with wide streets and parks and trees gives a better, cleaner impression than any other city on the “wrong side of the world”. Yet, it does not afford the keen excitement of Smyrna. It is a peaceful, quiet, tropical garden.

Jan 19. Coaled ship, with the aid of the natives who did all the work while the rest of us looked on.

20 At Sea.

Got underway at 6 a.m. for Singapore. Until a few hours before sailing we had orders

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to proceed straight to Manila, there being a contagious disease in Singapore. We had on coal and stores enough to make Manila. During the entire day we steamed along the coast of Ceylon plotting our position on the chart every fifteen minutes by means of Adam’s Peak and the other high mountains.

21-26 Exercised at General Quarters and subcalibre target practise each night at 8 o’clock, stopping the ship, or steaming slowly round the target. Land was sighted on the 25th, an island off Sumatra, and land was in sight at frequent intervals going down the straits.

27. Singapore, Straits Settlements.

Anchored at 3 p.m. rather far out in the harbor. We half masted our colors on coming in, seeing all other flags at half mast on account of the death of Queen Victoria. [iv]

Singapore is more of a business like city than Colombo, and has more ships in its harbor. But while Colombo has a small, artificial, crowded harbor, that of Singapore is large and the ships are scattered. On the other hand, Singapore is a compact city, while Colombo is spread over many miles of territory.

The inhabitants are mostly Chinese, 100000 of them of the 160000 inhabitants. They wear blue bathing trunks, also a hat; and from the number of rikshas one sees on the streets he is tempted to believe that the whole 100000 pull rikshas to earn a living. These riksha men are big and strong and pull a cart with two passengers in it for miles at a high speed. The Chinese quarter is clean and has wide streets; the western end of the city is composed of substantial stone buildings and looks like an American city.