A PORT-HOLE VIEW OF SOUTHERN ASIA
With our eight hundred dollars each we felt somewhat flush. We realised, however, that it would probably be a long time before we could obtain positions that would pay us as well as those we had left in Hawaii, China and the Philippines, and we foresaw that we might have difficulty about getting work in Europe that would even pay our expenses. For these reasons, although now comparatively opulent, we decided to continue the steerage route.
We sailed from Hongkong in the forward part of the French Mail liner Caledonien for Saigon, Indo-China. Our only companions in the steerage on this three-day trip were thirty Japanese women of the underworld going to settle in the La Petite Paris, as Saigon is frequently called. The meals on this steamer were not bad in quality for steerage fare but were not numerous enough. The first meal of each day took place at nine o'clock in the morning and the second and last was served at eight in the evening. Each eater was allotted a piece of bread—the sturdy production of some French cook—a bottle of wine, meat and potatoes, and in the evening a pudding of some sort. We spent the long hours between meals reading or conversing to the best of our ability with the Japanese prostitutes.
The Caledonien began winding her way up the Mekong River to Saigon, about fifty miles inland. French Indo-China is a beautiful spot and Saigon with its fifty thousand inhabitants, many of whom are French, is indeed a miniature Paris. It is a gay little town with many substantial buildings, numerous cafés and ornate theatres. Scores of quaint tables, at many of the restaurants, are placed on the sidewalks and sometimes out into the street, completely closing it for traffic. At these tables hundreds of pleasure-loving French people sit during the afternoons and evenings, tranquilly sipping their wine. They chat and laugh as though they didn't have a care in the world. The natives of Cochin-China are Annanese, a similar people to the Chinese. Both the men and the women dress their hair in a knot on the top of their heads, and as they both wear trousers it is difficult for the new arrival to distinguish the sexes.
The steerage quarters of the Caledonien were crowded to their capacity by the large number of Frenchmen and women who came aboard at Saigon. In order to make room for his countrymen, the steward moved Richardson and me from our stateroom, in the forward part of the ship, to a cabin between the engines and the kitchen. We did not realise what sort of a place it was until it came time to retire. It was hotter than Hades and there was no more chance for a breath of fresh air to get into this dingy compartment than for light to penetrate a photographer's dark room. One glance was enough. We made our beds on the bow of the ship. We were rudely and suddenly awakened by the French steward, who was as mad as a man could be when he saw his clean bed-clothes on the dirty deck, covering two crusty Americans. He grabbed the sheets and blankets, uncovered us with one jerk and left us clad in only our night clothes to scramble nearly the length of the ship, through the steerage crowds, to our stateroom.
This French steward was a most irritable being and was continually worried at the actions of Richardson and myself. He would fly off into a fearful tirade of French when he found us taking a bath in the first-class passengers' tub, or when he saw us steal food from the breakfast table to sustain us until the evening meal, or when he discovered us asleep in a different part of the deck each night with the clean bed-spreads. He became so cranky that he even called us down when we spotted the coarse cloth on the table in the mess-room. He became so needlessly exasperated at whatever we did that Richardson and I devised means by which we could provoke the old fellow.
The Caledonien spent a day at Singapore. This was the hottest day I ever experienced and the sun's rays seemed to have more penetrating powers than usual. I thought I should liquefy from the way in which I perspired and only for my thick pith hat, which protected my head and neck from the sun, I surely should have been a victim of sunstroke.
Richardson and I had planned a trip to Java but gave up the idea and went directly to Ceylon. The Caledonien dropped anchor in the harbour of Colombo and we were taken ashore in a small boat propelled by one oar at the stern. We obtained rooms at the Y.M.C.A. at sixteen cents a day. This rate did not include bed-clothes, which all travellers in Ceylon and India have to furnish themselves. We each bought a blanket which we carried strapped to the outside of our suit cases.