[CHAPTER I.]
YOKOHAMA.
Yokohama, Japan, Oct. 10, 1889.
AT 9.50 A.M., on the morning of the 8th of September I went aboard the vestibule train of the New York Central & Hudson River Railroad, at Forty-second Street, New York; and having travelled on the principal railroads around the world, I can truly say that no train which has ever carried me has approached this one in luxurious ease, comfort, and safety. The train rolled into the Chicago depot at 9.50 the next morning—exactly twenty-four hours. I was detained in Chicago for two days, and then left by the Rock Island route for San Francisco.
At Ogden, we were detained two days by the burning of a bridge built over a ravine—one hundred feet long and about the same height. The fire destroyed the massive snow-sheds and great trees for a long distance. The fire took place Friday. Telegrams were sent to Sacramento, and the next day word came that twenty-one car loads of material had been sent with mechanics to erect a new bridge.
The new bridge was erected in four days. Our train was the first to pass over it, and I remarked how substantially the new erection had been constructed. We reached the summit at noon, and the Palace Hotel, San Francisco, at midnight.
On the 21st of September we went aboard the steamer Rio-de-Janeiro, built for the southern trade—370 feet long, 38 feet wide, 3,500 tons—six tubular boilers, each 13 feet diameter, 10½ feet long. I remarked what heavy consumers of coal such shaped boilers must be, and the engineer said there was no room to put in any other kind.
I found myself the sole occupant of a large and well ventilated state-room. At 3 P.M., Captain Ward, standing on the bridge, gave the signal, and the voice of an officer sang out, "All ashore that's going." Several hundreds of Chinese men and a dozen women, in showy dresses, crowded the wharf. The friends of the missionaries on the wharf sang a parting hymn. The big propeller started. A tug pulled the ship's bow around, and away we went on our voyage of 4,700 miles across the Pacific. We passed the Golden Gate and the Seal Islands—covered with huge seals—and then on towards our destination.
I soon made the acquaintance of most of the passengers, forty-five in number—including fourteen missionaries of the Presbyterian Board, nice young people going out to their duties in China and Japan. I took my seat at the dining-table, and found that I had at my right an agreeable companion, a captain in the German army, and at the left a charming miss of ten, Bessie, daughter of J. De Romero, secretary of the Spanish Legation to China.