At Yokohama passage is secured for San Francisco, 5,000 miles to the eastward, across the broadest part of the Pacific Ocean. This route is one of the longest direct lines between two places that is steamed over by the ships of any company. It is a dull and monotonous voyage; nothing but blue water for 18 days, no land is seen, no strange sail sighted, rarely even do gales of wind blow hard enough to make things lively. The cabin passengers are principally Americans returning to their native land, a few Englishmen making the round of the world, a couple of Australians full of talk of the greatness of their own country and sceptical as to the advance and improvement of any other; some Japanese, curious, polite, intelligent; one or two rich Chinamen who keep to themselves, and a sprinkling of other nationalities. This heterogeneous crowd gets on well together, plays cards, makes pools on each day’s run, discusses the 180th meridian question, as to why the week is one day longer than seven, jokes, laughs, reads, smokes, and drinks.
The steerage passengers are mostly Chinamen returning to California after a visit home. Special accommodations are fitted for them. Not infrequently the Chinese in large numbers take passage on the Pacific Mail to be landed at Honolulu. This will give the traveller a day in port, when he should go on shore to enjoy Sandwich Island hospitality, and see the Hoola-hoola—a native dance that must be prearranged and paid for, since it is interdicted by the Government because of its supposed demoralizing influence—on the native. After a voyage of 2,000 miles in 7 days to the northeast, the steamer enters the Golden Gate, and passes up to the city of San Francisco. A six-day run by railroad, and the traveller is once again back in New York.
The whole distance travelled by the way described is, in round numbers, 23,000 miles, and the time taken to do this may have been but 80 or 90 days, or more; the longer the better, for it requires plenty of time to enjoy a trip around the world. It also requires money. About $1,000 would be necessary for passage money alone; double this amount would be sufficient to take the traveller in comfort and ease, and upon his arrival home he would consider it money admirably spent.
The traveller reaching San Francisco by the above highway of circumnavigation can further add to his knowledge of strange countries by selecting a sea journey to New York, instead of a land run by railroad across the continent. To go by sea passage must be secured on board a Pacific Mail coasting steamer, the only line running to Mexico, Central America, and Panama. Steaming down the beautiful coast of California, stopping at picturesque harbors in Mexico, anchoring off roadsteads of Central America, taking on and off a few passengers, an Englishman, a German, an American, handling cargo—such is the rough log of the cruise of 20 days and 3,200 miles until the splendid Bay of Panama is reached. The eight or ten ports of call are better seen from the ship than from the shore. The enchantment of distance gives way upon close examination to pity and disgust, for dirt, indigence, and a total ignorance of how to live decently are noticeable everywhere.
At Panama two widely different routes leading to the United States are offered: the one goes over the Isthmus of Panama by rail and thence to New York by sea; the other stretches away down the west coast of South America, through the Straits of Magellan, and up the Atlantic highway.
By the first route the railway journey over the 45 miles of land separating the Pacific from the Atlantic Ocean, crosses, recrosses, and runs beside the deserted canal, affording ocular proof of the failure of the scheme. At both Panama and Colon the same appearance of being left is noticeable. The business of the two ports is one of transit only, but is sufficiently great to furnish employment to some thousands of Americans and Jamaicans.
Nearly a dozen steamship lines leave Colon for ports in the United States, Europe, the West Indies, and the neighboring coasts, and by one or two of them the traveller can run up to Greytown, where he will have an opportunity to see the Nicaraguan Canal. This canal, when completed, will make important changes in existing routes between the United States and Europe at one end of the line, and the west coast of the American Continent, China, Japan, and Australasia at the other. For instance, the route from London to Sydney is 12,500 miles, via the Suez Canal; by the Nicaraguan Canal the distance will be less than 12,000 miles. And if the lengths of the routes from the Atlantic seaboards to the Pacific seaboards, both east and west, be compared with those now followed, the great saving by the Nicaraguan gateway becomes still more apparent. Returning to Colon, the traveller boards the north-bound steamer, and lands in New York, 2,000 miles distant, in 8 days.
It may be, however, that the traveller decides upon proceeding by the second route, leading from Panama to New York. If so, he books on board a steamer belonging to the Pacific Steam Navigation Company of England, a powerful organization having the contract for carrying the mails, and controlling almost exclusively the Isthmian trade to and from South America. The ships of the Company run into all the ports of consequence on the west coast, and the lines extend from Valparaiso by way of Magellan Straits to the river Plate and Brazil ports, and thence to Lisbon and England. An important point for consideration in connection with this southern trip is the probability of there being a revolution in progress in some of the countries to be visited, which might interfere with going on shore.
At length the steamer leaves Panama, and the passenger for the United States begins his long journey. His companions are very few, South Americans, principally, bound for ports along the coast, so he is left to his own resources. He can read, and lounge, and make good friends with the officers of the ship, who are Englishmen. At night he can stretch out in his steamer chair and dream away the warm hours gazing at the “majestical roof fretted with golden fire.”
From Panama to Valparaiso, some 3,100 miles, 25 ports are touched at, which, Callao excepted, are of no special interest. Callao, the seaport of Peru, is in itself unattractive, the town and the people are dirty; the empty docks, the lazy inhabitants, the atmosphere of laissez aller, confirm the opinion that the place and all around it have had their day. From Callao the traveller should go to Lima, 7 miles distant by rail, and take the Oroya Railway to the top of the Andes, 15,000 feet above the sea-level: the wonderful engineering ability displayed in constructing this road will prove quite as impressive as the truly magnificent mountain scenery. Two days will suffice to make the excursion and bring him back to Lima, an old Spanish city with many interesting corners. The cathedral should be visited; in the crypt lie the bones of the great Pizarro. A dirty Cholo shows them. Reverently pulling aside a ragged curtain from before a dingy stone bench, he exclaims, “Behold the bones of Francisco Pizarro!” Their state of perfect preservation and symmetry of arrangement might incline one to doubt the truth of the statement.