My Life in Many States and in Foreign Lands, Dictated in My Seventy-Fourth Year

by George Francis Train

Colonel Train's persistent demand that he should own all the ships, put an end to the plan. It not only put an end to a grand project, but put an end to his business. He was soon confronted with difficulties. The business had outgrown him and his limited means, had become unwieldy and unmanageable. As I had foreseen, it needed more men, more minds, more money; and these were not forthcoming. And so, in '57, Colonel Train was forced down, literally crushed beneath the weight of his own undertakings, as Tarpeia was crushed beneath the Sabine shields. He was the victim of his desire to own and dominate everything.

Two years before this collapse of a great idea, I left Australia for Japan, by way of Java, Singapore, and China, with high hopes. I had visions, which were to accompany me for a year or two more, and then I had to abandon them and turn my attention to other fields. From Melbourne, I sailed on the Dashing Wave. Has it ever occurred to any one who writes or thinks of the old days of sailing vessels, those winged ships, that the very names of boats have changed, indicating the transformation from romance to reality, from poetry to mere prose and work-a-day business? In those days we had beautiful and suggestive names for ships, just as we ought to try to find beautiful and suggestive names for all truly beautiful and lovable things. Now we send out our City of Paris, or St. Louis, or St. Paul, or the Minneapolis, or the Astoria, or Kentucky, or Blaamanden, or Rotterdam, or Ryndam, or Noordam. Then we had such names as Flying Cloud, the clipper that shortened the distance between the ends of the world; the Sovereign of the Seas, the Monarch of the Ocean, the Flying Arrow, the Sea Eagle. The Dashing Wave, Captain Fiske, carried me to Batavia in twenty-six days. We were accompanied, for a portion of the trip, by the Flying Arrow.

At Anjer, in the Straits of Sunda, the Malays came off to the ship in their little boats with provisions of all sorts to sell. Every one of them had letters of recommendation, as they thought, from the English captains and officers who had previously traded with them; but these letters, if they could have been translated for their possessors, would have been instantly cast into the sea and a general riot perhaps would have followed. One of the letters read something like this: "If this black thief brings any eggs to sell to you, don't buy them, as they are always rotten. He may also try to sell you a rooster, but don't buy it, as it is the same cock that crew when Peter denied Jesus." Of course everybody on the ship roared with laughter as each letter was handed up to us and read aloud for the edification of all. The simple Malays guffawed loudly in their boats, thinking that we were heartily pleased with them and their wares. When next I passed through the Sunda Straits, Krakatoa had been at work in eruption and had completely changed the face of the coast, and Anjer itself and the little island it stood on were gone.

This Dutch colony was a revelation to me in every way. I had never seen anything at all like it in any other part of the world, and was never again to see anything quite so quaint or so delightful. The ride from Batavia to the hotel was full of surprises. I was accompanied by a troop of little children, all of them pressing close up to us and crying for "doits"—small copper coins. I scattered these little coins among them again and again, but they could never get enough, but kept on crying, "doit, doit!" Then the color of the trees, the rich shades of the flowers that flourished everywhere, the beauty of the scenery—all was a delightful surprise. I have never seen elsewhere so many or such rare flowers. The whole island of Java, as I was soon to learn, is a vast botanical garden, far more beautiful and rare than any that science can create. Nature, the great horticulturist, has here done her best and final work. The air, too, was delicious. It was perfumed by flowers, aromatic herbs, and spices. I had never realized before what was meant by the legends of the "Spice Islands," and I fancied that here was the place for man to live and die.

I drove to the residence of the governor-general at Buitenzorg, thirty-five miles south of Batavia, which was situated in a tremendous garden of flowers and trees. It was the most beautiful place I had ever seen, and I am quite sure that I have never seen anything more beautiful since. I was so delighted with Java, indeed, that I had a model of a Javanese village made for me, and shipped it home to my wife with the greatest care. What was my surprise, when I finally reached home, and asked eagerly if the model had been received, to be told that nothing had been seen of it. "Didn't something come from me from Java?" Oh, yes, something had come, but it looked so big and uninteresting that it had been put down in the cellar. And there my beautiful model of the Javanese village had lain, in ignominy, for years! I restored it to its proper position in the world, by sending it to the Boston Museum. It was lost in the fire that soon afterward destroyed that building.

It was in Java that I first learned to love flowers, and I have loved them more and more every year of my life since. The natives of that wonderful island love to strew flowers over everything, and to garland everything with beautiful blossoms. I soon became infatuated with the custom of carrying flowers, and adopted the boutonnière, which I afterward introduced in Paris in '56, in London in '57, and in New York in '58. I have endeavored to wear a spray of flowers in the lapel of my coat every day since my visit to Java.

There was one particularly pleasing custom, which I think should have been long ago introduced in this country. This was the fashion of bringing in fruit to the table covered with flowers. It is a custom that delights three senses at once—the smell, the sight, the taste. The first time I saw it was at the table of Mr. Whitelaw Reid, when he gave a dinner to me and my friends. After we had finished eating, I was asked if I did not wish for some of the fruit. I looked around and could not see fruit anywhere. In front of me were great masses of flowers in baskets, and I could readily detect the odor of fruits of various kinds, but they were invisible. I had almost decided that they were outside in the garden, and that possibly we were expected to pluck them from the trees, which, heavily laden with their burdens, hung temptingly against the windows. But no, the fruit was immediately before me, hidden beneath masses of cut flowers, in trays and baskets. I thought it a beautiful custom, and one that distinctly appeals to esthetic taste. It could well be introduced at Newport or Saratoga, or in Fifth Avenue mansions.

I regretted that Great Britain had lost, through a piece of carelessness, these magnificent islands now controlled by Holland; although the Dutch have done about as well as any other people could have done, I suppose. I believe it was because Lord Canning did not open his eastern mail one morning, that these islands became a possession of Holland instead of Great Britain.

I did not, on the occasion of my first visit, see anything of the Achinese. But I passed, in '92, on my last trip around the world, the northwestern end of Sumatra, and Captain Hogg, of the Moyune, pointed to the little town of Achin, built on piles. He said that in the interior the Dutch were still fighting the Achinese. They had then been fighting these desperate Mohammedans—converted Malays—for thirty years. I have since thought, having in view this prolonged struggle for freedom of the Mohammedan Malays of Sumatra, how desperate is our undertaking in the Philippines, where we are trying to subjugate a far larger population of Mohammedans, the Moros of the southern islands of the archipelago. Holland, I believe, has spent already something like 500,000,000 florins to exterminate the Achinese. It may cost us far more to exterminate the Moros.

I left Batavia for Singapore on a Dutch man-of-war, Captain Fabius. We stopped first at the island of Banka, belonging to Holland, and I saw there the famous tin-mines, which are greater than those of Cornwall, England. They were the property of the brother of the King of Holland. We did not stop at Sarawak, because of the little war that "Rajah" Brooke, afterward known as Sarawak Brooke, was carrying on there. We arrived at Singapore just too late to meet Townsend Harris, the first American diplomatic representative to Japan, as he had gone up to Siam. Harris's visit to Japan was the real beginning of a new era in the trade of the far East, and no other diplomatic mission in the history of this country has been fraught with greater results.