At Vista, in accordance with a number of telegrams sent us at various points, we were met by Prof. M. E. Wilson and wife on a tandem, heading a welcoming party sent out from Reno. All preparations for our stay in this charming city had been attended to by them before our arrival. Following an advance guard, with Mrs. Wilson and my wife ahead, the Professor and myself closing up the rear of the procession, the party rode down the main streets of Reno and drew up at the Riverside Hotel. A dinner fit for a king and sufficient for a regiment was on the table ready for us. Our hospitable friends, with an eye for our comfort and enormous appetites, declined to delay sitting down any longer than it would take for us to bathe our faces and hands. They remained for an hour or more after we had cleared the table, arranging trips for our entertainment on the next day. For the first time since leaving Chicago Mrs. McIlrath and I were so tired that when we retired we slept soundly until 1 o’clock in the afternoon of the next day. Likely as not we should have slept until the evening had we not been called by A. S. Bragg, editor of the Reno Gazette, and Miss Manning, a charming young lady, whom the editor had brought along as a companion for Mrs. McIlrath. With them we rode over the entire city, the two ladies going ahead, enabling the editor and myself to fall behind and indulge in a discussion of our favorite theme, “Shall it be gold, or free silver at 16 to 1?” July 20, with Professor and Mrs. Wilson we visited the famous mines of Virginia City, and this time we did not go upon bicycles. The Professor called for us in a carriage, whose horses were piloted by a reliable veteran, who had served his apprenticeship on the earlier stage coaches. The ride to Virginia City, up the side of a mountain, is fraught with danger. Only two weeks before our arrival there was a fatal accident, a couple of tourists and their horses being dashed over a precipice, and after I had arrived in San Francisco three weeks later, I learned of the deaths of two ladies and a gentleman, who had undertaken the same trip on horseback, and had met their end in precisely the same manner.
On Monday, July 22, we departed from Reno upon our last relay of American touring for three years. Prof. Wilson rode with us and as we passed Saw Mill Summit, the white dust died away and I saw nothing but flowers, beautiful foliage and waving grass. The Professor calmly remarked: “You have entered a new country; you are now in California.” We left Truckee July 23 in the morning, making the 160 miles to Sacramento shortly after dusk. Four days in Sacramento, devoted to sight-seeing, and then we started for San Francisco, arriving there July 29. We had then covered 3,002 3–8 miles from Chicago in 52 days.
A complete overhauling of our wheels and time allowed for necessary shopping by Mrs. McIlrath, caused us to remain in San Francisco much longer than we had anticipated. The days did not hang heavy upon our hands, the wheelmen of the city being universally kind in their attentions to us both. My space is too limited to go into the details attendant upon our sojourn in San Francisco, as much as I should like for my cycling readers to know of the pleasure in store for a wheelman in the metropolis of the Pacific Coast.
On October 12 the telegraph message of three words, “We are off,” was flashed to the Inter Ocean office in Chicago. We had taken passage on the Occidental and Oriental Line steamer City of Pekin, bound for Yokohama, the chief city of the flowery kingdom of Japan. Everything for our accommodation that could be done on board the steamer was ordered, not the least of our favors being two seats at the table of Captain Trask, commanding officer of the vessel. Our fellow passengers were an interesting lot, including two United States naval officers; a member of the English Parliament, his wife and a traveling companion; an officer of the Austrian army; two French globe trotters, who intended to write a book of travel upon their return to Paris; a Corean nobleman; four American missionaries, and a mysterious personage whose visiting card read, “Capt. Vladmir Samioloff,” of the army of the Czar. The steerage passengers were exclusively Japanese and Chinese. The third day out Capt. Trask escorted me through the steerage and showed me the hospital ward, which contained three Japanese, who were going home to die. The captain explained to me that in every case of the death of a Japanese on board a steamer, the body was given a sailor’s burial, but that with the Chinese it was entirely different. The body of a dead Chinaman, even though he were to die one day out, would be embalmed and taken home to his relatives, a Chinese embalmer nearly always being on board a vessel for just such emergencies.
Mrs. McIlrath, for six days out, was the most sea-sick woman that ever tossed in a berth. She was unable to come on deck before Friday, Oct. 18, and rough weather, which set in the next day, sent her below again, and thus she lost one of the prettiest parts of our voyage across the Pacific. Monday, Oct. 21, was the shortest day I ever passed. It lasted, strictly speaking, but seven hours, or from 12 o’clock to 7:15 a. m., at which time the City of Pekin crossed the meridian. Having been constantly racing with the sun, and so gaining time, at 7:16 o’clock we had entered upon Tuesday, Oct. 22. At 11:30 on the morning of the same day we caught our first sight of Japan, the white crest of the sacred mountain, Fujiyama, looming in the distance. Monday evening, Oct. 28, at 8:15 o’clock, the City of Pekin steamed into the harbor, having broken her record thirty-seven minutes. The fact of the boat’s arrival ahead of time, made the hours so late before the steam launches of the hotel arrived that we decided to remain on board the steamer until next morning. We were still asleep Tuesday morning when the runners of the hotels roused us by pounding upon our state-room door. The Club Hotel was the one we had selected, and when the representative announced himself, we gave a list of our baggage and hastened to dress. At the English hataba (a long pier running out into the bay) our baggage was thoroughly overhauled by the customs officers, and upon our wheels and camera a duty of five per cent was imposed. As cameras are listed at 50 yen and bicycles at 200 yen each, this would have cost us in duty 22 yen 50 sen, or about twelve dollars in gold. After a short conference and an ostentatious display of Secretary Gresham’s passports and the Inter Ocean credentials, which the revenue officers had not understood, our articles were franked and we entered the city.
CHAPTER VI.
JAPAN’S QUEER CREDIT SYSTEM—INTER OCEAN TOURISTS AT THE BURIAL OF PRINCE KITASHIRAKAWA—A POINT FOR ALL AMERICANS.
The Club Hotel, which is the headquarters for American tourists and residents, is situated only a block from the pier and adjacent to the Consulates, shops and points of interest. The owners and managers are Europeans, or “foreigners” as they are called in Japan, but the service of the hotel is exclusively by natives. Your room is cared for by a “boy,” your meals served by a “boy” and “boys,” sometimes 50 years of age, perform every possible service. There are without doubt more courtesies shown a guest in Japan than in any other country. Our reception in the city was all that we could ask. The letter to Col. McIvor, American Consul, from friends at his home in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, made us thrice welcome at that gentleman’s residence. The fact of our representing an American newspaper made us at home in newspaper circles, which are controlled largely by Americans. Our coming had been heralded to the wheelmen of Japan, and as we were expected some weeks before we arrived, the coming was of more than ordinary interest.
Bicycling, at the time of my visit, was just beginning to become popular in Japan, and what machines were used were imported at great cost from the States and Europe. But with commendable enterprise the manufacturers of Japan now perfect their own machines, all parts of which are made and assembled in local concerns, operated by local capital and mechanics. In Japan it is not expected that cash will be tendered for anything purchased or rented, with perhaps the exception of “rickshas,” which correspond in their common use to the cabs of American cities, only that they are drawn by “boys” instead of horses. There is an abominable system of credit established in the empire by which all foreigners purchase and temporarily pay for all articles upon bits of memorandum called “chits.” If a gentleman in Yokohama wishes a drink, a cigar, new hat or even a suit of clothes, he steps into the nearest place of business adapted to filling his requirements and, after making his purchase, signs a bit of paper, giving date, price and buyer’s name and address, and the first of every month the “chit” is sent him as a receipt bill. To a well-appearing foreigner reasonable credit will be extended without question. My knowledge of this system was derived in the most peculiar manner. Mrs. McIlrath and I were touring the shops, when her attention was attracted by a shawl. She entered the shop, priced the article and I advised the purchase, but our pocketbook had been left at the hotel, she blushingly informed me. We thanked the shopman for his trouble and promised to return the same evening. The price was six yen, or about three dollars, as quoted by the dealer, and as we started out of the shop he called to us, asking if the price was too much. I explained our embarrassed condition, and he immediately wrapped up the shawl, placing one of the printed slips upon the counter, asked me to sign a “chit” for five yen. I was an entire stranger, yet upon credit I obtained for one yen less that which I could not purchase for cash. The most astonishing fact connected with this extraordinary system is that no laws are provided to punish dead-beats or frauds.