Bangkok is a city of many canals.
On the afternoon of our second day aboard, about thirty Chinese stewards marched to our end of the vessel with their bowls of rice, and squatted in a half circle about us. We paid no attention to them. One of them sat down on the bundle containing my camera. When I motioned for him to get off, the fellow leered at me and refused to move. I pushed him off, and picked up my bundle. In his fall he dropped and broke his rice-bowl. The entire crowd sprang to their feet.
“Kang kweitze!” (“Kill the foreigners!”) screamed the chief of the stewards suddenly. With a roar the Chinamen surged forward. A heavy piece of timber struck me a stunning blow on the back of the head, and I landed face down among some chains near the railing.
When I came to enough to realize what had happened to me, a dozen Chinamen were beating me with bamboo clubs. I struggled to my feet. James was laying about him right merrily. Inch by inch we fought our way around the deck, and had almost freed ourselves, when James stumbled and fell headlong. A score of Chinamen rushed at him; every man of them struck him blow after blow with some weapon. A Chinaman struck at me with a long thin knife. I threw up my right hand, grasping the blade. It cut my palm and slashed my wrist; but the fellow let go of the weapon. I snatched hold of it with my other hand and with its help fought our way forward, where four of the German officers stood huddled together like frightened sheep.
We washed our wounds in salt water and bound them up as best we could. The captain armed himself with two revolvers and marched down the deck to restore order among his seamen. He pretended that it had not been much of a fight, and tried to laugh it off; but he turned over to us an unfurnished cabin and left us to spend a feverish and painful night on the wooden slats of the narrow bunks. In the morning there was not a spot the size of a man’s hand on either of our bodies that was not black and blue.
Eight weary days the creaking old tramp of a ship wheezed past the many bays that cut into the southern coast of French Indo-China. Early one gray morning, one year after my departure from Detroit, two small islands rose from the sea on our left. Several queer-looking Chinese boats, manned by evil-faced, unshaven yellow men, bobbed up out of the dawn, and, hooking the rail of our vessel with grappling-irons, floated along beside us, while their crews shouted to the passengers, offering to help them with their baggage. Greener islands appeared, and when we slipped into the horseshoe-shaped harbor of Hong-Kong it was still half shaded by the forest that incloses it.
A Chinese house-boat containing a large family set us ashore. We made our way to the Sailors’ Home. My hand had healed, but James was still so badly injured that we tried to secure entrance for him at the city hospital. For several days he was turned away; but at last, when he had become much worse, he was admitted, and I turned my attention to outgoing ships, eager to be off, though sorry to leave behind the best companion with whom I had ever shared the joys and miseries of the open road.
The next morning I boarded an English freight steamer about to sail for Shanghai, and asked for work to pay for my passage.
“Sure, lad,” cried the good-natured British mate. “Come on board to-night and go to work. The old man will be glad to give you a few bob for the run.”
At midnight we sailed. Four days later we were steaming slowly up the dark river between flat banks and warehouses. Our ship stopped close by the Sailors’ Home.