A sampan, floating residence of a numerous family, set us ashore. We made our way to the Sailors’ Home. My hand had healed, but James had by no means recovered. As the day waned we made application in his behalf at the municipal hospital. It was the Australian’s misfortune that he was a British subject. Had he been of any other nationality his consul would soon have arranged for his admission. But as an Englishman he was legally at home and must therefore shift for himself. For several days he was turned away from the infirmary on threadbare pleas. Then at last he was admitted, and I turned my attention to outgoing ships, eager to be off, yet 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 the Fausang, an English cargo steamer about to sail for Shanghaï, and explained my desires to the good-humored British mate.
“Sure, lad!” he cried, booting across the hatchway a Chinaman who was belaboring a female stevedore. “Come on board to-night and go to work. We can’t sign you on, but the old man will be glad to give you a few bob for the run.”
At midnight we sailed. Again I quickly fell into the routine of watch and watch and life in the forecastle. Four days later we anchored in quarantine at the mouth of the Woosung, then steamed slowly up the murky stream between flat, verdureless banks adorned by immense godowns, and docked close off the Sailors’ Home.
It is at Shanghaï that the American wanderer, circumnavigating the globe from west to east, begins to feel that he is approaching his native land. Not only is he technically at home in one section of the international city, but it is here that he meets the vanguard of penniless adventurers from “the States.” Tramps from the Pacific slope venture now and then thus far afield, as those along the opposite seaboard drift across to the British Isles. But the world that lies between these outposts knows little of the “hobo.”
Rumor had it that “the graft” was good in the Chinese port. Before I had been a day ashore I came across a dozen or more fellow-countrymen who had picked up a living for weeks among the tender-hearted white residents and tourists. That was no great difficulty, to be sure, for samshoo, the Chinese fire-water, sold cheaply; and an abundant meal of milk, bread, potatoes, and eggs was to be had for ten cents “Mex” in the establishment of a native who enjoyed the distinction of having lived in “Flisco.”
There were delightful spots, too, in the close-packed city. Along the Bund in the English section was a pleasant little park to which white men, Indians, or plain “niggers” might retreat; but to which no Chinaman, be he coolie or mandarin, was admitted. When the sun was well on its decline a stroll out Bubbling Well Road proved an agreeable experience. Towards nightfall the European rendezvous was the broad, grassy Maidan, where Englishmen, in spotless flannels, and crumple-shirted Americans, perspired at their respective national pastimes. So numerous were the residents of Shanghaï hailing from “the States” that each evening two teams struggled against each other in a series that was to decide the baseball championship of southern China.
European Shanghaï is the center of business activity. Round about it lies many a square mile of two-story shanties that throttle each other for leave to stand erect, fed by a maze of narrow footpaths aglow with brilliant signboards and gay joss-houses, and surcharged with sour-faced Celestials who scowl threateningly at the European pedestrian or mock his movements in exaggerated gesture and grimace. Cackling vendors zigzag through the throng; wealthy Chinamen in festive robes and carefully oiled cues pick their way along the meandering lanes; burly runners, bearing on one shoulder a lady of quality crippled since infancy by dictate of an ancient custom, jog in and out among the shoppers.
There is in Shanghaï an institution known officially as “Hanbury’s Coffee House,” popularly, as the “bums’ retreat.” Of the two titles the latter is more exactly descriptive. But its charges were lower than those of the Sailors’ Home, and on my third day in the city I moved thither. With my “swag” under one arm I strolled into the common room and approached the proprietor behind the register. A dozen beachcombers were sitting over cards and samshoo at the small tables. As I reached for the pen a sudden shout sounded behind me:—
“By God! There’s the very bloke now! The bum that carries a camera. Hello, Franck!”