"I am sorry the Russians have gone," he said; "they were great gamblers."
There we learned that fighting was going on at Liao-Yang—real, continuous fighting; and a melancholy of which no man spoke set in strong with all of us. But there was that American Man-of-War out in the harbor, and Davis and I went out to her and climbed aboard. We saw nice, clean American boys again, and pictures of their sisters and sweethearts, and we had dinner and wine, and we made that good ship shake from stem to stern with song.
Two days later we were threading a way through a wilderness of ships of all the nations of the earth into Shanghai. Shanghai—that "Paris of the East"—with its stone buildings and hotels and floating flags; its beautiful Bund bordered with trees and parks and paths, its streets thronged with a medley of races and full of modern equipages, rattling cabs, rattling rickshaws, and ancient Chinese wheelbarrows each with one big wooden wheel, pushed by a single Chinaman with a strap over his shoulder, and weighted, sometimes, with six Chinese factory-girls, their tiny feet dangling down—and all this confusion handled and guarded by giant, red-turbaned Sikh policemen—each bearing himself with the dignity of a god. There was gay life in Shanghai—good and bad; town clubs and country clubs, with tennis, cricket, and golf. There were beautiful roads, filled with handsome carriages and smart men and women on smart horses, and there were road-houses with men and women who were not so smart seated around little tables all over the verandas, with much music coming from within. Along that Bund at night were house-boats anchored, on the decks of which people dined among red candles to the music of a brass band in a park near by—brilliantly lit. And there was a Chinese quarter not far away, thronged with strange faces, with narrow, twisting streets, some murky and some gay with lanterns that hung from restaurants, theatres, opium dens, singing and gambling halls, while through those streets coolies bore high on their shoulders gayly dressed Chinese singing-girls from one hall to another.
On the ship for Nagasaki were many young Chinese boys and girls going to other lands to be educated, and I was given two significant bits of information: "Ten years ago," said a man, "a foreign education was a complete bar to political preferment over here. Things have so changed and a foreign education is now such an advantage that rich Chinamen who have political aspirations for their sons purposely send them abroad to be educated."
"On this ship," said another, "and the two ships that follow her, many hundred young Chinamen are going over to Japan to get a military training. And yet, according to some observers, there is nothing doing in China—even on the part of Japan."
We landed at Nagasaki and had a three nights' ride to Yokohama in a crowded car in which it was possible to sleep only when sitting upright. On the third day the long train came to a stop at daybreak and every Japanese soul in it—man, woman, and child—poured out, each with a towel, scrubbed vigorously at a water-trough and came back, each sawing on his teeth with a wooden tooth-brush. Such a scene could be paralleled nowhere else. I suppose the Japanese are the cleanliest people in the world.
Tokio at last—and a request from the Japanese: Would we consider going back to Port Arthur? We would not.
"Please consider the question." We considered.
"Yes," we said, "we will go."
"You can't," said the Japanese.