Lives of Girls Who Became Famous

by Sarah Knowles Bolton

Their visit to the South Sea Islands is full of interest. At Bow Island Lady Brassey buys two tame pigs for twenty-five cents each, which are so docile that they follow her about the yacht with the dogs, to whom they took a decided fancy. She calls one Agag, because he walks so delicately on his toes. The native women break cocoanuts and offer them the milk to drink. At Maitea the natives are puzzled to know why the island is visited. "No sell brandy?" they ask. "No." "No stealy men?" "No." "No do what then?" The chief receives most courteously, cutting down a banana-tree for them, when they express a wish for bananas. He would receive no money for his presents to them.

In Tahiti a feast is given in their honor, in a house seemingly made of banana-trees, "the floor covered with the finest mats, and the centre strewn with broad green plantain leaves, to form the table-cloth.... Before each guest was placed a half-cocoanut full of salt water, another full of chopped cocoanut, a third full of fresh water, and another full of milk, two pieces of bamboo, a basket of poi, half a breadfruit, and a platter of green leaves, the latter being changed with each course. We took our seats on the ground round the green table. The first operation was to mix the salt water and the chopped cocoanut together, so as to make an appetizing sauce, into which we were supposed to dip each morsel we ate. We were tolerably successful in the use of our fingers as substitutes for knives and forks."

At the Sandwich Islands, in Hilo, they visit the volcano of Kilauea. They descend the precipice, three hundred feet, which forms the wall of the old crater. They ascend the present crater, and stand on the "edge of a precipice, overhanging a lake of molten fire, a hundred feet below us, and nearly a mile across. Dashing against the cliffs on the opposite side, with a noise like the roar of a stormy ocean, waves of blood-red, fiery liquid lava hurled their billows upon an iron-bound headland, and then rushed up the face of the cliffs to toss their gory spray high in the air."

They pass the island of Molokai, where the poor lepers end their days away from home and kindred. At Honolulu they are entertained by the Prince, and then sail for Japan, China, Ceylon, through Suez, stopping in Egypt, and then home. On their arrival, Lady Brassey says, "How can I describe the warm greetings that met us everywhere, or the crowd that surrounded us; how, along the whole ten miles from Hastings to Battle, people were standing by the roadside and at the cottage doors to welcome us; how the Battle bell-ringers never stopped ringing except during service time; or how the warmest of welcomes ended our delightful year of travel and made us feel we were home at last, with thankful hearts for the providential care which had watched over us whithersoever we roamed!"

The trip had been one of continued ovation. Crowds had gathered in every place to see the Sunbeam, and often trim her with flowers from stem to stern. Presents of parrots, and kittens, and pigs abounded, and Lady Brassey had cared tenderly for them all. Christmas was observed on ship-board with gifts for everybody; thoughtfulness and kindness had made the trip a delight to the crew as well as the passengers.

The letters sent home from the Sunbeam were so thoroughly enjoyed by her father and friends, that they prevailed upon her to publish a book, which she did in 1878. It was found to be as full of interest to the world as it had been to the intimate friends, and it passed rapidly through four editions. An abridged edition appeared in the following year; then the call for it was so great that an edition was prepared for reading in schools, in 1880, and finally, in 1881, a twelve-cent edition, that the poor as well as the rich might have an opportunity of reading this fascinating book, Around the World in the Yacht Sunbeam. And now Lady Brassey found herself not only the accomplished and benevolent wife of a member of Parliament, but a famous author as well.

This year, July, 1881, the King of the Sandwich Islands, who had been greatly pleased with her description of his kingdom, was entertained at Normanhurst Castle, and invested Lady Brassey with the Order of Kapiolani.

The next trip made was to the far East, and a book followed in 1880, entitled, Sunshine and Storm in the East; or, Cruises to Cyprus and Constantinople, dedicated "to the brave, true-hearted sailors of England, of all ranks and services."

The book is intensely interesting. Now she describes the Sultan going to the mosque, which he does every Friday at twelve o'clock. "He appeared in a sort of undress uniform, with a flowing cloak over it, and with two or three large diamond stars on his breast. He was mounted on a superb white Arab charger, thirty-three years old, whose saddle-cloths and trappings blazed with gold and diamonds. The following of officers on foot was enormous; and then came two hundred of the fat blue and gold pashas, with their white horses and brilliant trappings, the rear being brought up by some troops and a few carriages.... Nobody dares address the Sultan, even if he speaks to them, except in monosyllables, with their foreheads almost touching the floor, the only exception being the grand vizier, who dares not look up, but stands almost bent double. He is entirely governed by his mother, who, having been a slave of the very lowest description, to whom his father, Mahmoud II., took a fancy as she was carrying wood to the bath, is naturally bigoted and ignorant.... The Sultan is not allowed to marry, but the slaves who become mothers of his children are called sultanas, and not allowed to do any more work. They have a separate suite of apartments, a retinue of servants, besides carriages and horses, and each hopes some day to be the mother of the future Sultan, and therefore the most prominent woman in Turkey. The sultanas may not sit at table with their own children, on account of their having been slaves, while the children are princes and princesses in right of their father."

Lady Brassey tells the amusing story of a visit of Eugenie to the Sultan's mother, when the Empress of the French saluted her on the cheek. The Turkish woman was furious, and said she had never been so insulted in her life. "She retired to bed at once, was bled, and had several Turkish baths, to purify her from the pollution. Fancy the Empress' feelings when, after having so far condescended as to kiss the old woman, born one of the lowest of slaves, she had her embrace received in such a manner."