Zigzag Journeys in the Antipodes ... Fully illustrated

Front matter

The Zigzag Series. BY HEZEKIAH BUTTERWORTH. ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN EUROPE. ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN CLASSIC LANDS. ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN THE ORIENT. ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN THE OCCIDENT. ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN NORTHERN LANDS. ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN A CADI A. ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN THE LEVANT. ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN THE SUNNY SOUTH. ZIGZAG JOUKNEYS IN INDIA. ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN THE ANTIPODES. ESTBS AND LAURIAT, Publishers, BOSTON, MASS. "A DOG DRIVING HOME A HORSE FOR HELP FOR HIS DRUNKEN MASTER WHO HAD FALLEN FROM THE CARRIAGE." — Page ill. Zigzag Journeys IN THE ANTIPODES BY HEZEKIAH BUTTERWORTH. FULLY ILLUSTRATED. BOSTON: EST ES AND LAURIAT.

Preface

. VIII The " Zigzag " books, which are stories of places, are written with the aim of interesting the young in what is at once entertaining and educational. It is hoped that they may lead the young readers to form a taste for the better books of geography, history, legend, and song, that treat the several subjects for more mature minds. The author feels grateful to the public, and especially to parents and teachers, for the kind and liberal way in which each new volume has been received. H. BUTTERWORTH. 28 Worcester Street, Boston, Mass. CONTENTS. Chapter Page I. A Telegrapher in a White Mountain Hotel 15 II. Finding the Antipodes of the West, and the Christmas of Columbus in the New World 28 III. Cousin Ivory, and a Letter from Siam 44 IV. A Citv ruled by an Elephant 55 V. Ayuthia, the Terrestrial Paradise 71 VI.

The most avonderful Ruins of Asia 80 VII. The Story of the Leper King 88 VIII. Ivory in Florida 95 IX. Ivory's strange Stories 115 X. Java. — The Story of the Flving Dutchavoman .... 148 XI. Bangkok 179 XII. The Siamese Tavins 196 XIII. The Adventures of a Lineman in Sumatra 207 XIV. Java, and the Flying Dutchman 229 XV Bangkok again 250 XVI. The Fate of the Seven Merchants avho believed Lies . 283 XVII. The Cremation of a King 309 XVIII. Ivory's Death ILLUSTRATIONS. Page "A dog driving home a horse for help for his drunken master who had fallen from the carriage " . . . .

Frontispiece " It was a lonely house, deserted by its builders " 16 " I was reported to have pursued him at a wild pace through the woods" . 19 " I used to shoot at everything, whether it were good to eat or not ".'... 23 " Naples, where he would see the fires of Vesuvius gleaming on the emerald deeps of the summer sea ".'... 29 "The boy-dreamer of Genoa — for it was he — told him his dream "... 35 "Land is nigh,'' he said; "we shall see it in the morning" 38 The Harbor of Havana 41 Drifting up the Meinam in May ... 45 Map of Siam 47 He " points toward the dazzling light and says, ' Bangkok '" 49 A Fatriarcli of .1 Monkey and his Family 51 "The morning will find us in Bangkok" 53 " For, you know, the Buddhists believe that men are reborn according to merit " 56 The Elephants' Kraal 57 "The palace itself is a wonder " ... 61 Driving Wild Elephants into the Kraal . 64 Royal Audience Hall at Bangkok . 65 The King as a Boy 69 "The royal city of Ayuthia" .... 73 Ruins of the Golden Mountain . 77 " I enclose a picture " 80 The Leper King 81 Pagr " The temple covered an area of ten acres " 83 The Giant Bridge at Angker, restored . 87 " Its domes were like stars, and its pinnacles like jewels " 89 " The King from the Lotus Land started on a long journey " 93 " By the gate of the palace he sat, the Leper King" 94 The White Heron 97 Birds on the Indian River 101 The River Ouse goes dimpling by . . 105 Cowper's House at Olney 109 " The orioles are weavers " 112 " Swallows that frequent the surf-beaten caves " 113 The Astrologer from Siam 118 " Moonsee can burn water " .... 119 " We had gone out into the court to enjoy the cooler air " 125 " The pious fakir rolled down his back" 129 " A very wise king he must have been" 132 " The rachassee and the elephant are usually placed on the outside of the temples " 133 " Its fond mother first brought it into the sitting-room in her mouth " . . 137 " Her eyes were filled with reproach" 141 " She 's brought it home, basket and all" 143 "A negro boy violently kicked him " . 145 A Javan Basket-Merchant 149 " She did not look as though she could fly" 152 The Java Coffee-Market ILLUSTRA TIONS.

Page " The fishermen said she had wings " . 155 The great Buddhist Temple of Java . . 157 " Here the local sportsmen sought them " 161 " He had turned around with wild eyes, and fled" 165 A Bamboo Bridge 169 A Roadside in Java 173 " People seemed to live on the water" . 177 " Within these walls reside none but women" 181 Siamese Dramatic Artists 185 The Ceremonial of Shaving the Hair . 189 " He shot an arrow into the air "... -193 Ladies dining in the Inner City . 197 The Siamese Twins 199 Javan Women dancing 201 A Javan Home 205 " Down the valley ofthe River Busar " . 209 A little Suspension Bridge of Bamboo . 212 A Scene in Sumatra 213 " Others were breaking down or wrenching out the posts " 217 " So he sent for his lords and attendants, and they all set off together " . 220 " On he rode as fast as before, with the tree in his hand " 223 An Avenue in Batavia 227 Chinese devoured by Man-eating Tigers 231 " And yet the mice do not love the cat " 234 " Vessels went out of Amsterdam empty " 236 " A strange form appeared on the deck " 237 Pack " He would have to sail away again " . 241 "He is doomed to sail forever" . . . 243 " Like to a vision, seen in days long by-gone " 247 " Many millions more for sport " . . . 251 An Idolatrous Habit 253 " They met a forlorn donkey " . . . 255 " Now, the building was not a temple, but the palace of a Rakshas " . . . 257 Idol of the God of Wisdom 260 " The same eternal figure of Buddha " . 261 " Both girls were laughing and shrieking, and making merry over their work " . 263 " We walked by the canal " .... 267 " In the fall the river overflows its banks" 272 " The driver sat on the head of the elephant " 273 A Pagoda in the Laos 275 A Marriage Ceremony in Java .... 279 On a Bamboo Raft 285 Rafting Teak- Wood 289 A Village in the Upper Laos .... 293 The City of Xieng Mai, in the Upper Laos 297 " He seized the man and was about to devour him" 301 " The elephant begged for a week's delay " 3°5 A Break-Neck Ride 311 Ivory's Tomb at Bangkok -_I7

Chapter I

\ TELEGRAPHER IN A WHITE MOUNTAIN HOTEL. HAD never thought much about the sacredness of all life, animal as well as human, until I met my cousin Ivory, from Siam. I was employed as tutor in the family of one of the great White Mountain hotel-keepers in the summer, and I held the same position in a Florida hotel in winter, both houses having the same proprietor. I was fond of the gun, and I had never been taught that there was anything more wrong or cruel in killing a bird or an animal without a purpose, than in cutting down a shrub or a plant. None of my teachers had ever said anything to me upon the subject. I had never heard so much as a suggestion concern ing it in the church or the Sunday-school. I had read something about the subject in Thoreau's " Walden; " that was all. I had been sent to school in an old red school-house amons: the Granite Hills, in the town where the hotel was situated.

The school house had a terrible tradition. It was a lonely house, deserted by its builders, and adapted to its altered use by an economical school-committee where land was cheap. The house, one fall, obtained the dark reputation of being haunted. The children's lunches often disappeared in a way that was unaccountable. In early spring the story had been revived, as strange noises were heard under the building. One day, at recess, one of the pupils discovered a large hole under the foundations of the building ; and through the opening appeared a long, brown nose, almost as lame as that of a horse. What could it be ? The more " IT WAS A LONELY HOUSE, DESERTED BY ITS BUILDERS." adventurous boys threw sticks and stones at the mysterious nose, when there emerged from the hole a long head and a great shaggy body.

" A bear! " shouted all ; and there was a flying of feet inside of the doors. The faces of the teacher and of all the boys and girls filled the A TELEGRAPHER IN A WHITE MOUNTAIN HOTEL. 17 windows, and a large bear was seen swaying to and fro from the house toward a long strip of pine that led to the hills. Had the bear been under the house all winter? Was another there? Would he return ? Not only the school, but the whole neighborhood had been thrown into a great state of excitement by this queer event. The boys or ganized an Anti-Bear Club, and made me their leader. I felt very heroic over the honor. To be the Chief of the Anti-Bear Club, in this time of excitement, was no common trust. I felt its importance duly; and to prepare myself for some future great encounter with Bruin, I began to wage war on innocent rabbits and otters, and the whole animal kingdom.

We armed ourselves with bows and arrows, and began to practise at a mark which we seldom failed not to hit ; and if the mark had been the bear, the arrows would not have given him so much as a scratch. People began to carry guns in their wagons when they were to pass through lonely roads, and especially when they went to mill, as the mill was on a secluded waterfall far from the main way. I had been accustomed to go to mill on horseback, sitting upon the grist like a saddle. " Manton," said my father to me one day, " we are out of meal." " I will go to mill," said I, " but I must have the gun.' " The gun ! Pooh ! What for ? "Why, you know, — the bear." " But you don't need the gun on horseback. The horse would save you, if you should see the bear." " Yes ; but I could not kill the bear." "True, Manton, true, — well, take the gun."

The horse was a young one and quite nervous; but he had carried grists to the mill several times in safety, shying at times at a stump or a noise in the bushes by the wayside. I never felt more proud in my life than when I mounted the horse on the bag, and father handed me the gun. Had I not seen a like picture in the "Trappers' Tales"? I turned the gun in an inverse angle under my left arm, for it was in this picturesque way that I fancied I had seen it carried by some pictured Mexican on the plains. In making this curious manœuvre I chanced to hit the pony, and the latter began to wheel round and round. At each circle the gun would strike him again, and he seemed to become very suspicious that the gun was not a proper thing to carry. But after much excitement he came under control, and I started toward the mill.

It was a fragrant morning in spring; the snow was melting on the mountains, and there were cascades everywhere. The bluebirds had come, and the red-headed woodpeckers were tapping the trees. The sun was all radiance, glimmering amid the hemlocks ; and I, the Chief of the Anti-Bear Club, rode on, longing for an adventure that would justify my title to that honor. But no bear appeared. I began to hear the mill-wheel turning in the distance, and felt a shadow of disappointment at not having met the bear. At this unheroic juncture a little rabbit chanced to run into the road. I whistled. He pricked up his ears and stopped. I was full of the impulse to use the gun, and turned the latter suddenly and fired. The earth seemed to collapse with the report of the gun. I know not how it all came about so suddenly.

I recall finding myself on the ground in a heap of shelled corn, of seeing a rabbit's tail dis appearing in the bushes, and the very much longer tail of a wild pony forming a curve over a side hill. I was greatly shocked and amazed. Just then an animal moved in some bushes by the roadside. It might have been the bear. I never knew. If I could not kill the bear, I was resolved that the Chief of the Anti-Bear Club at least should not be devoured by the bear; and leaving the gun in the road, I flew toward the mill. It was a terrible tale of adventure that I had to tell the miller. The latter told it to the farmers as they came with their grists. The excitement grew. I recovered my gun and returned home on foot. " I WAS REPORTED TO HAVE PURSUED HIM AT A WILD PACE THROUGH THE WOODS." A TELEGRAPHER IN A WHITE MOUNTAIN HOTEL- 21 My mother received me gratefully, and said it was a " narrer escape."

The pony had returned, but he would not allow me to approach him for weeks. As for father, he merely said : " Well, Manton, ye made a rather scatterin voyage." The bear story was told at the great hotel when the summer season opened, and had a most ridiculous ending. The old women and servants were often heard cautioning the children of the hotel boarders not to go far from the grounds nor into the woods, lest they should meet with the dreadful bear and some Little Red Riding-Hood catastrophe should follow. The women of the hotel were very cautious of long excursions, and avoided the beautiful byways of the country. Bruin had become a bugbear indeed, and I was reported to have pursued him at a wild pace through the woods to his lair. There was a little girl boarder called Flossie. I never knew what her other name was.

Her mother was rich and pretentious ; a person of newly acquired wealth, I think, as most showy people are. She affected great fear of the perils of country life, and had a great horror that Flossie might be devoured by the bear. The bear would have had a hard time to devour Flossie, with her doll dresses, ribbons, enormous hat, and ornaments. But her mother, many times a day, would look up from her novel to say, " Don't go far, Flossie, on account of the bear." The bear story grew. All bear stories are apt to grow. A hotel is a good place for a story to grow ; boarders of easy means are apt to have very poetic imaginations. One day I heard Flossie's mother say, " Don't run away, Flossie ; remember those little school-children who were eaten up by the bear." " Where were they eaten up by the bear, mother?

" "Oh, I don't know ! Don't bother me ; the Bible tells all about it." This was an evolution of the local story, indeed. But one day Flossie " runned away," as she called her escapade. It was one morning, toward noon, that a doll-like little figure was seen flying down the ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN THE ANTIPODES. 22 near hill, evidently in great terror. Her hat, which was as big as a parasol, was floating behind her on trie wind ; her ribbons streamed like flags, and her white dress like a wee yacht under full sail. Her mother saw her coming in this alarmed condition, dropped her novel, and like one of her novel's probable heroes or heroines, cried, " My child, my child ! " Flossie presently fell down in a little muslin heap on the veranda of the hotel. Her mother picked her up, drew her to her breast, and gasped, " What is it, Flossie ?

" Flossie sobbed. At last, when somewhat quieted, Flossie ventured to look up into her mother's face. 1 What is it, Flossie ? " 'I — saw — the — horrid — bear." " Oh, Flossie ! I will not stay here a day longer." The mother put her adventurous little one down gently, and hur ried into the parlor to spread the fearful news. Several guests agreed with the indignant mother that the place was unsafe for women and children, and that they ought to make a change. Flossie became a heroine. That evening the hotel proprietor, alarmed at the evil reputation which had befallen his house, came into the parlor where the women and the new Little Red Riding- Hood were. " I think it is a shame to keep a hotel in such a place," said Flos sie's mother; and a rich old lady, in a high cap and a stiff satin dress, said plainly, with great dignity and a wave of a feather-fan, — " And I think so too.

A man ought to be prosecuted.' " I think there is some mistake," said the proprietor. " How did the bear look, Flossie ? " " Black, — it was a black bear." "There!" said Flossie's mother; "could anything be more con vincing: than that ? " " But how did you know it was a bear ? Did you ever see a bear ? " "Yes; I'se seen 'em in the picture-books." " I USED TO SHOOT AT EVERYTHING, WHETHER IT WERE GOOD TO EAT OR NOT." A TELEGRAPHER IN A WHITE MOUNTAIN HOTEL. 25 " It might have been a black dog." No, it was n't, — I know it was a bear. " How, Flossie ? " " He said so hisself." There was an awful silence. The old woman dropped her feather fan. Had the age of Æsop returned again? What did he say, Flossie ? " He just said, Ba-a." If ever a parlor full of women turned into statues, it was at this dramatic disclosure.

The proprietor laid back his head to take breath, and then such an explosion of laughter as followed I have seldom heard. Flossie's mother rose, and said with an injured air, — " It is time for you to go to bed, Flossie ; " and in this opinion there seemed to be a unanimous agreement. I never heard much fear of the bear expressed anywhere, after this episode was made public and became a village story. But my boyish experience, as the Chief of the Anti-Bear Club, gave me an education in cruelty that I to-day look back upon with horror, and I wonder how I, who have naturally a kind heart, could have done some acts which I did without any disturbance of conscience. I used to shoot at everything, whether it were good to eat or not, or harmful or not ; and there is nothing that flies or walks which is really harmful, or not a help to the largest interest of mankind.

I recall breaking: the wing of a mother robin while the latter was sitting upon her young brood, and that the act did give me a twinge of conscience. I shot at her with an arrow. She dropped from her nest with a broken wing, ran into some briers, and I caught her. I put her in a cage, and she got away twice ; and as she could not fly, she tried to hop back to her nest and young. A feeling of pity filled my heart, as I saw this instinct. She and her brood died in a few days. I have to-day no words to express my detestation of such an act. What a brute I was, to deprive this innocent bird of the orchards, the sun- ZIGZAG JOURNEYS IN THE ANTIPODES. shine, her nest, her young, and all that God and Nature had fitted her to enjoy ! Was I to blame ? Yes ; but there were other conditions of social life to blame.

My parents were to blame ; my teachers were to blame ; the papers and books that I read were to blame ; and the dead social conscience was to blame, and all the influences that were indifferent to the sacredness of animal life. My cousin Ivory? His father was a missionary in Siam. Ivory had come to this country when a boy, and studied tvvo years at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology at Boston, had returned to the Antipodes, and been employed as a lineman in Sumatra. I had met him often when he was in America, had come to like him more than others, and a warm attachment had been formed between us. Sumatra is a land of strange aninials, and I read with an eager interest Ivory's letters, that were full of stories of adventures among animals which opposed his work on the telegraph lines.

But these letters had a very different spirit from those of American boys in the East or West. There was a kindliness in them that I could not understand. We came to speak of Ivory as our cousin in the Antipodes. After several years' work in telegraph building in Sumatra, Java, and Siam, I received a letter from him which greatly pleased me. I had become a tutor then. " Who do you suppose is about to visit me ? " I asked of my pupils one day. "Your friend Harry from the Plains," said one, with expectation. "No; my cousin Ivory from the Antipodes." "What are the Antipodes?" asked all. " The people whose feet are turned toward ours." " Does your cousin Ivory walk with his feet turned toward ours ? " asked a lad. " Yes." A TELEGRAPHER IN A WHITE MOUNTAIN HOTEL. 27 " With his head hanging down over nothing?

I should think that he would fall off." " Where would he go to ? " asked another. I promised my pupils that our next studies in geography should be the Antipodes ; and at our next session I related to them the following story.

Chapter II Finding The Antipodes Of The West, And The Christmas Of

COLUMBUS IN THE NEW WORLD. BOUT four hundred and thirty years ago, an Italian boy was sitting upon one of the old quays of Genoa, gazing upon the evening star. He had recently returned from the University at Pavia, and knew something of astronomy. He was not like other boys, although he knew not why at the time, — he afterward said that a Divine calling to perform some unknown mission had impressed itself upon him in his boyhood, and that it was this which gave his mind and feet no rest in his early years. The star seemed hanging in the liquid air. How did it come there? What held it? Was it a sphere? What if this earth itself were a star, hanging like a sphere in space? If so, half of this earth-star was unknown. He dreamed, per haps, that he was upon another planet, and found it looked out into the heavens for the earth.

Night came : the celestial scenery began to appear ; the great planets shone like astrals. Then in his dream appeared the earth. It was a little star. What if he could sail away into the unknown regions of the ocean, and find there an undiscovered hemisphere? The shadows were falling upon Genoa, and stars like lamps were appear ing over the dark walls of the mountains. The city stood white in the gather ing gloom; lights twinkled in the cool balconies, and the boats came in from the sea. The boy sat dreaming. In his studies he had met with a Latin author, Seneca. The works of this author contained a strange prophecy, and in it were the Latin words Ultima Thule, — " the last world." The words " Ultima Thule " seemed spoken to his soul. Very early in his life, perhaps at this very hour, they began to haunt him, and make his imagination restless.

" Ultima Thule ! Ultima Thule ! " rang in his ears. "NAPLES, WHERE HE WOULD SEE THE FIRES OF VESUVIUS GLEAMING ON THE EMERALD DEEPS OF THE SUMMER SEA." The boy was poor. He must become a sailor, — most poor boys of Genoa became sailors. In a few days he would make his first voyage; it would be to Naples, where he would see the fires of Vesuvius gleaming on the emerald deeps of the summer sea. He had a very religious nature, and he was a lover of church music and the old Latin hymns. There was one hymn that the sailors used to sing; it was a hymn to a star. The Virgin was represented in it as a Star. When the boy first heard this hymn we do not know, but it became the hymn of his soul, — "Ave Maria Stella." "Gentle Star of Ocean, Portal ofthe sky! Ever Virgin Mother Of the Lord Most High ! " There were tvvo stanzas of this old hymn that expressed his aspiration and feeling, — "Still, as on we journey, Help our weak endeavor, Till with Thee and Jesus We rejoice forever.

"Through the highest heaven To the Almighty Three, Father, Son, and Spirit, Equal glory be ! " The beautiful night was filled with stars, as the boy turned away from the lonely quay, and made his way through the silent streets to his simple home. The stars seemed all around him like the lamps of a celestial city. What if the earth itself were but one of them? What if the earth were a star? In 1459 the boy sailed away under the bright banners of John of Anjou, in the expedition of that Duke to gain the crown of Naples. From that day he became a sailor, and lived for years almost constantly upon the Mediterranean. But wherever he went the dream of his boyhood came back, ever with more distinctness. His mind was haunted by his star. The boy, a young man now, began to hear strange stories ofthe bold sailors of Henry of Portugal.

These Portuguese adventurers were believed to have discovered the Fortunate Islands, the Hesperian Gardens of the Golden Age. They were venturing farther and farther upon the unknown ocean, and were filling Portugal with wonderful stories of what they had found and seen. It was believed at this time that beyond the known ocean v/as a sea of mon sters, and that this sea was eternally dark, and that they who should venture near it would be devoured by sea dragons or serpents of horrid shapes and gigantic forms. Nothing could be more horrible than this imaginary dark sea. The Portuguese, however, did not find it. The ocean, wherever they ven tured, was calm and beautiful, and lighted with stars. There was no eternal darkness and there were no monsters. But the sky in summer was often fiery, and it came to be believed by many that instead of an ocean of darkness and monsters the sea was bounded by awful gulfs of fire, and that those who dared to go beyond a certain imaginary boundary would never return, — that they would sail into billows of fire, and so be destroyed.

Prince Henry of Portugal had become intensely interested in the navigators' tales. He established a naval college and erected an observatory, and became the patron of adventurous navigators. He, too, began to dream of islands and peopled regions beyond the known limits of the sea. The mariner's compass under his influence came into general use. Ships sailed into the tropics, and were not lost either in darkness or in flames. The African coast became known, and the beautiful Azore Islands. The boy dreamer heard of these wonderful things. His restless imagination made his feet restless. He must go to Portugal. Not for wealth, not for fame, but because he had dreamed a dream that was greater than had entered other minds, because a Divine influence seemed to inspire him and impel him, he must go.

He had seen a star. He arrived at Lisbon in 1470, a young man, handsome and courtly, but lonely and mysterious. His dream had become his life. He had not been like other boys, and now he was not like other men. But those who came to know him loved him greatly ; and among them Dona Felipa, the daughter of an Italian cavalier, one of Prince Henry's navigators, whom he married. He still loved the stars, and gazed wistfully toward the mysterious sea, and dreamed. The words "Ultima Thule" still haunted him; something awaited him that did not belong to the destiny of other men, — what, he did not know. He loved the Church, and secret communion with God. It was his delight to hide away in the Chapel of All Saints ; to go away from the vision of the stars to seek the direction of Him who had created all things and knew the great secrets of all.