Flash-lights From The Seven Seas Part 14

"There was not a Filipino doctor. She died in mother's arms!"

It was oppressively silent in that far-off mission home for a few minutes. I thought some one would sob aloud. It might have been any one of us, the way we all felt. I took hold of my cane chair with a grip that numbed my hands for a half hour afterwards.

CHAPTER VII

FLASH-LIGHTS OF FUN

All the "Peck's Bad Boys" of the world are not confined to American soil.

I found them all over the Far East; especially in China.

I was annexed by one of them who became a sort of a guide de luxe when we were going through the ruined Palaces of the romantic regions of Peking.

He annexed himself to us in somewhat the same fas.h.i.+on as a thistle or a burr annexes itself to you as you walk through the field where thistles are thick.

He was an acquired a.s.set of questionable value. With him were a lot of followers but it was plain to be seen that he was the leader of the gang; which was, for all the world, like a typical street gang in an American city.

Who could pa.s.s up that group of a dozen little rascals who followed us through the ruins of the old Summer Palace? Who could resist their imitations of everything one did? I sneezed and the little rascals sneezed also. I counted one, two, three, four, as I adjusted my Graflex for a picture and I heard a chorus of laughing "One, two, three, fours."

I yelled ahead to an American member of the party and said "Wait!" and a dozen boys yelled "Wait!"

We fell in love with the dirty-faced rascals. They looked to be a nuisance when we started and I wanted them driven back, but before we were through they had become the most interesting part of the whole trip. Sure enough we emptied our purses of pennies and some white money.

The little fellow who was in his bare feet and who said, with a real touch of seven year old Chinese humor, "These are leather shoes that I have on and they will last all my life," won our hearts. That was humor with a vengeance.

This lad was happy. No wonder then that when one of the party pa.s.sed him an extra penny early in the morning he winked knowingly as one who had been taken into the inner councils of affection.

And no wonder that he followed the man who gave him that penny to the end of the morning, and no wonder when we told him through the interpreter that we liked the boys because they were good boys; he said in return, "Some boys would have followed you around, pulling your coats and being rude and yelling at you."

The nonchalant way in which they admitted that they were good boys won our hearts and we came back penniless.

Then who can forget the little rascals who smiled and winked back in the midst of the dignified Lama ceremonies over at the Lama Temple, proving that they were, after all, real human boys with a laugh and the spirit of fun in their little souls in spite of their having to take part in this dignified chanting service.

It was fun when the service was over to see them tumble out of the Temple so fast that one boy fell and about six fell on top of him just as American boys do pouring out of school. I even saw one lad whack another one on the back of his little bald head and a scuffle ensued.

They laughed, fought, tumbled pell-mell, got up again grinning, winked and laughed back at the good natured Americans for all the world like American boys.

The Chinese have a distinct sense of humor and it is very much like that which is found in our own America. Indeed the Chinese are like us in many respects.

The Filipino enjoys a good joke but his humor is more cruel than is American humor.

The Dyak of Borneo has a sense of play and fun that would not exactly appeal to an American mind; although there are those who claim that American football is a near kin to the delightful game of Head-hunting indulged in by the Dyaks of Borneo.

The Dyaks have for centuries been known as the head-hunters of the Far East. They, in common with the Igorotes of the Philippines, have had the playful custom of going out when the mood took them and bringing in a few heads just as our Indians used to get scalps. When a Dyak youth wanted to marry a nice young Dyak girl to whom he had taken a fancy (and I can a.s.sure the reader that some of them are as beautiful as Rodin's bronze statues), he didn't even dare mention his desire for that young bronze beauty until he had brought in five or six heads. After that he had some standing in the lady's sight. Without the heads he had no more chance of winning either the girl herself or her pa or ma or any of the Dyak family than the proverbial s...o...b..ll has of getting through Borneo without melting. It just simply couldn't be done according to Dyak etiquette.

Head-hunting was a game between tribes also. When two tribes of Dyaks felt a playful mood coming on, they would challenge each other to a head-hunting game. The game would last for a week or so and the tribe that took the most heads won. It was nothing like "Tag you're it." If so, some of the skulls that I have seen at Dyak Compounds would not be grinning so hideously these days as they ornament the poles of certain vain and proud Dyak hunters.

The Battaks of Sumatra also have a playful custom of getting rid of their old men. When a man gets so old that they think it is about time for him to tell his last tale, they put him up a Cocoanut tree. Then all of the young bucks of the village get together and try to shake him down. If he is too feeble to hold on, and comes down, that is a sign of heaven that his days are through and they cook him and eat him.

The j.a.panese claim to have a great sense of humor. j.a.panese students speaking in America, insist that this is true. But travelers in j.a.pan do not find it so. Indeed if j.a.pan had a sense of humor, it would keep her out of many an international tangle. She does not know how to laugh. Her sense of dignity is so exaggerated that she does not know the fine art of smiling and laughing at herself.

"What does j.a.pan most need to learn?" a student asked me.

"To laugh," I replied.

"I think that you are right! Your Lincoln knew how to laugh!" was his response as he went off thoughtfully.

I was advertised to speak in a northern college in j.a.pan. The Dean of the school wanted to advertise me so that the students would all come out to hear me. This is the way he did it:

"Dr. Stidger is a college student who played with the foot-ball in America. He is a man with the bigness of the head! He reaches the six feet tall; the four feet around; has an arm like an ox and a head like a board!"

I was not certain as to just what he meant by many of those references, but I was a.s.sured that they were intended to be highly complimentary to me. I am not yet sure of that but I had a good laugh just the same.

The story is told of a ruthless American humorist Hotel-keeper in Singapore who was entertaining a group of j.a.panese Officers from the j.a.panese Navy. This American had no love for j.a.pan. He also knew of their lack of humor; so when the j.a.panese Captain arrived at the hotel the American Manager made quite an extended speech of welcome, as his American friends listened, greatly amused.

He said in part: "The hotel is yours! During your stay the entire force of servants is at your disposal. If there is anything that you want that you do not see, please ask for it."

[Ill.u.s.tration: OLD BROMO VOLCANO, JAVA.

"The way it effervesces Bromo is a fitting name," said the author when he saw it in action.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: A SIDE VIEW OF BEAUTIFUL BOROBOEDOER IN JAVA.

Said by travelers to make the Pyramids look like child's play as a tremendous piece of construction; and as a work of art to have no rival in the whole world.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: NAKED AND OTHERWISE.

This curious conglomeration of Mongrel children watching the photographer in Borneo where Dyaks, Chinese, Malay and others mix indiscriminately.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: A DOG MARKET AMONG THE IGGOROTEES OF THE PHILIPPINES.]

The j.a.panese Captain bowed continuously and smiled; sucking in his breath with a characteristic national custom; the same sound they made as they eat fried eggs in a j.a.panese dining car; a sound similar to the old-fas.h.i.+oned but now obsolete method of drinking coffee from a saucer.

"There is just one request however that we will have to make of you, while you are here with us in the hotel," continued the American hotel manager.

"And what is that may I ask?" inquired the j.a.panese Captain, still bowing and sucking in air through his teeth.

"That you do not climb around in the trees!"

The j.a.panese officers did not see the joke and did not even smile but the Americans in the Far East have laughed over it for years.

Which reminds one of the night on the Sambas River when a hundred little monkeys were silhouetted against a crimson sunset.

Red, brown, yellow, golden, blue orchids flashed in the sunlight; and flowers of every hue under G.o.d's blue skies made brilliant the river banks. At times the s.h.i.+p went so close that I could reach out and grab a limb of a tree, much to the indignation of the monkeys who chattered at me as if I had stolen something. Now and then a big lazy alligator slid into the water from the muddy banks as the wave-wash from our propeller frightened him.