Around the World in 80 Days by Jules Verne (best story books to read .txt) 📕

he could with

the rolling of the steamer, to the after-deck. He saw no one

who resembled either his master or Aouda. “Good!” muttered he;

“Aouda has not got up yet, and Mr. Fogg has probably found some

partners at whist.”

 

He descended to the saloon. Mr. Fogg was not there.

Passepartout had only, however, to ask the purser the number

of his master’s state-room. The purser replied that he

did not know any passenger by the name of Fogg.

 

“I beg your pardon,” said Passepartout persistently. “He is a tall gentleman,

quiet, and not very talkative, and has with him a young lady—”

 

“There is no young lady on board,” interrupted the purser.

“Here is a list of the passengers; you may see for yourself.”

 

Passepartout scanned the list, but his master’s name was not upon it.

All at once an idea struck him.

 

“Ah! am I on the Carnatic?”

 

“Yes.”

 

“On the way to Yokohama?”

 

“Certainly.”

 

Passepartout had for an instant feared that he was on the wrong boat;

but, though he was really on the Carnatic, his master was not there.

 

He fell thunderstruck on a seat. He saw it all now.

He remembered that the time of sailing had been changed,

that he should have informed his master of that fact,

and that he had not done so. It was his fault, then,

that Mr. Fogg and Aouda had missed the steamer.

Yes, but it was still more the fault of the traitor who,

in order to separate him from his master, and detain

the latter at Hong Kong, had inveigled him into getting drunk!

He now saw the detective’s trick; and at this moment Mr. Fogg

was certainly ruined, his bet was lost, and he himself perhaps

arrested and imprisoned! At this thought Passepartout tore his hair.

Ah, if Fix ever came within his reach, what a settling of accounts

there would be!

 

After his first depression, Passepartout became calmer,

and began to study his situation. It was certainly not

an enviable one. He found himself on the way to Japan,

and what should he do when he got there? His pocket was empty;

he had not a solitary shilling, not so much as a penny.

His passage had fortunately been paid for in advance;

and he had five or six days in which to decide upon his future course.

He fell to at meals with an appetite, and ate for Mr. Fogg, Aouda,

and himself. He helped himself as generously as if Japan were a desert,

where nothing to eat was to be looked for.

 

At dawn on the 13th the Carnatic entered the port of Yokohama.

This is an important port of call in the Pacific, where all the

mail-steamers, and those carrying travellers between North America,

China, Japan, and the Oriental islands put in. It is situated

in the bay of Yeddo, and at but a short distance from that

second capital of the Japanese Empire, and the residence of the Tycoon,

the civil Emperor, before the Mikado, the spiritual Emperor,

absorbed his office in his own. The Carnatic anchored at the quay

near the custom-house, in the midst of a crowd of ships bearing

the flags of all nations.

 

Passepartout went timidly ashore on this so curious territory

of the Sons of the Sun. He had nothing better to do than,

taking chance for his guide, to wander aimlessly through the streets

of Yokohama. He found himself at first in a thoroughly European quarter,

the houses having low fronts, and being adorned with verandas,

beneath which he caught glimpses of neat peristyles. This quarter occupied,

with its streets, squares, docks, and warehouses, all the space between

the “promontory of the Treaty” and the river. Here, as at Hong Kong

and Calcutta, were mixed crowds of all races, Americans and English,

Chinamen and Dutchmen, mostly merchants ready to buy or sell anything.

The Frenchman felt himself as much alone among them as if he had dropped

down in the midst of Hottentots.

 

He had, at least, one resource to call on the French and English consuls

at Yokohama for assistance. But he shrank from telling the story

of his adventures, intimately connected as it was with that of his master;

and, before doing so, he determined to exhaust all other means of aid.

As chance did not favour him in the European quarter, he penetrated

that inhabited by the native Japanese, determined, if necessary,

to push on to Yeddo.

 

The Japanese quarter of Yokohama is called Benten, after the

goddess of the sea, who is worshipped on the islands round about.

There Passepartout beheld beautiful fir and cedar groves, sacred

gates of a singular architecture, bridges half hid in the midst

of bamboos and reeds, temples shaded by immense cedar-trees,

holy retreats where were sheltered Buddhist priests and sectaries

of Confucius, and interminable streets, where a perfect harvest of

rose-tinted and red-cheeked children, who looked as if they had been

cut out of Japanese screens, and who were playing in the midst

of short-legged poodles and yellowish cats, might have been gathered.

 

The streets were crowded with people. Priests were passing

in processions, beating their dreary tambourines; police and

custom-house officers with pointed hats encrusted with lac and

carrying two sabres hung to their waists; soldiers, clad in blue

cotton with white stripes, and bearing guns; the Mikado’s guards,

enveloped in silken doubles, hauberks and coats of mail;

and numbers of military folk of all ranks—for the military

profession is as much respected in Japan as it is despised

in China—went hither and thither in groups and pairs.

Passepartout saw, too, begging friars, long-robed pilgrims,

and simple civilians, with their warped and jet-black hair,

big heads, long busts, slender legs, short stature, and complexions

varying from copper-colour to a dead white, but never yellow,

like the Chinese, from whom the Japanese widely differ.

He did not fail to observe the curious equipages—carriages and palanquins,

barrows supplied with sails, and litters made of bamboo; nor the women—

whom he thought not especially handsome—who took little steps with their

little feet, whereon they wore canvas shoes, straw sandals, and clogs

of worked wood, and who displayed tight-looking eyes, flat chests,

teeth fashionably blackened, and gowns crossed with silken scarfs,

tied in an enormous knot behind an ornament which the modern

Parisian ladies seem to have borrowed from the dames of Japan.

 

Passepartout wandered for several hours in the midst of this motley crowd,

looking in at the windows of the rich and curious shops, the jewellery

establishments glittering with quaint Japanese ornaments, the restaurants

decked with streamers and banners, the tea-houses, where the odorous beverage

was being drunk with saki, a liquor concocted from the fermentation of rice,

and the comfortable smoking-houses, where they were puffing, not opium,

which is almost unknown in Japan, but a very fine, stringy tobacco.

He went on till he found himself in the fields, in the midst of vast

rice plantations. There he saw dazzling camellias expanding themselves,

with flowers which were giving forth their last colours and perfumes,

not on bushes, but on trees, and within bamboo enclosures, cherry, plum,

and apple trees, which the Japanese cultivate rather for their blossoms

than their fruit, and which queerly-fashioned, grinning scarecrows

protected from the sparrows, pigeons, ravens, and other voracious birds.

On the branches of the cedars were perched large eagles; amid the foliage

of the weeping willows were herons, solemnly standing on one leg;

and on every hand were crows, ducks, hawks, wild birds, and a

multitude of cranes, which the Japanese consider sacred,

and which to their minds symbolise long life and prosperity.

 

As he was strolling along, Passepartout espied some violets among the shrubs.

 

“Good!” said he; “I’ll have some supper.”

 

But, on smelling them, he found that they were odourless.

 

“No chance there,” thought he.

 

The worthy fellow had certainly taken good care to eat as

hearty a breakfast as possible before leaving the Carnatic;

but, as he had been walking about all day, the demands of hunger

were becoming importunate. He observed that the butchers stalls

contained neither mutton, goat, nor pork; and, knowing also that

it is a sacrilege to kill cattle, which are preserved solely for farming,

he made up his mind that meat was far from plentiful in Yokohama—

nor was he mistaken; and, in default of butcher’s meat,

he could have wished for a quarter of wild boar or deer,

a partridge, or some quails, some game or fish, which, with rice,

the Japanese eat almost exclusively. But he found it necessary

to keep up a stout heart, and to postpone the meal he craved till

the following morning. Night came, and Passepartout re-entered

the native quarter, where he wandered through the streets,

lit by vari-coloured lanterns, looking on at the dancers,

who were executing skilful steps and boundings, and the astrologers

who stood in the open air with their telescopes. Then he came

to the harbour, which was lit up by the resin torches of the fishermen,

who were fishing from their boats.

 

The streets at last became quiet, and the patrol, the officers

of which, in their splendid costumes, and surrounded by their suites,

Passepartout thought seemed like ambassadors, succeeded the bustling crowd.

Each time a company passed, Passepartout chuckled, and said to himself:

“Good! another Japanese embassy departing for Europe!”