第 二十二 章 · IN WHICH PASSEPARTOUT FINDS OUT THAT, EVEN AT THE ANTIPODES, IT IS

IN WHICH PASSEPARTOUT FINDS OUT THAT, EVEN AT THE ANTIPODES, IT IS

CONVENIENT TO HAVE SOME MONEY IN ONE’S POCKET

The “Carnatic,” setting sail from Hong Kong at half-past six on the 7th

of November, directed her course at full steam towards Japan. She

carried a large cargo and a well-filled cabin of passengers. Two

state-rooms in the rear were, however, unoccupied—those which had been

engaged by Phileas Fogg.

The next day a passenger with a half-stupefied eye, staggering gait,

and disordered hair, was seen to emerge from the second cabin, and to

totter to a seat on deck.

It was Passepartout; and what had happened to him was as follows:

Shortly after Fix left the opium den, two waiters had lifted the

unconscious Passepartout, and had carried him to the bed reserved for

the smokers. Three hours later, pursued even in his dreams by a fixed

idea, the poor fellow awoke, and struggled against the stupefying

influence of the narcotic. The thought of a duty unfulfilled shook off

his torpor, and he hurried from the abode of drunkenness. Staggering

and holding himself up by keeping against the walls, falling down and

creeping up again, and irresistibly impelled by a kind of instinct, he

kept crying out, “The ‘Carnatic!’ the ‘Carnatic!’”

The steamer lay puffing alongside the quay, on the point of starting.

Passepartout had but few steps to go; and, rushing upon the plank, he

crossed it, and fell unconscious on the deck, just as the “Carnatic”

was moving off. Several sailors, who were evidently accustomed to this

sort of scene, carried the poor Frenchman down into the second cabin,

and Passepartout did not wake until they were one hundred and fifty

miles away from China. Thus he found himself the next morning on the

deck of the “Carnatic,” and eagerly inhaling the exhilarating

sea-breeze. The pure air sobered him. He began to collect his sense,

which he found a difficult task; but at last he recalled the events of

the evening before, Fix’s revelation, and the opium-house.

“It is evident,” said he to himself, “that I have been abominably

drunk! What will Mr. Fogg say? At least I have not missed the steamer,

which is the most important thing.”

Then, as Fix occurred to him: “As for that rascal, I hope we are well

rid of him, and that he has not dared, as he proposed, to follow us on

board the “Carnatic.” A detective on the track of Mr. Fogg, accused of

robbing the Bank of England! Pshaw! Mr. Fogg is no more a robber than I

am a murderer.”

Should he divulge Fix’s real errand to his master? Would it do to tell

the part the detective was playing? Would it not be better to wait

until Mr. Fogg reached London again, and then impart to him that an

agent of the metropolitan police had been following him round the

world, and have a good laugh over it? No doubt; at least, it was worth

considering. The first thing to do was to find Mr. Fogg, and apologise

for his singular behaviour.

Passepartout got up and proceeded, as well as 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!”