Around the World in Eighty Days

  Chapter XXII

  IN WHICH PASSEPARTOUT FINDS OUT THAT, EVEN AT THE ANTIPODES, IT ISCONVENIENT TO HAVE SOME MONEY IN ONE'S POCKET

  The Carnatic, setting sail from Hong Kong at half-past six on the 7thof November, directed her course at full steam towards Japan. Shecarried a large cargo and a well-filled cabin of passengers. Twostate-rooms in the rear were, however, unoccupied--those which had beenengaged 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 tototter 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 theunconscious Passepartout, and had carried him to the bed reserved forthe smokers. Three hours later, pursued even in his dreams by a fixedidea, the poor fellow awoke, and struggled against the stupefyinginfluence of the narcotic. The thought of a duty unfulfilled shook offhis torpor, and he hurried from the abode of drunkenness. Staggeringand holding himself up by keeping against the walls, falling down andcreeping up again, and irresistibly impelled by a kind of instinct, hekept 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, hecrossed it, and fell unconscious on the deck, just as the Carnatic wasmoving off. Several sailors, who were evidently accustomed to thissort of scene, carried the poor Frenchman down into the second cabin,and Passepartout did not wake until they were one hundred and fiftymiles away from China. Thus he found himself the next morning on thedeck of the Carnatic, and eagerly inhaling the exhilarating sea-breeze.The pure air sobered him. He began to collect his sense, which hefound a difficult task; but at last he recalled the events of theevening before, Fix's revelation, and the opium-house.

  "It is evident," said he to himself, "that I have been abominablydrunk! What will Mr. Fogg say? At least I have not missed thesteamer, which is the most important thing."

  Then, as Fix occurred to him: "As for that rascal, I hope we are wellrid of him, and that he has not dared, as he proposed, to follow us onboard the Carnatic. A detective on the track of Mr. Fogg, accused ofrobbing the Bank of England! Pshaw! Mr. Fogg is no more a robber thanI am a murderer."

  Should he divulge Fix's real errand to his master? Would it do to tellthe part the detective was playing? Would it not be better to waituntil Mr. Fogg reached London again, and then impart to him that anagent of the metropolitan police had been following him round theworld, and have a good laugh over it? No doubt; at least, it was worthconsidering. The first thing to do was to find Mr. Fogg, and apologisefor his singular behaviour.

  Passepartout got up and proceeded, as well as he could with the rollingof the steamer, to the after-deck. He saw no one who resembled eitherhis 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 hadonly, 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 ofFogg.

  "I beg your pardon," said Passepartout persistently. "He is a tallgentleman, quiet, and not very talkative, and has with him a younglady--"

  "There is no young lady on board," interrupted the purser. "Here is alist 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 rememberedthat the time of sailing had been changed, that he should have informedhis master of that fact, and that he had not done so. It was hisfault, then, that Mr. Fogg and Aouda had missed the steamer. Yes, butit was still more the fault of the traitor who, in order to separatehim from his master, and detain the latter at Hong Kong, had inveigledhim into getting drunk! He now saw the detective's trick; and at thismoment Mr. Fogg was certainly ruined, his bet was lost, and he himselfperhaps arrested and imprisoned! At this thought Passepartout tore hishair. Ah, if Fix ever came within his reach, what a settling ofaccounts there would be!

  After his first depression, Passepartout became calmer, and began tostudy his situation. It was certainly not an enviable one. He foundhimself 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 apenny. His passage had fortunately been paid for in advance; and hehad five or six days in which to decide upon his future course. Hefell to at meals with an appetite, and ate for Mr. Fogg, Aouda, andhimself. 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 isan important port of call in the Pacific, where all the mail-steamers,and those carrying travellers between North America, China, Japan, andthe Oriental islands put in. It is situated in the bay of Yeddo, andat but a short distance from that second capital of the JapaneseEmpire, and the residence of the Tycoon, the civil Emperor, before theMikado, the spiritual Emperor, absorbed his office in his own. TheCarnatic anchored at the quay near the custom-house, in the midst of acrowd of ships bearing the flags of all nations.

  Passepartout went timidly ashore on this so curious territory of theSons of the Sun. He had nothing better to do than, taking chance forhis guide, to wander aimlessly through the streets of Yokohama. Hefound himself at first in a thoroughly European quarter, the houseshaving low fronts, and being adorned with verandas, beneath which hecaught glimpses of neat peristyles. This quarter occupied, with itsstreets, squares, docks, and warehouses, all the space between the"promontory of the Treaty" and the river. Here, as at Hong Kong andCalcutta, 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 haddropped down in the midst of Hottentots.

  He had, at least, one resource,--to call on the French and Englishconsuls at Yokohama for assistance. But he shrank from telling thestory of his adventures, intimately connected as it was with that ofhis master; and, before doing so, he determined to exhaust all othermeans of aid. As chance did not favour him in the European quarter, hepenetrated that inhabited by the native Japanese, determined, ifnecessary, to push on to Yeddo.

  The Japanese quarter of Yokohama is called Benten, after the goddess ofthe sea, who is worshipped on the islands round about. TherePassepartout beheld beautiful fir and cedar groves, sacred gates of asingular architecture, bridges half hid in the midst of bamboos andreeds, temples shaded by immense cedar-trees, holy retreats where weresheltered Buddhist priests and sectaries of Confucius, and interminablestreets, where a perfect harvest of rose-tinted and red-cheekedchildren, who looked as if they had been cut out of Japanese screens,and who were playing in the midst of short-legged poodles and yellowishcats, might have been gathered.

  The streets were crowded with people. Priests were passing inprocessions, beating their dreary tambourines; police and custom-houseofficers with pointed hats encrusted with lac and carrying two sabreshung 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 allranks--for the military profession is as much respected in Japan as itis despised in China--went hither and thither in groups and pairs.Passepartout saw, too, begging friars, long-robed pilgrims, and simplecivilians, with their warped and jet-black hair, big heads, long busts,slender legs, short stature, and complexions varying from copper-colourto a dead white, but never yellow, like the Chi
nese, from whom theJapanese widely differ. He did not fail to observe the curiousequipages--carriages and palanquins, barrows supplied with sails, andlitters made of bamboo; nor the women--whom he thought not especiallyhandsome--who took little steps with their little feet, whereon theywore canvas shoes, straw sandals, and clogs of worked wood, and whodisplayed tight-looking eyes, flat chests, teeth fashionably blackened,and gowns crossed with silken scarfs, tied in an enormous knot behindan ornament which the modern Parisian ladies seem to have borrowed fromthe dames of Japan.

  Passepartout wandered for several hours in the midst of this motleycrowd, looking in at the windows of the rich and curious shops, thejewellery establishments glittering with quaint Japanese ornaments, therestaurants decked with streamers and banners, the tea-houses, wherethe odorous beverage was being drunk with saki, a liquor concocted fromthe fermentation of rice, and the comfortable smoking-houses, wherethey were puffing, not opium, which is almost unknown in Japan, but avery fine, stringy tobacco. He went on till he found himself in thefields, in the midst of vast rice plantations. There he saw dazzlingcamellias expanding themselves, with flowers which were giving forththeir last colours and perfumes, not on bushes, but on trees, andwithin bamboo enclosures, cherry, plum, and apple trees, which theJapanese cultivate rather for their blossoms than their fruit, andwhich queerly-fashioned, grinning scarecrows protected from thesparrows, pigeons, ravens, and other voracious birds. On the branchesof the cedars were perched large eagles; amid the foliage of theweeping willows were herons, solemnly standing on one leg; and on everyhand were crows, ducks, hawks, wild birds, and a multitude of cranes,which the Japanese consider sacred, and which to their minds symboliselong life and prosperity.

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

  "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 abreakfast as possible before leaving the Carnatic; but, as he had beenwalking 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 meatwas far from plentiful in Yokohama--nor was he mistaken; and, indefault of butcher's meat, he could have wished for a quarter of wildboar or deer, a partridge, or some quails, some game or fish, which,with rice, the Japanese eat almost exclusively. But he found itnecessary to keep up a stout heart, and to postpone the meal he cravedtill the following morning. Night came, and Passepartout re-enteredthe native quarter, where he wandered through the streets, lit byvari-coloured lanterns, looking on at the dancers, who were executingskilful steps and boundings, and the astrologers who stood in the openair with their telescopes. Then he came to the harbour, which was litup by the resin torches of the fishermen, who were fishing from theirboats.

  The streets at last became quiet, and the patrol, the officers ofwhich, in their splendid costumes, and surrounded by their suites,Passepartout thought seemed like ambassadors, succeeded the bustlingcrowd. Each time a company passed, Passepartout chuckled, and said tohimself: "Good! another Japanese embassy departing for Europe!"