Hong Kong Hotel, Wed. Evening, May 18/98.
Capt. Leask did not sail last night, so he came to the hotel & dined with me, & a very happy time we had. He is grand company & a capital conversationalist, & the Eastern experience he has had make his company very interesting & profitable. He was to sail at 5 this morning for Canton & hopes to return in 3 or 4 days, & to meet me again before I get away. This is possible, as the “Chingtu” has not arrived here yet from Japan. Frank did not get away in time for dinner, so we had not his company till nearly 9. Capt. Leask left us a little after 9. We were all sitting on the verandah. It was very hot, even there, but very enjoyable in basket chairs. Frank stayed till near 11, so we had nearly 2 hours of good conversation. We arranged that he should come & dine with me tonight, get away in good time, & be here soon after 6, however, I got a note just before 6, saying he could not possibly get away so early, but would come soon as ever possible, & I was not to wait. They had got 30 men from the engine works on board last night while he was ashore, & he says they worked all night. He is not made up with the engines of the Olympia. She is 15 years old & nearly worked out. Her boilers are very bad & he says he is worked very hardly, & never has liberty when in port, always so much to do at the engines. He looks very thin [4:4] & white & worn out, but he had been attacked 2 or 3 days before they arrived with dioreah [sic]. He says he feels well enough.
It has been a terribly hot day. I went over to Kowloon during the forenoon, steam ferrys [sic] every few minutes, passed close to the Olympia & on returning at 12:30, the Empress of Japan was just steaming off on her passage to Vancouver via Japan. (My 2 American letters, Sarah‘s & Nesbitt’s, I refer to.) I had a nice view around Kowloon. A grand shipbuilding & repairing factory with 2 very big dry docks. Admits the largest war ships. I also went up to the observatory & got permission to view, & was guided very kindly around by one of the scientific attendants. It was just 10 to 12 when I was there & the Astronomer in Chief was taking observations of the sun. I saw lots of different diagrams registering heat, wind &c. &c. I rested after lunch till 4:30, then had a cup of tea, & a rickshaw down to Happy Valley to view the Parsee cemetery. I had not visited it when last there. No Tower of Silence[1] here. They have to bury. A fine place it is & most delightfully laid out, & the flowers & tropical plants & trees are worth going a long way to view. I returned to hotel at ¼ to 6, got Frank‘s note, has had a grand bath & now it is 7, so as dinner is at 7:30, I will conclude for tonight.
[4:5]
[1] Members of the Parsee sect place their dead in a structure called a “Tower of Silence.These towers exist only where there is a sect large enough to warrant.