East Oregonian : E.O. (Pendleton, OR) 1888-current, 1906-01-17
RESUME OF ". ]. BRYAN'S FIRST LETTER

Following is resume of William
Jennings Bryan's first letter on his
trip around the world. It was writ,
ten from Honolulu and gives a brief
description of the islands. Mr.. Bryan
says;
There is rest in an ocean voyage.
The receding shores shut out the hum
of the busy world; the expanse of
water soothes the eye by its very
vastnesS; the breaking of the waves is
music in the ear and there is medi-
cine for the nerves in the salt sea
breezes that invite to sleep. At first
one is disturbed-sometimes quite so
by the motion of the vessel, but this
passes away so completely that before
many days the dipping of the ship
is really enjoyable and one finds a
pleasure in ascending the hills and
descending the valleys into which the
deck sometimes seems to be convert
ed.
If one has regarded the Pacific as
an unknown or untraversed sea, the
impression will be removed by a
glance at map recently published
by the United States governmental
map with which every ocean traveller
should equip himself On this map
the Pacific is covered with blue lines
indicating the shortest routes of travel
between different points, with the
number of miles.
The first thing that strikes one is
that the curved line indicating the
northern route between San Francisco
and Yokohama is only 1896 miles
long. while the apparently straight
line between the two points is 4791
miles long-the difference being ex-
planned by the curvature of the EARTH
although It is hard to believe that in
following the direct line a ship would
have to climb over such a mountain
range of water, so to speak, as to
make 1t shorter to go 10 degrees
north. The time between the United
States and the japanese coast has re.
Gently been reduced to less than II
days, hut the northern route is not
so pleasant at this season of the
year, and we sailed on the Manchuria
september 30, going some 20 de-
grees farther south via Honolulu.
This. route covers 5545 miles and is
made in about 16 days when the
weather is good.
The Manchuria is one of the levia-
thans of the Pacific, and is owned by
Mr.. Hartman, president of the Union
and Southern Pacific railways. The
ships crew suggests the orient, more
than three-fourths being Chinese, all
wearing the cue and clad in the ma
tional garb. There is also a sugges-
tion of the orient in the joss house
and opium den of the Chinese in the
steerage.
In crossing the 1s0th meridian we
lost a day, and as we are going all
the way around we cannot recover it,
as those can who recross the Pacific.
We rose on Saturday morning, Octo-
ber z, and at 9 o'clock were notified
that Sunday had begun and the re-
mainder of the day was observed as
the Sabbath October 81.
According to the chart or map re-
ferred to above, there are three CEN
ters of ocean traffic in the Pacific.
Honolulu, the most important of all,
the Midway islands, 1850 miles north
west of Honolulu, and the Samoan
islands, some 2200 miles to the south.
The Society islands, about the same
distance to the southeast of Honolulu,
and Guam, some 1900 miles from the
main land of Asia, are centers of less
importance.
Our ship reached Honolulu early on
the morning of the sixth day out, and
we had breakfast on the island. The
Hawaiian Islands (inhabited) number
eight and extend from the southeast
to the northwest, covering about six
degrees of longitude and nearly four
of latitude. OF these eight islands
Hawaii. the southernmost one, is the
largest, having an area of 1900 square