The weekly times-record. (Valley City, N.D.) 1912-1922, 1921-05-05
ENJOYING TRIP
AROUND WORLD

AROUND WORLD
The following letter has been re-
ceived by relatives in Valley City from
Edward Gerard, a former Valley City
boy, who is now wireless operator on
the steamship Waukegan, which is
making a trip around the world. The
letter is dated at Calcutta, India, and
follows:
Dear Aunt Hatty and Uncle Frank:
Have made another stop in a round
the world trip and fear have been
very slow in writing letters. AS u.s.
Nal, in starting my letter, ] must ask
you to kindly excuse the delay. Now
that l have gotten started, l will try
and describe a few of the places I
have been in.
Our first stop after New York was
Norfolk, Va, where we loaded 5000
tons of coal for the navy, at Cavite,
P. l. We made short stops at Colon
and Balboa on the Atlantic and Pa
cific sides of the Panama Canal for
repairs to our ice machine. We ar
rived at Honolulu Nov. 30th and were
to stop "a hours for fuel oil. However,
when we started to leave the turbine
broke down, and we stayed there for
nearly two weeks. Thus was able to
see quite bit of Honolulu. The eli
mate is fine and the scenery beauti-
full but on the whole it did not come
UP to my expectations. Honolulu it
self is a modern city consisting mostly
of Japanese. There are many beauti-
full homes there and also some fine big
hotels. visited the famous Waikiki
beach several times but it was very
quiet and rather small. The native
Hamaiians are rapidly dying out, and
are outnumbered by the Japs and
whites. a.
We arrived at Cavite, P. l., Jan. 3
where we stayed about ten days dis a
charging coal. The Philippines in
December was the hottest place have
experienced so far. Cavite is about
eight miles across the bay from Ma
Mia and consists mainly of the navy
yard and village of native thatched
huts made of bamboo, etc. The people
(natives) seem to be understood and
not too intelligent. Manila is more
of modern city. We were in Manila
for amout three days. l did not care
much about the Philippines but left
believing that the u. S. had given the
native government too much power
and that to give them their independ-
ence now or in the next twenty years,
would be criminal and foolish.
Our next stop was Hong Kong:
China, arriving Jan. 10. l am afraid
l cannot describe what saw of China
very well. The first thing one notices:
upon coming into the harbor, are the
native SIMPSONS or small bosf' be-
tween tven''" $''jd ~ -" lg,
It. is had 10 h:lia " ks
at them, tStt ~, ~ m
lilies live in one sl1lan nv-- are
thousands of these along the river 50
you can imagine how many people
make their homes in this fashion. \
The city itself is confusion of all
sorts of shops and money exchanges.
Every Chinaman seems to be talking
at once and the streets are crowded.
The main means of travel is by rick
shaws pulled by a coolie.
The greatest excitement of all was
on Chinese New Years, Feb. 8 to
II. The Chinaman has but one holi-
day during the year and he certainly
enjoys it in his own way. The ex-
plosion of frecrackers are continuous.
This is the day when everyone gets
new clothes. The rest of the year is
spent in making and saving money
for the next New Year. The firecrack-
ers are supposed to act as prayers to
chase the devil away and prayers that
the business man will be able to pay
all his debts the coming year.
We were only supposed to stay IN
Hongkong three days but we were
there twenty -four days waiting for
orders. Finally on Feb. II we receiv.,
ed orders to proceed to Calcutta and
on Feb. 13 started. Had fine weather
all the way, going in sight OF Singa-
pore, on the Malay Peninsula. We
docked here about noon the 9th after
an interesting voyage up the Ganges:
the holy river of India. Have not seen
much of the place yet but hope to
soon. AT first I thought we would be
here for some time but hear now that
it will only be for few days more.
We are loading 700 tons of Manganese
ore for Philadelphia and will proceed
for there via the Suez Canal. thus
making a trip around the world.
hope this finds you all in the best
of health. Best Regards,
saA Edward Gerard.