Jasper County Democrat, Volume 3, Number 26, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 6 October 1900 — Letter From Hong Kong, China. [ARTICLE]

Letter From Hong Kong, China.

Under date of August 13, Geo. E. Yeager, of tlie U. 8. S. Monterey, writes his brother Frank L. Yeager, of south of town, from Hong Kong, China, an interesting letter from which we are premittea to publish extracts. The letter reached Rensselaer Sept. 19, being 33 days on the road: Dear Brother: I will try and write you a few lines to let you know where lam at. I am now at Hong Kong China, we have been here almost three weeks and expect to stay here a little over three months yet. Hong Kong is not such a place as I thought it was. It is about half as big as Lafayette, although it has more people. Lots of the people here live in boats, that is, the low class of Chinese. These boats are about 15 or 16 feet long and are covered over just like a gypsy wagon, and there are about eight or ten live in each boat. We do not do our washing here, we get the Chinamen to do it for us at 6 cents a suit for washing our white clothes, which is 3 cents in our money. I am going to get some pictures taken as soon as wo draw our month’s pay and will send you one.

(Here Geo. tells about his Japanese girl and says she is pretty good looking, and how her folks think he is “ail right,” and other private matters.) I have pretty good times when I go ashore, on liberty, we get 16 hours of liberty every third day. then I go up to my girl’s home and have a real pleasant time.

Well, Frank, I think the last time I wrote you was from Southhampton, England. Since then we went back to Gibraltar, Spain, where we stopped long enough to take op 800 tons of coal, then we entered the Mediterranean sea and proceeded to island of Malta, where we stayed three days and took on more coal, and then left for Port Said, Egypt, but we only staid there long enough to send a dispatch to the U. S. navy department to let them know where we were, then we entered the Suez Canal, which is 87 miles long and only wide enough for one ship to pass at a time/ There are “side tracks” every 10 to 15 miles so ships can pass each other. We passed through a part of the desert of Saharra and while going through saw lots “* of Egyptians riding on their camels. It was a pretty sight to see. A railroad runs along the canal, but the trains run with a sail, just like a ship. Then we stopped at the city of Suez long enough to drop one pilot, then entered the Red Sea and next stopped at Columbo, Ceylon. Stopped there five days, and then entered the Indian ocean and our next stop was Hong Kong. Well, I will close for this time, hoping this will find you as well as it leaves me. Your brother, G£o. E.Y eager, r