Yates Stirling – författare

Excerpt: "A man-of-war boat propelled by six sailormen and with the flag of the United States flying from its staff navigated the tortuous channel through the fringing coral reef and landed upon the sandy beach of the harbor of Ukula. Three American naval officers from the cruiser “Sitka” stepped from the boat upon the shore. In the great public square on Kulinuu Point at one end of the town many thousands of the natives of the Kapuan Islands had gathered. They had come from all the villages of the islands by special invitation from the Herzovinian consul for the purpose of giving welcome to their great war chief Kataafa, who had but just returned from five long years of exile in a foreign land."

Excerpt: "The Navy-Yard at Brooklyn buzzed with its daily turmoil of labor. It was a bright June morning, and the high chimneys of the numerous shops and foundries belched forth flame and smoke. Thousands of begrimed workmen toiled incessantly, hammering, bending and riveting masses of metal, fashioning them into shape to be carried by the steam cranes to be blended into the hulls of waiting battle-ships Through this scene of activity two boys walked briskly. Their clothing was new and in the latest style. It clung to their well set up figures, betraying the hand of the military tailor. Each carried a bright leather suitcase to the top of which a cased sword was strapped. Emerging from the tangle of buildings, the youths glanced about, and an exclamation of pleasure escaped them as a view of their nation’s sea power met their eyes: ten huge battle-ships resplendent in their glassy white and contrasting buff paint lay tied up, filling every foot of the dock frontage. “Which is ours, Phil?” asked one of the youths, stopping and setting his case down with a sigh of relief. Philip Perry, as he slowly shifted his bag to his other hand, glanced down the long line of stately defenders. “There she is, Syd,” he finally replied, pointing his free hand in the direction of one moored at the foot of the street. “The one with three smoke-stacks and eight turrets. What a beauty she is!”"

Excerpt: "The “Isla de Negros,” a small inter-island steamer, lay moored alongside the dock in the turbulent waters of the Pasig River, the commercial artery of the city of Manila. As the last of its cargo was noisily carried on board by a swarm of half-naked stevedores, the slender lines which held the steamer to the stone quay were cast off, and with many shrill screeches from its high treble whistle the steamer swung its blunt bow out into the strength of the current. On the upper deck of the vessel, clad in white naval uniforms, two United States midshipmen stood in silent contemplation of the activity about them. They watched with undisguised interest the hundreds of toiling orientals; resembling many ant swarms, traveling and retraveling incessantly between the countless hulls of steamers and lorchas and the long rows of hastily constructed storehouses facing the river frontage. Here and there stood a khaki-clad sentry, rifle in hand and belt filled with ball cartridges, America’s guardian of the precious stores now being idly collected. Into these spacious storehouses the sinews of war for the army of occupation were being hoarded to be afterward redistributed among the small steamers plying between the metropolis, Manila, and the outlying islands of the archipelago. The American army in the Philippines, always too small for the stupendous task before it, was at last, owing to the added disaffection of the tribes in the Southern islands, receiving the attention from home which had long been withheld, and its numbers were being increased by the arrival of every transport from the far-away homeland."

Excerpt: "The United States gunboat “Phœnix” lay at anchor in the swift current of the Yangtse River opposite the Chinese city of Ku-Ling. The surface of the water seemed tranquil, but a closer look over the side of the ship showed to the observer the strength of the muddy flood that swept for thousands of miles through the length of the Chinese Empire, from the far-away snows of the mountains of Tibet onward to the waters of the Pacific Ocean. Two young midshipmen were standing at the gunboat’s rail in eager conversation. Their eyes were intent upon the scenes on the shore scarce a hundred yards away. “Oh, there’s Langdon!” exclaimed Philip Perry, the taller of the two lads, as the form of the government pilot, Joseph Langdon, was seen coming from the ward-room companion ladder. “Langdon, have you ever seen this much talked about Chang-Li-Hun?” “Seen him?” Langdon echoed, approaching the speaker. “I’ve talked with him many a time, and you can take my word for it, there isn’t a man in all China whom I wouldn’t sooner have for my enemy. He’s a past craftsman in oriental subtlety and diplomacy. He rules his own people with a rod of iron, and if an official displeases him, off goes his head in the most approved Chinese fashion.” Both midshipmen suppressed an unconscious shiver as the American pilot of the Yangtse River illustrated the death of the disgraced official by chopping at his own thick neck with a great sun-tanned, muscular hand. “Everything looks peaceful enough ashore there now, doesn’t it?” Sydney Monroe, Phil’s friend and classmate, said in a tone of inquiry. “It doesn’t seem as if the foreigners were much in fear of the dangers of Chinese violence. Look!” he exclaimed; “there are European women and even children walking along the streets.” “That’s the danger in China,” Langdon returned in a troubled voice. “Living in this country is like being on top of a presumably extinct volcano. No one knows when it will break out. Sometimes it comes without the usual rumblings.”"

Excerpt: "It was one o’clock in the afternoon, and there was unusual activity in the railroad station at Yokohama. Uniformed officials were scurrying to and fro, bending every effort to dispose of the great crowd of stolid Japanese travelers and at the same time, with due formality and ceremony, provide a special train for their lately arrived American naval visitors. So painstaking and anxious were these energetic and efficient little personages to please those whom their government had chosen to honor, that suddenly, at a signal, they stemmed the great influx of their own people, sidetracked the steady and ever-increasing flow of bright colored silks, and did it as easily as if they were but putting a freight train on a siding. Not one murmur was heard from the crowd delayed so abruptly; the travelers waited, talking and laughing joyfully. To them it was all pleasure. There was no necessity for haste. When the honorable railroad officials were ready, then there would be plenty of time for them to get on their trains. They had no thought of questioning the acts of their Emperor’s officials, who wore the imperial badge of office—the sixteen petal chrysanthemum. “Did you ever see such docility on the part of a traveling public?” Midshipman Philip Perry exclaimed, gazing wonderingly at the good-natured, smiling faces of the Japanese about him. “Imagine, if you can, a New York crowd waiting like this at the Grand Central Station for a dozen Japanese officers to board a special train.” The midshipman was one of a party of American naval officers, recently arrived in Japan, and journeying as the guests of the Japanese nation to their picturesque and historic capital—Tokyo."