Sewickley Herald

              ^l
Th
e Herald
The Sewickley Valley's Home-News Weekly
Vol. XXIX. No. 13:
SEWICKLEY, PA., FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 12, 1932
Price 5 Cents
.Aroun6 Td\)& Worl6 on a T^rno^ter
i      /» - .     . - —<—. .    .     "—•■Ik "
A few of the many pictures taken by Chester Challis on his   recent   trip   around   the   -world   on   a   freighter. Left:
Charming little brown sisters of Penang, Straits Settlements; Upper center, Chester in a rickshaw in Singapore; Lower
center,  Sampans, where some  of  the  natives  spend all  their lives, at Zamboanga, Philippine Islands;  Bight, a Malay
boatman in Penang.
t'   •
_*".
"Pour  cents,"  said  one paymaster.
'' Check,'' replied the second paymaster.
"Double check," said the Port
Authority, so the munificent sum of
four cents was placed after the name
of Chester Challis, 735 Beaver Street,
on the payroll sheet of the S, S. Steel
Navigator of the Isthmian Line. Battling the pennies, sole financial reward
for four months of work as a cadet
seaman, the local youth strolled down
the gangplank to the pier in Brooklyn
on January 30th.
Tho -boat, loaded with steel, refrigerators, radios, canned goods, and other
general cargo destined for Hawaii and
the Philippines left New York, September 30th, 1931, and made the first
stop at Cristobal. On the first leg of
the journey, Seaman Challis got into
the swing of life at sea. Ho steered
for two hours during tho day, thou
swabbed down the decks or performed
another of the many duties of sailors
for another two hours.
Free for eight hours, lie would gather
with the younger officers or some of the
crew, hardbitten old salts,most of them,
and listen to tales of the sea. At night,
he would again steer for two hours
and then stand as watch in the fo 'castle head. As lie had timo off in port,
he accompanied several officers to
Colon, Canal Zone, to see the sights.
About eight hours took the ship
through the canal and thon it headed
west, traveling for sixteen days before
berthing at Hilo, Hawaii.
Pour men from the ship traveled 35
miles in an old Packard Twin-Six to
Hawaii National Forest, where tliey
crossed tho vast desolate plain surrounding the present firo pit of the
Kilnuea Volcano. The plain stretched
for nine miles about the present crater,
which is nearly a mile across and 1,000
feet deep,
A day's run and tlio ship arrived at
Honolulu, where Challis and his companions spent three flays at Waikiki
Beach, swimming and riding out-rigger
canoes. The procedure seemed to consist   of  paddling   out  some   distance.
turning, paddling hard in front of a
wave, then free wheeling .about a fifth
of a milo towards the beach. The
tropical beauty of the islands is not
over-rated even in the ads and the
Colorful costumes of tho natives add
materially to the 'effect. The mariners
attended a very impressive service in
a Buddhist temple, in which the service was in English and the singing in
Chinese.
Five days wero spent in Manila .and
the youths visited Lilibid Prison, where
Miss Mellic Little of Sewickley was
formerly in charge of the hospital
work. They also visited tho old walled
city and Magellan's grave at Cobit, on
the island of that name. Little native
children, from four to five years old,
paddled their small out-rigger canoes
out to the ship in the harbor at Zamboanga, at the southern end of Mindanao
Island, and dove for coins in tho clear
water. The sailors counted fifty stun-
pans along the shore. Those boats,
dugouts with board floors and bamboo
shelters built   over   them,   constitute
the only hoine of many natives, who
wear g.aily colored sarongs and are
content to fish and grow rice for a
living.
Leaving the Philippines, December 1,
the boat next put in at Soerabaia and
Batavia in Java. The latter city is
the capital of the Dutch East Indies
and is one of the cleanest and most
beautiful in the East. Happy Malays,
clean and seemingly contented, are
seen along the canal that runs through
the city, washing clothes. The next
stop was Singapore, not at all the city
depicted in .the movies, for there is a
12 o'clock closing limit and everyone
goes to bed, even as they do iu Sewickley.
Hindu Tamils wandered through the
streets, brushing back thoir long curly
hair with effeminate gestures. Their
foreheads carry white painted caste
marks and in their long white robes
can hardly be distinguished from women.   The picture of Mr. Challis shown
(Continuod  On Page 4)
AtJ
_■_*
_!_■____