has the feeling that if he could go back, again, and again, and again to these far shores, and live with these peoples and die with them, then he would begin faintly to understand what it all means and where it is all headed.
And this author, for one, is honest in saying that, in spite of careful investigation, in spite of extensive travel and a sympathetic heart, he sees but dimly. The very glory of it all, the age of it all, the wonder of it all, the mysterious beauty and thrill of it all; the thrill of these masses of humanity, their infinite possibilities for future greatness; like a great blinding flash of glory, dims one's eyes for a time.
But, now, that he has, through quiet meditation and perspective, had a chance to develop the films of thought, he finds that he has brought back home pictures that one ought not to keep to one's self; especially in this day, when, what happens to Asia is so largely to determine what happens to America.
So, out of the dark room, where they have been developing for a year, and out of the dim shadows of that mysterious land whence they came, they are printed and at the bottom of each picture shall be written the humble words:
"Flash-Lights from the Seven Seas"
William L. Stidger.
Detroit, Michigan.
ILLUSTRATIONS
| Mt. Taishan, the Oldest Worshipping Place on Earth | Frontispiece |
| PAGE | |
| The Walled City of Manila | 48 |
| Beautiful Filipino Girls | 48 |
| Korean Girls with American Ideals and Training | 49 |
| Stepping Aside in Korea | 49 |
| Confucius Tomb at Chufu, China | 64 |
| Ruin of the Ming Tombs | 64 |
| Grinding Rice in China | 65 |
| A Camel Train Entering Peking | 65 |
| The Temple of Heaven, Peking | 112 |
| A Beautiful Thirteen-Story Pagoda Near Peking | 112 |
| A Wayside Temple and Shrine | 113 |
| A Sunrise Silhouette, Java | 113 |
| Old Bromo Volcano, Java | 128 |
| A Side View of Beautiful Boroboedoer, Java | 128 |
| Naked and Otherwise | 129 |
| A Dog Market | 129 |
FLASH-LIGHTS
FROM THE SEVEN SEAS
CHAPTER I
FLASH-LIGHTS OF FLAME
Fire! Fire! Fire everywhere!
Fire in the sky, fire on the sea, fire on the ships, fire in the flowers, fire in the trees of the forest; fire in the Poinsetta bushes which flash their red flames from every yard and jungle.
In the tropical lands flowers do not burst into blossom; they burst into flame. Great bushes of flaming Poinsetta, as large as American lilac bushes, burst into flame over night in Manila.
That great tree, as large as an Oak, which they call "The Flame of the Forest," looks like a tree on fire with flowers. One will roam the world over and see nothing more beautiful than this great tree which looks like a massive umbrella of solid flame.
Every flower in the Orient seems to be a crimson flower. The tropical heat of the Philippines, Java, Borneo, Sumatra, the Malay States and India's far reaches; with beautiful Ceylon, and Burma; seems to give birth to crimson child-flowers.
The sunsets burst into bloom, as well as the flowers. There is no region on earth where sunsets flare into birth and die in a flash-light of glory and beauty like they do in the regions of the South China Sea. For months at a stretch, every night, without a break, the most wildly gorgeous, flaming, flaring, flashing crimson sunsets crown the glory of the days.
I have been interested in catching pictures of sunsets all over the world. I have caught hundreds of sunsets with the Graflex; and other hundreds have I captured with a Corona, just as they occurred; and I have never seen a spot on earth where the sunsets were such glorious outbursts of crimson and golden beauty as across the circling shores of Manila Bay.
Night after night I have sat in that ancient city and watched these tumultuous, tumbling, Turner-like flashes of color.
One night the sky was flame from sea to zenith across Manila Bay. It was like a great Flame of the Forest tree in full bloom. Against this sky of flaming sunset-clouds, hundreds of ships, anchored in the bay, lit their lesser crimson lights; while, now and then, a battleship which was signaling to another ship, flashed its message of light against the fading glow of glory in the crimson sunset.
"It is light talking unto light; flash unto flash; crimson unto crimson!" said a friend who sat with me looking out across that beautiful bay.
The picture of that flaming sunset, with the great vessels silhouetted against it; with the little lights on the ships, running in parallel rows; and the flashing lights of signals from the masts of the battleship will never die in one's memory.
It was a quiet, peaceful scene.
But suddenly, like a mighty volcano a burst of flame swept into the air at the mouth of the Pasig River. It leapt into the sky and lighted up the entire
