ADVENTURES WITH A CAMERA IN MANY LANDS 



111 



Many fear that if their photographs are 

 taken their bodies will waste away. This 

 belief is especially common among the 

 Ainu, and some photographers have 

 risked their lives because of their indis- 

 cretion in photographing those who are 

 obsessed by such fears. 



When there is a flat-footed refusal of 

 the right to take pictures, one must de- 

 sist ; but ignorance of the language 

 spoken by the people helps a great deal. 

 Most people are shy about having their 

 pictures taken, but this shyness quickly 

 melts before a sincere smile, and when to 

 apparent friendliness is added the pitiful 

 spectacle of lingual helplessness, there 

 are few who can refuse the respected 

 foreigner's request. 



a photograph that represents 

 gratitude; 



Many a Moslem husband has allowed 

 me to photograph his women folk, and 

 the toleration of these people in letting 

 visitors see and photograph their mosque 

 services is worthy of mention; but the 

 most memorable case of Moslem magna- 

 nimity of my experience occurred in 

 Ongole, where a Christian missionary 

 had saved the life of an Indian Moslem's 

 son, and this man, out of trust and grati- 

 tude, allowed me to photograph his fam- 

 ily, with his wife unveiled, because I was 

 a friend of the doctor (see page 106). 



Throughout the East there is a hearty 

 response to genuine friendliness. The 

 native is not accustomed to familiarity 

 with the white man and at first he resents 

 it, because he does not understand the 

 motives, but I have never met with any- 

 thing other than the utmost politeness 

 among the common people of Asia. 



More troublesome than those who re- 

 sent having their pictures taken are those 

 superactive and ubiquitous imps who in- 

 sist on being in every picture. One lad 

 bothered me a great deal when I was try- 

 ing to photograph a street scene in Buddh 

 Gaya, India, though obviously he had as 

 much right to the locality as did I. Since 

 I could not remove him, I tried to get 

 him to loosen up his frame a little and 

 look more like Tom Sawyer and less like 

 a monument. When I had shown him 

 how to do it, and returned to my place, I 



turned to find him doing a scarecrow 

 dance that would have won plaudits in 

 the "Wizard of Oz" or done credit to 

 Saint Vitus himself. 



In the spring of 19 19 the Chinese 

 burned millions of dollars' worth of 

 opium, not individually, in small doses, 

 but collectively, in huge incinerators op- 

 posite Shanghai. At that time I was in 

 the interior of Fukien, in the bandit- 

 infested region between the Northern and 

 Southern troops, and passed through 

 wide fields of opium poppy which the 

 people had been induced to plant so as to 

 afford quick revenue to the war lords 

 who were then ravaging the province. 



A friend, to whom I mentioned my de- 

 sire to get a photograph of this condition 

 of affairs, said that if I attempted to pho- 

 tograph opium poppies the Chinese would 

 probably try to destroy my camera, as 

 they had no desire to be thus convicted of 

 duplicity. I took a score of pictures in 

 the poppy fields, showing the cultivation 

 of the opium plants and the gathering of 

 the milky juice from the poppy pods, but 

 no one showed the slightest objection. 



In Japan I met a man who was roundly 

 condemning the Japanese for preventing 

 foreigners from taking pictures and who 

 was exceedingly surprised to know that, 

 outside a few fortified areas, a camera 

 can be as widely used in Nippon as in the 

 United States. 



He had attempted to take forbidden 

 photographs at Nagasaki and had been 

 so badly frightened by the police that he 

 packed away his camera for weeks. Yet 

 even in Nagasaki the government would 

 gladly have furnished him a police officer, 

 under whose surveillance he could have 

 taken any legitimate views. 



A RACY ENTERTAINMENT AT BEIRUT 



While wandering around the water- 

 front in Beirut on one occasion, I saw a 

 group of porters paying good money to 

 look at a small peep-show which, judging 

 from the laughter, was not of the most 

 elevating variety. A little shamefacedly, 

 I paid my metalik and looked at the ex- 

 hibition. 



I certainly got my money's worth, if 

 side-lights on foreign life are worth, any- 

 thing. Four of the pictures w r ere cover 



