‘Travel note- book’

[1904]

Royal New Zealand Plunket Society Records: AG 007-005/033. Hocken Collections

Unpublished

Bella’s travel note-book of their jaunt to Japan and China is an engaging document, revealing a personal narrative on a variety of subjects: travel, collecting (plants from Yokohama; porcelains and Hokusai prints), class and culture issues, gardens, nurseries, shrines, shops, universities, diet, weather, transport, scenery, and political events (the impending Russo-Japanese conflict). While King was particularly enthusiastic over health care in Japan, especially the benefits of breast-feeding, Bella was a little more circumspect, noting the somewhat unsafe practice of mothers carrying babies tied to their backs, and writing: ‘The people seemed very poor but quite happy.’