The Accidental Ethnographer (4e)—A Yankee on the Yangtze V

One year ago on Round and Square (17 June 2011)—Hurtin' Country: Meetin' Hank (Williams)
Click here for the introduction to the Round and Square series "The Accidental Ethnographer." (Coming Soon)
Click below for other posts in from A Yankee on the Yangtze:

Yankee 1          Yankee 2          Yankee 3          Yankee 4          Yankee 5

[a] Yunnan RF

I gave a lecture at the Doylestown Historical Society on June 1st, as part of Doylestown, Pennsylvania's big bicentennial celebration. The subject was the American explorer and evangelist William Edgar Geil (1865-1925). This is part of a larger project that I am working on this summer in Doylestown with the help of Beloit College anthropology major Megan Nyquist '14. As I did a few weeks ago in preparation for another lecture (on another subject), I am posting some of Geil's own writings. This was enormously helpful to me the last time I tried it, and I think it is worth another try. I will, over the course of my summer research, post my lecture and some of the early results of the research Megan and I are doing. In the meantime, though, I want to start the "Accidental Ethnographer" series with William Geil's own words. I will post several readings from each of Geil's dozen books over the course of the summer months.

William Edgar Geil was a world famous figure in his day, and the reasons he has been lost to history (from his death until now) are as interesting as the underpinnings of his fame. Here is a very brief overview. In a day before anthropology or Chinese (or African or Micronesian) studies had a toehold in world universities, William Edgar Geil traveled the world, took extensive notes, returned to Doylestown, and wrote books. Depending on how you count them, he wrote almost a dozen—many of them thick and substantial in ways that a turn of the (last) century reader would understand, even if many people today would not. He traveled across central Africa in the first decade of the twentieth century, spent a year in Australia and New Guinea, and then found an abiding love for the study of China (which is where I "met" him, in a manner of speaking). He traveled the length of the Great Wall, journeyed the Yangzi River from Shanghai into southeast Asia, visited all of China's provincial capitals, and is the only Westerner to have written a book about his travels to all five sacred mountains of China.

[b] Cross-checked RF

He wrote about it all, and he took pictures. The former is not without problem; the latter is easily his legacy. It is all a fascinating picture of an American abroad in a peculiarly resonant time in American history—from the Chicago World's Fair of 1893 to the end of World War I. This series will grow as my research does, but let's get started with Geil's own words—a little from each of his published books.

 ***  ***

For this last excerpt from A Yankee on the Yangtze, I did a good deal of checking and cross-checking, wanting to get a "feel" from Geil's prose that we haven't fully encountered yet. Shooting a mad dog in Yanglin serves the purpose. Be prepared. We haven't seen the shootin' side of Geil yet, and it pops up (so to speak) in several places here. Be forewarned.

Here again, we encounter the challenge of understanding Geil's relationship to the Chinese language and the impression he gives to his readers of that grasp. The first part is unproblematic. Geil did not know Chinese before this trip, and relied on translators. There is no shame in that, and his ability with the language and cultural forms of China indisputably improved over the fifteen years between this trip and his final trip to China in 1919. Even then, though, he could not speak or read Chinese with anything approaching fluency. So why does he seem to (this is the reaction of most people who have read these materials) imply that he is guiding us through the various language issues in his narrative path? Why, for example, does he refer to etchings in the paneling of his hotel room and then "just" provide us with a translation? I raise the question as much for you as for me. It is something I have been thinking about for some time. Suffice it to say that he is grandstanding on others' skills. Is there more to it than that? I have some thoughts on the subject that I will be sharing in these Accidental Ethnographer posts in the coming months.

A Yankee on the Yangtze[1]
William Edgar Geil (1904)

[c] Vision RF

限有見所天觀井坐

If one looks at the heavens 
from the bottom of a well 
his vision will be limited. 

CHAPTER XIV.

HOW TO TRAVEL—WRITTEN AGREEMENTS—CHINESE COOLIES—ARCHERY TESTS—THE RULE OF VICEROY TS'EN—BLOOD AND IRON.

It was Saturday when I arrived at Yanglin, and we quietly sojourned the next day in the "Star of Happiness Inn," one of the best I have visited in the Province of Yunnan. The hostel and its landlord, Mr. Chang, have good reputations. In my room several enthusiastic guests had written up testimonials on the wooden walls. Here is a translation of two of them. 

     Among Yanglin inns the first is the "Star of Happiness."
     The landlord is benevolent and righteous, worth a thousand of gold.
     The two honourable cooks are kind indeeed,
     Never neglecting for a single half-hour to supply you with tea and water.

     The "Star of Happiness" Inn is the first in Yunnan.

     It is clean and quiet like the "Caves of Heaven."
     Tea, water, and all things are convenient.
     The landlord is more diligent than all Earth's worthies.

On entering the city, a vicious dog, probably mad, made at me. Fortunately a fine hammerless revolver was at my belt, and before the savage brute could do me damage, I sent a chunk of lead through his ugly brain. Mad dogs are quite numerous in this section, and cause the death of many people. The Chinese theory is that the bit of a mad dog breeds a small dog in the stomach of the victim, which barks and caused death. One mother, finding her boy bitten by a dog, gave him several Nux Vomica beans, which, instead of curing, killed the unfortunate lad immediately. Sometimes a dog bites the shadow of a person, and this is supposed by the superstitious Chinese to be more deadly in its effects than the actual bite.

[d] Walk RF

Two main roads to Yunnan City join in this town, one, the Mandarin's road from Kwei Chow Province, and the other from Szechuen, by which we came. Here also is the telegraph, and there is a Government Post Office in the city. Staying at the same inn were some of the retinue of four French officials who were ostensibly surveying for the railroad. Whatever their business may be called, there is not much the French do not know about Yunnan Province, and if war broke out between France and china they would not be caught napping.

By far the best means of travelling in China is to walk. But coolies the traveller must have, and it is therefore always best to get a written agreement as to time and price. In all my journey, and I had now come over two thousand miles, there had been no trouble with those I had employed. The contracts were brushed on red paper and the items inserted. The Chinaman will haggle over the making of an agreement, but once it is signed you may safely rely on him to keep his part if you show a disposition to do likewise. It may be difficult when on the road to modify a contract; everything should be carefully gone over at the very first.

Throughout these sixty days across the Land of Confucius, which I had come, not a parcel of mine had been lost, not a thing stolen, and that is remarkable because my bags contained cameras and additional lenses, and were carried by many different coolies over rough, slippery, and, at times, dangerous roads. The Chinese coolie is able to carry two-hundred pounds, but his usual load is about ninety pounds, and with it he will usually go fifteen or twenty miles a day; but my men were under special arrangements, and went nearly fifty miles in that time. They watched the things while eating, and guarded them under all circumstances. These same coolies might be open to temptation to take from another traveller, but they will protect their master and his property. 

Another pleasant feature of the journey is that at whatever hostel, in whatsoever sized city, village or hamlet, it is needed, boiling water can always be obtained. The Chinese wash in hot water and drink hot water. At the "Star of Happiness" a basin of boiling water was fetched me. I then took my short towel a la Chinois, dipped it into the water and washed with it instead of a sponge, letting the dampness dry. Maybe this practice of using hot water inside and outside has killed many a microbe that else would have made a pigtail into an ancestor earlier than was necessary. The meanest coolie will take his hot towelling twice a day and thus have a clean towel!

[e] Tapped RF

Then, too, good nature is everywhere. A Chinaman understands the comitas inter gentes; his smile is close to the surface and is easily tapped. Let a traveller be half decent and treat the Chinese of all classes with some regard to the golden rule, and he will find a kindly, pleasant people. The Chinaman is not as hilarious as the South Sea Islander, nor as shallow as a Shan, but he is jovial—not mirthful, so much as full of quiet, well-considered fun. He loves games of chance, not so much , perhaps, for the amusement they afford as for the opportunity they offer of getting something without the dreadful drudgery of daily toil.

It is said that animals recognize a master man, and are ready to obey him. This is certainly true of human beings. In America or China there must be a self-poise and dignity which compel respect. The Chinaman knows a fool when he sees one, even if he be covered with a white epidermis. I have learned that it pays to treat even a cannibal with politeness. The traveller in China everywhere should avoid billiousness, and appropriate much good nature to his own use.
                                               "He who surpasses or subdues mankind
                                                Must look down on the hate of those below."
On Sunday we ate the goose shot on Saturday. The inn cook made a splendid repast of the bird. The gravy was delicious. I also had forty cash (two cents of gold) of pickles, a small basin of cooked chicken (five cents gold), three sweet potatoes four pounds weight (nine cash a pound). The price in the inn or an "in and out" is seventy cash.

[f] Brisk RF

It is said of Captain Gill that he had (when a boy) arranged a mechanical contrivance to pull off his bedclothes at a very early hour, and was thus habitually at work long before breakfast. Like Captain Gill, travellers in China should be early risers. The next morning we broke the record, and began to move before midnight, but discovered our mistake ere any great harm was done. So, deciding the hour was too early, we slept again! However, we got up at two-thirty A.M. by our watches, which we afterwards found to be an hour fast by the arsenal whistle in Yunnan City. 

It was necessary for me to reach the city by a certain hour, and we first succeeded in getting King No. 3 out of bed, and sent him to rouse the inn cook, then turned out attention to the chairman of the coolies. These men were more difficult to deal with that the other lot, so I went out into the yard and publicly orated. It is astonishing what an effect Shakespeare has on uneducated Chinese coolies, a proof, if any were wanted, of the immense superiority of the English language over any other form of speech. But whistling Yankee Doodle was the climax. Talk about stirring the blood of patriotic Americans! It moves the very bones of those Celestials.
                                              "For eloquence the soul, song charms the sense."
After this performance the preparations for departure were carried briskly on. By three-thirty all loads were tied up and everybody was laughing and devouring Early Rice. Just before four the procession was marching up the hill leading out of Yanglin, lighted by the moon struggling against the depressing influence of dark clouds. Later on, drops of rain fell, and a torrent soon came down in blocks, acres, miles. A cottage by the roadside tempted shelter, but the inmates were slow to respond to the appeals of men, fearing robbers. The mention of robbers suggested possibilities. We got in at last, and sat down in a miserable room.

[g] Travel RF

Fortunately the rain soon ceased, and we were off again. The paved roadway was very difficult to travel in the uncertain light. At the end of eight li in the light of winter daybreak we passed the small village Little Shop, Sia Pu Tsz, and at thirty li stopped at Long Hill. The people were just getting up. Some were placing huge kettles outside their doors. These contained the fire as well as the water, burning wood being placed right in the center of the huge copper utensil. Smoke and flame came out at the top, and ashes at the bottom. Near by were tables consisting of long stone slabs. I had hot water to drink, and then turned beans and nuts from my pocket on to the table for the men to eat. There were a few cash mixed with the rest—which were eagerly seized and pocketed.

***  ***

On arriving at Yunnan a striking tower, beautifully proportioned, was one of the first objects we saw. Built at great expense and finished a year or two ago, it forms one of the finest sights around the city. It is dedicated to the god of Literature, and named Tsu K'uie Leu. E ascended the third and highest story and had a fine view of the south suburb of the city. It took a photograph looking west. Coming down, we passed through a tea shop on the ground floor, and went along the main street of the south suburb, and passed under a low archway a little more than six feet high. Above this archway is an Indian tumulus, built long ago when princes from Burma and Siam had more influence in Yunnan than they now have. At that time Yunnan was very closely connected with these countries. In the tumulus is said to be buried the skull of a man named Hua Hsiong. It is considered very unlucky to pass under the arch, as the influence of the skull is said to prevent the growth or shorten the height of a full-grown person. If my friends in America find that I have "gone down one," instead of up, they will now the reason. There is a way round on both sides of the arch, and this is used by nearly all the passers-by.[2]

Notes
[1] Even though it should not be necessary for me to point out that some of Geil's language from 108 years ago will jar...I will anyway. I am not one to take either interpretive extreme in these cases. Some consider any language we would not use today to be offensive. On the other extreme would be those who say "everyone talked that way back then." I disagree with both extremes—language changes, yet not everyone did talk "that way back then." I prefer to let all of us develop ever-deeper historical sophistication. History is complicated; Geil is complicated. Period.

[2] William Edgar Geil, A Yankee on the Yangtze (New York: A.C. Armstrong and Son, 1904), 202-210.

Bibliography

Geil, William Edgar. A Yankee on the Yangtze. New York: A.C. Armstrong and Son, 1904.

[h] Tiger Leaping new day RF

The Accidental Ethnographer (4d)—A Yankee on the Yangtze IV

One year ago on Round and Square (16 June 2011)—Management Repair: Patching the Vessel
Click here for the introduction to the Round and Square series "The Accidental Ethnographer." (Coming Soon)
Click below for other posts in from A Yankee on the Yangtze:

Yankee 1          Yankee 2          Yankee 3          Yankee 4          Yankee 5

[a] Winding RF

I gave a lecture at the Doylestown Historical Society on June 1st, as part of Doylestown, Pennsylvania's big bicentennial celebration. The subject was the American explorer and evangelist William Edgar Geil (1865-1925). This is part of a larger project that I am working on this summer in Doylestown with the help of Beloit College anthropology major Megan Nyquist '14. As I did a few weeks ago in preparation for another lecture (on another subject), I am posting some of Geil's own writings. This was enormously helpful to me the last time I tried it, and I think it is worth another try. I will, over the course of my summer research, post my lecture and some of the early results of the research Megan and I are doing. In the meantime, though, I want to start the "Accidental Ethnographer" series with William Geil's own words. I will post several readings from each of Geil's dozen books over the course of the summer months.

William Edgar Geil was a world famous figure in his day, and the reasons he has been lost to history (from his death until now) are as interesting as the underpinnings of his fame. Here is a very brief overview. In a day before anthropology or Chinese (or African or Micronesian) studies had a toehold in world universities, William Edgar Geil traveled the world, took extensive notes, returned to Doylestown, and wrote books. Depending on how you count them, he wrote almost a dozen—many of them thick and substantial in ways that a turn of the (last) century reader would understand, even if many people today would not. He traveled across central Africa in the first decade of the twentieth century, spent a year in Australia and New Guinea, and then found an abiding love for the study of China (which is where I "met" him, in a manner of speaking). He traveled the length of the Great Wall, journeyed the Yangzi River from Shanghai into southeast Asia, visited all of China's provincial capitals, and is the only Westerner to have written a book about his travels to all five sacred mountains of China.

[b] Break RF

He wrote about it all, and he took pictures. The former is not without problem; the latter is easily his legacy. It is all a fascinating picture of an American abroad in a peculiarly resonant time in American history—from the Chicago World's Fair of 1893 to the end of World War I. This series will grow as my research does, but let's get started with Geil's own words—a little from each of his published books.

 ***  ***

We come to our penultimate posting from A Yankee on the Yangtze. We are headed for a little break from The Accidental Ethnographer, but I hope that you bear with the rushing waters of prose from William Edgar Geil's typewriter (which he carried with him through this and his other trips). Here again, if you read from start-to-finish, you will find changing prose and personality like the weather in Minneapolis...or Doylestown. Pay particular attention to his long description of the gunboat itself. Can you confidently say that you follow his prose? Follow that with his descriptions and opinions of what he calls "superstitious" behavior. The level of detail here is enticing, and the fact that Mr. Geil describes the writing of "charms" (in blood no less) without ever explaining what they are, adds to the mix of fascination and bewilderment that I find in reading him.

Finally, we conclude with a description of Geil "at work" on the boat as he endeavors to get it all down from dawn to dusk. He was a distinctive personality, and you have probably already guessed just from reading these introductory words that Geil was a character. This reading should convince you.

A Yankee on the Yangtze[1] 
William Edgar Geil (1904)

怪不人多禮

Much courtesy forestalls offence.

CHAPTER V.

THROUGH THE GREAT YANGTZE GORGES—ICHANG

TO THE WILD RAPIDS—IN A CHINESE GUNBOAT—

THE RED HEIFER—RIVER DISASTERS—THE

SACRED EDICT—SALUTING THE AMERICAN FLAG.

[c] Not Geil RF

It was a young and beautiful morning with a cloudless sky, this beginning of the twenty-seventh Sun of the eleventh Moon of the Old Tiger. It was less than a quarter after six, and the striped canvas of the native gunboat had been noiselessly struck and everything made snug and smart in ten minutes' time. The man in the prow was getting the black cannon ready, and the sun was rising back of (bang went the cannon!) the city. The echo as it rolled over the river and up the opposite mountain side was reinforced by a second and then a third shot. Thus my "honourable country" and myself were honoured. The bamboo mooring line was quickly slipped, and in a jiffy we were well out into the stream. The Red Life Boat was quite as spry, and thus early was begun the memorable journey of a Yankee in a Chinese gunboat. As we passed the junks and smaller craft, a sampan shot out to us and hauled alongside, and from her deck disappeared beautiful green and white vegetables which presently reappeared on our prow. The Pyramid was sharply silhouetted against the Eastern sky, and we imagined ghostly shapes leaping for the further shore and being hurled back by the guardian deity of fair Ichang.

The gunboat in which I sailed was a one-masted, square-prowed, high-sterned craft about forty feet from end to end, and not about nine feet beam. The mast had only one single shroud on the port side, the other side being more or less supported by the halyard. The solitary mast was forty feet high and stood in a socket, a mechanism by which it could be easily lowered. The top of the mast was a red wooden spearhead supplemented by three little flags on the port side. The gaff was fifteen feet long, made of a short piece of wood, and the boom was of stout bamboo twenty feet long. In between these, arranged at regular intervals, were fourteen bamboos without the support of which the clumsy sail would be blow to rags, as it was made of the thinnest calico. The main sheet was attached by a fan-like arrangement to the ends of these eight bamboos, the entire number of which were brought home to a block at the rudder post, so that the sail was worked with the greatest facility. 

[d] Yichang (Ichang) RF

The general shape of the sail may be described as a leg-o'-mutton sail and a mixture between a lug and a lateen. This kind of a sail is extremely handy on account of its lightness, and the fact that it reefs itself as it is run down. She carried the long fish-blade car with a T-topped handle strung with a leather thong. There were ten oarsmen, six abaft the mast and four forward. The part some four feet forward of the mast was occupied by the cook's galley, a most economical contrivance which consisted of a stove burning coal cakes, the fire of which is never let out day or night, and gave no smoke. She sat like a Delaware duck on the water, and, with a fair wind, was not likely to be out-sailed by an boat on the river. On the whole, she was as trim and natty a little vessel as one could wish to fine even in waters outside of China. She boasted one cannon forward, which was supposed to carry a mile, and a stack of rifles by the captain's cabin. There were also huge horse pistols for the crew, and some other firing irons. The official designation of this clean, trim war vessel was "Gunboat No. 7 of the Advance Squadron of the Ichang District."

The skipper was an interesting Chinaman. After some effort I got him to talk, and elicited the following facts. He was forty-two years of age, and went to sea at sixteen. Most of the time he had been in the coast Provinces, but his home was in Hunan, and now he lived temporarily in Ichang. He went out after a band of robbers in the fourth Moon, and spent two Moons following them up to catch them. As soon as they heard he was on their track, they turned into good people and offered no resistance when captured! The skipper gave up his cabin over the stern to me, and slept down in the hold where the tiller-man was accustomed to night it. The fine old steersman took to the right of my cabin door. The crew was composed of twelve men all told, including the cook, so that, with the captain, we had teh so-called unlucky number of thirteen. They were all nice, prompt, and intelligent-looking fellows. Translated from English, there were some odd names among them. The captain was Mr. Long Bow; the coxswain, "An-Official-Bound-for-Glory." "The-Ever-Victorious-Colour," "Special-Promise," "Red-Cinnamon-Grove," "Little-Profit," "Great-Treasure-of-a-Drum," "Graceful-Rest," "Keeper-of Truce," and "Crabtree-who takes-hold-of-Benevolence" made up, with the others, a fine lot of young Chinamen...

[e] Placid RF

Among the necessary preliminaries to starting on a boat of this kind, the Chinese usually kill a cock and smear the blood and feathers on the bow of the boat. Rice is also thrown over the entire boat as she puts out from the shore. In addition to these performances, a liberal supply of fire cracker are let off to show the River God that he is not forgotten. But as a foreign guest was on board the gunboat, I was spared the penance of witnessing this display of the superstions in which the natives live, move, and have their being. Instead of this, the cannon saluted and shook the vessel from stem to stern. The cook cut his hand severely with a clumsy axe, while trying to cut some bamboo rope into lengths to be used for torches. He straightaway smeared his fingers with his own blood and began to write charms on the deck. This is a fine art not revealed to many. Presently he rubbed some powdered medicine over the wound instead of cleansing it. On my enquiring what the wonderful concoction was, he replied, "Pulverized Dragon bones."

By noon we were at the entrance of the Ichang Gorge. Here were perpendicular cliffs eight hundred feet high. Along their base men were hard at work quarrying bluestone for the Ichang Embankment. It looked as if we were sailing through a chain of mountain lakes. Little can one imagine the grand and sublime scenery in China who limits his travel to the Yellow coast. But let him go a thousand miles up the Yangtze, and venture further up through the rapids between Ichang and Wan Hsien, and then the truth will dawn upon him that in all this world there is no finer scenery anywhere. Here were the most colossal cliffs and palisades I had ever seen since leaving the wonderland of New Zealand. Along the summit on those crags and eagle soared to its lofty eyrie. The whole scene was weirdly romantic. The first section of the Ichang Gorge bears the highly poetical name of "Moonshine," and the second is called the "Yellow Cat."

Soon after two in the afternoon, we had passed through the Ichang Gorge and were in the granite country. At this stage I got into conversation with Mr. Yun. I asked him to tell me about the great flood which devastated this valley, and carried away multitudes of people. He said, "Though I saw it with my own eyes, and though it was very terrible, it happened so long ago that I have forgotten all about it." The poor fellow was evidently afraid I was trying to entrap him into admitting some neglect of duty then, and believed, with Horace, Percunctatorem fugito nam garrulus idem est. The skipper came to the rescue and related how, once upon a time, the water became dammed up and could not get away. To relive the overflow the idol, Kang Yeh, met a red heifer and asked her to tell him where they could find an outlet for the water. She assented, and he grabbed the cow by the tail and she led him to the place. Later returns indicate that the heifer was afterwards carried up to heaven, and the small fry gods built a temple on earth for her worship. For we were shown the spot where is located the Red Cow Temple. Tradition says that the moment the idol and the cow entered the valley, the water rushed through and formed a new channel. All sorts of wonderful tales are told

十 RF

"Of moving accidents by flood and field"

in this region. In the summer months the river usually rises over fifty feet...

When we had got within a short distance of the first great rapids, we lay to and stood alongside another gunboat. As my interpreter was stepping from one vessel to the other, a boatman, who wanted to help, saluted him as "My Lord Chang." Our little Mandarin whispered, "There is only one lord, that is my Lord Geil." In New Guinea they called me "The Big White Chief," but now I was "My Lord Geil." Whether I shall be able to recognise my humble friends when I reach home remaineth to be seen. When I returned to my cabin, I found a Chinese ten-cash coin which someone had dropped. The character 十, meaning ten, is very prominently stamped on the ordinary piece. I learned something new about the Offence of the Cross. The cross is, for obvious reasons, inseparably connected in the Chinese mind with missionaries, and is consequently despised by all Boxers. A short time before the Boxer outbreak in nineteen hundred, some leading spirits urgently petitioned the Government to change the hateful character. The Government acquiesed, and a special cash of the same value was struck off, but the character ten did not appear in the usual way, but in a complicated form in which the cross was entirely obliterated. The coin I picked up was one of these, and represents the Offence of the Cross.[2]

***  ***

In my diary I notice this remarkable incident recorded—The cook washed his hands this morning. Why should he do this? Are not his hands cleansed sufficiently from their various accumulations by mixing bread, preparing rice, and other things requiring direct manipulation. 

[f] Window RF

Of my own usual daily occupation my kind secretary, Mr. Douglas McLean, has written the following description which is here inserted:—"As soon as the first sign of daylight appears, Mr. Geil, clad in an enormous sheepskin overcoat (dark blue lining outside) and wearing a soft brown felt hat such as would have delighted the heart of the world-famed "Deadwood Dick," takes his stand outside the cabin door and describes the scenery as it unfolds itself to his admiring gaze. His visible wardrobe is completed by tan boots and a heavy grey sweater, and those who have seen him in the immaculate shirt front and faultless frock coat of the public platform would be amused could they meet him in this rough and ready garb. I say his gaze, because the door of the cabin is blocked by the aforesaid overcoat, and as there are no windows in front of me, I can see very little. The windows (?) are in the sides of the cabin a little to my rear, and are made of wood hung from the top edge, and propped out by a piece of small bamboo, so that only the water of the river is visible.

"Whenever anything noteworthy strikes his attention, he dictates a description, which I take down immediately on the typewriter, and thus the panorama is recorded as it passes. Nothing of interest escapes his critical eye, so that the click of the machine, though not so constant as the tick of the clock, makes a good substitute for the softer sound of the absent horologe.

"The rearward view is obtained by standing on the ample rudder-post which projects a foot from the deck; and this foot, added to Mr. Geil's seven feet less nine inches, after deducting nearly six feet for the height of the arched roof of the cabin, leaves a substantial credit balance in the right position for observing scenery. When an exceptionally fine view is behind us, Mr. Geil stands on a Chinese basket trunk about two feet high, and holds forth from that exalted station. This goes on from dawn till dark, and as the cabin is not well lighted, the early and late descriptions are written by the aid of a candle at both ends.[3]

Click below for other posts in from A Yankee on the Yangtze:

Yankee 1          Yankee 2          Yankee 3          Yankee 4          Yankee 5 

Notes
[1] Even though it should not be necessary for me to point out that some of Geil's language from 108 years ago will jar...I will anyway. I am not one to take either interpretive extreme in these cases. Some consider any language we would not use today to be offensive. On the other extreme would be those who say "everyone talked that way back then." I disagree with both extremes—language changes, yet not everyone did talk "that way back then." I prefer to let all of us develop ever-deeper historical sophistication. History is complicated; Geil is complicated. Period.

[2] William Edgar Geil, A Yankee on the Yangtze (New York: A.C. Armstrong and Son, 1904), 69-75.

[3] Geil, Yankee, 77-78.

Bibliography

Geil, William Edgar. A Yankee on the Yangtze. New York: A.C. Armstrong and Son, 1904.

[g] Descriptions RF

The Accidental Ethnographer (4c)—A Yankee on the Yangtze III

One year ago on Round and Square (15 June 2011)—Seinfeld Ethnography: Marriage. Jerry—Marriage.
Click here for the introduction to the Round and Square series "The Accidental Ethnographer." (Coming Soon)
Click below for other posts in from A Yankee on the Yangtze:

Yankee 1          Yankee 2          Yankee 3          Yankee 4          Yankee 5

[a] Etched RF

I gave a lecture at the Doylestown Historical Society on June 1st, as part of Doylestown, Pennsylvania's big bicentennial celebration. The subject was the American explorer and evangelist William Edgar Geil (1865-1925). This is part of a larger project that I am working on this summer in Doylestown with the help of Beloit College anthropology major Megan Nyquist '14. As I did a few weeks ago in preparation for another lecture (on another subject), I am posting some of Geil's own writings. This was enormously helpful to me the last time I tried it, and I think it is worth another try. I will, over the course of my summer research, post my lecture and some of the early results of the research Megan and I are doing. In the meantime, though, I want to start the "Accidental Ethnographer" series with William Geil's own words. I will post several readings from each of Geil's dozen books over the course of the summer months.

William Edgar Geil was a world famous figure in his day, and the reasons he has been lost to history (from his death until now) are as interesting as the underpinnings of his fame. Here is a very brief overview. In a day before anthropology or Chinese (or African or Micronesian) studies had a toehold in world universities, William Edgar Geil traveled the world, took extensive notes, returned to Doylestown, and wrote books. Depending on how you count them, he wrote almost a dozen—many of them thick and substantial in ways that a turn of the (last) century reader would understand, even if many people today would not. He traveled across central Africa in the first decade of the twentieth century, spent a year in Australia and New Guinea, and then found an abiding love for the study of China (which is where I "met" him, in a manner of speaking). He traveled the length of the Great Wall, journeyed the Yangzi River from Shanghai into southeast Asia, visited all of China's provincial capitals, and is the only Westerner to have written a book about his travels to all five sacred mountains of China.

[b] Grainy RF

He wrote about it all, and he took pictures. The former is not without problem; the latter is easily his legacy. It is all a fascinating picture of an American abroad in a peculiarly resonant time in American history—from the Chicago World's Fair of 1893 to the end of World War I. This series will grow as my research does, but let's get started with Geil's own words—a little from each of his published books.

 ***  ***

Onto the river goes William Edgar Geil, and the Yangzi's Yankee has an earful for his 1904 reader. Like the other posts in this series written by Geil, the multiple and sometimes discordant themes pepper the reader from all sides. We have his first reference to his P.T. (this is never defined, although I have a strong hunch), and the beginnings of his habit of referring to Chinese names by floral English translations. There is not a great deal of explanation for any of this, and I am led to wonder whether the great orator would ever have been this unaware of the needs of a live audience. Some of the discordant notes in the following text come from the passage of a century of time, of course. Everything from Romanization (Foochow, Hankow) to usage ("fathom") reflect a different time and place. So does Geil's ongoing and intermingled respect and disdain for China and its people. It does not make for easy reading, and not in the usual sense. This is not Heidegger or Foucault, but there is a cultural and linguistic "grainy" quality that confounds many readers.

Take a look, and see what you think. And what the heck do you think a "P.T." is?

A Yankee on the Yangtze[1] 
William Edgar Geil (1904)

中雨煙臺樓少多
Towers and porticoes shimmering in the midst—Spring in Nanking.

 人服以可理惟下天

Of all things under Heaven only Reason can subdue men. 
 

CHAPTER II.

THE MIDNIGHT START—TRAVELLING IN NATIVE 

STYLE—CHINESE FOOD—NANKING—THE EXAMI-

NATION HALL—CURIOUS FEATURES OF THE 

EXAMINATION—MISSIONARY WORK IN CHINA.

My long hegira across China began at midnight. Know, all men by these presents, that in "the witching hour of night when graveyards (and people) yawn," carrying my P.T., I left Foochow Road wharf in "Top Sea"* and went off in a wobbly tender to the "Great Prosperity," lying in mid-channel with her anchor down in eight fathoms of water. My friends who came to see me off went on board with me. This vessel was selected, not because of her name, but because her owners permit foreigners to travel native style. Some steamers running up the Yangtze have a rule against admitting any but Chinese to the native accommodations. *Shanghai in the Chinese language signifies "Top Sea." 

[c] Corridor RF

It was to see China and the Chinese that I was taking the journey and living on native fare, so I managed to secure a cabin on board, designed especially for the Chinese. Shanghai is beautiful at night, with the many coloured lights on the shore and the regulation lamps of the shipping at anchor and in motion. The moist December air was cold and chilly, and we hastily boarded the triple deck river steamer which reminded me of the craft which ply on the great Mississippi. On the main deck, full forward, the Chinese saloon cabins were located, and to these we briskly found our way through a wide corridor with state-rooms grouped on either side. I stopped to read a helpful sign, done in freehand on pasteboard, and hung against the wooden wall on the starboard side:

PLEASE READY

5 Native Cabin

For Fellows Missinaris

This settled my character. It was plain enough that I was being classed by the comprador as a missionary. On board were many Chinese, most of them going deck class. Among the many passengers were several Christian missionaries, all travelling native style to save the money of their society. Economy in this was aggregates a large sum. Take, for instance, the fare from Shanghai to Hankow. For first-class foreign passengers this is forty dollars, Mexican, while the first-class native fare is only ten dollars and forty cents. The value of the Mexican dollar varies; at the time of my sojourn in Shanghai it was worth about forty cents United States money.

[d] Current channels RF

The missionary party was composed of several ladies and University men. The latter wore tasselled pigtails, and their wives and children were among the party.

The quartermaster had struck eight bells, midnight, before I turned into my short bunk, which contained no bedding except my own, purchased in Shanghai for the long journey to Burma. When the weird call of the lead heaver awoke me, I found that we had swung out of the fierce Hwangpu into The River, as the natives term the Great Yangtze. A wonderful river this, that flows midway between the Great Wall and the Chu Kiang. It quietly rises in the perpetual snows of the Thibetan heights, dashes in all its ancient glory through the Gorges of Ichang, and sweeps majestically onward as if conscious of its commercial importance to the world. It is the sustaining artery of eight provinces, and pours the water of half a continent through ever-broadening channels into the Yellow Sea. Coming events, and the Yangtze, cast their shadows before them, for Skipper Everett corroborates the statement that the sea is coloured fifty miles out by the vast volume of yellow brought by the might river down out of the heart of the massive Empire of Kwang Su. The Yangtze undoubtedly ranks first among the rivers of the Old World, and is excelled only by the Mississippi and the Amazon in the New...

"Early Rice" was served up wet at eight-forty-five A.M. in the partitioned-off corridor into which our cabins opened. The room was not encumbered with artistic cachet, but was full of penumbra. Indeed, the room was chiefly furnished with good penumbra. By the lavish use of it the steamship company must have had an unlimited supply of penumbra. There were penumbra everywhere. In the corners, along the sides, and even in the middle of the floor there were penumbra. And it was of good quality, not the pale, thin article one sometimes finds among dark-skinned native races. This penumbra would have delighted the heart of a white ant. On the round table lay a white cloth. Around the edge were the rice bowls and red chop-sticks, and in the middle four chinaware vessels of appetizers. These dishes bore frightful dragon and other terrifying decorations, and contained, first, superannuated and odoriferous shrimps; second, sickly bean curd floating gently on a summer sear of native vinegar and mustard seed oil; the third dish boasted pickled turnip tops and other refuse; and the fourth, bean curd cheese which reminded me of wild-cat's liver soaked in sulphurated hydrogen. It was repast to make one remember that "Plures crapula quam gladius." Before we "pitched into" this Early Rice, the "Gospel Scatterers" sang a "Grace," the heavy bass and the fine tenor of the men blending harmoniously with the cultured voices of the young ladies. It was a strange interlude in the midst of the heathen surroundings. They sang two verses:—

[e] Alluvial RF

"How good is the Lord we adore,
  Our faithful, unchangeable friend,
 Whose love is as great as His power,
  And knows neither measure nor end.


'Tis Jesus, the First and the Last,
  Whose spirit shall guide us safe home,
 We praise Him for all that is past,
 And trust Him for all that shall come."

Then I looked at them closely and wondered which of them would be the first to be massacred, for they were en route to sections of the country from which came rumours of disquiet and rebellion. But for the friendship of the two Yangtze Viceroys, they must have left their bodies unburied on the soil of Western China during the Boxers' orgy of blood. These tranquil mandarins should receive some recognition and expression of appreciation from the governments to which these favoured citizens belong.

When we had finished the Early Rice, which tried to finish us, the river was fully ten miles wide. Rising among the Pillars of Heaven, far off on the edges of that mystical and awe-inspiring country of Thibet, the civilising Yangtze winds around three thousand miles through this land of the blue gown, then falls into the sea by the little village of Wusung. My school-friend, William Steckel, used to say to me that running water was the most beautiful thing in nature, but running water meant to him some fair brook meandering over curiously shaped pebbles, through a lovely meadow near Doylestown, in the state of Pennsylvania, and not this monster, muddy stream. But the river is interesting ever. When not ten nautical miles from Shanghai, by watching the Fair Way Buoy, I noticed that notwithstanding the tremendous mass of opposing water, the tide was in a prodigious hurry and ran up at the rate of three jolly knots an hour. The scenery was alluvial...

[f] Middle RF

The native servants were delightful. At high noon we were served "Middle Rice," a more pretentious meal than Early Rice. I was served by "Last Born" and "Always-with-a-Fair-End. I doted on them and derived a deal of healthy pleasure from the study of them. Last-Born was twenty-two years old, which means that he was really twenty one, and made his appearance on this planet in the eleventh moon. He waited on me most of the time, and I had occasion to wait on him. At certain seasons he displayed a constitutional and frigid antipathy to being hustled. He was a nice, plump Chinese who smiled graciously when, with the monster chop-sticks and divers motions, I indicated that he should serve me with tooth-picks. Off he would go and, soon returning, present me with several home-made tooth-picks five inches long by the tape line and carved from the bamboo handle of a local broom used by various coolies for a lengthy period. The age and quality of the handle were indicated by the antique cast on the outer edge of the wood...[2]

Click below for other posts in from A Yankee on the Yangtze:

Yankee 1          Yankee 2          Yankee 3          Yankee 4          Yankee 5 

Notes
[1] Even though it should not be necessary for me to point out that some of Geil's language from 108 years ago will jar...I will anyway. I am not one to take either interpretive extreme in these cases. Some consider any language we would not use today to be offensive. On the other extreme would be those who say "everyone talked that way back then." I disagree with both extremes—language changes, yet not everyone did talk "that way back then." I prefer to let all of us develop ever-deeper historical sophistication. History is complicated; Geil is complicated. Period.

[2] William Edgar Geil, A Yankee on the Yangtze (New York: A.C. Armstrong and Son, 1904), 12-18.

Bibliography

Geil, William Edgar. A Yankee on the Yangtze. New York: A.C. Armstrong and Son, 1904.

[g] Outer edge RF

The Accidental Ethnographer (4b)—A Yankee on the Yangtze II

One year ago on Round and Square (14 June 2011)—The Autobiography of Yukichi Fukuzawa.
Click here for the introduction to the Round and Square series "The Accidental Ethnographer." (Coming Soon)
Click below for other posts in from A Yankee on the Yangtze:

Yankee 1          Yankee 2          Yankee 3          Yankee 4          Yankee 5

[a] Shang-today RF

I gave a lecture at the Doylestown Historical Society on June 1st, as part of Doylestown, Pennsylvania's big bicentennial celebration. The subject was the American explorer and evangelist William Edgar Geil (1865-1925). This is part of a larger project that I am working on this summer in Doylestown with the help of Beloit College anthropology major Megan Nyquist '14. As I did a few weeks ago in preparation for another lecture (on another subject), I am posting some of Geil's own writings. This was enormously helpful to me the last time I tried it, and I think it is worth another try. I will, over the course of my summer research, post my lecture and some of the early results of the research Megan and I are doing. In the meantime, though, I want to start the "Accidental Ethnographer" series with William Geil's own words. I will post several readings from each of Geil's dozen books over the course of the summer months.

William Edgar Geil was a world famous figure in his day, and the reasons he has been lost to history (from his death until now) are as interesting as the underpinnings of his fame. Here is a very brief overview. In a day before anthropology or Chinese (or African or Micronesian) studies had a toehold in world universities, William Edgar Geil traveled the world, took extensive notes, returned to Doylestown, and wrote books. Depending on how you count them, he wrote almost a dozen—many of them thick and substantial in ways that a turn of the (last) century reader would understand, even if many people today would not. He traveled across central Africa in the first decade of the twentieth century, spent a year in Australia and New Guinea, and then found an abiding love for the study of China (which is where I "met" him, in a manner of speaking). He traveled the length of the Great Wall, journeyed the Yangzi River from Shanghai into southeast Asia, visited all of China's provincial capitals, and is the only Westerner to have written a book about his travels to all five sacred mountains of China. 

[b] Plopped RF

He wrote about it all, and he took pictures. The former is not without problem; the latter is easily his legacy. It is all a fascinating picture of an American abroad in a peculiarly resonant time in American history—from the Chicago World's Fair of 1893 to the end of World War I. This series will grow as my research does, but let's get started with Geil's own words—a little from each of his published books.

 ***  ***

After reflecting upon William Edgar Geil's introduction to A Yankee on the Yangtze, we dip into chapter one of the book. It is a roller-coaster, to be sure. We start with a pellucid paragraph describing the slow erosion of western China as it moves eastward in the form of yellow mud before being plopped into the Pacific Ocean. Dr. Geil covers a great deal of territory here, and he is all over the conceptual map. It is hard to characterize, which is why I believe in reading the words of the writers (even if abridged...and you owe it to yourself to read the whole book if you are intrigued). 

To be sure, A Yankee on the Yangtze is dated. Well-dated. It was published in 1904, and many parts of it were out of relevance in 1912. This is a long story, but suffice it to say right now that imperial China was on its last legs in 1904. It would become a republic in late-1911, and the next century would be, well, full of interest. Geil had no idea, in many respects. If you don't wince at some of his rhetoric here, you are just skimming. On the one hand, you should give him a break for living a century ago. On the other hand, you should realize that plenty of people a century ago said things a little bit differently. Here's the challenge with understanding our "Accidental Ethnographer." He is far more nuanced than most of his peers in the world of 1904. On the other hand, he was a human being living in 1904. It's complicated.

Life is like that. Read on.

A Yankee on the Yangtze[1] 
William Edgar Geil (1904)

人心用怕單事難無下天

There is no difficulty in the world that cannot be 

overcome by the man who hustles.—Current Proverb.
 

CHAPTER I.

TO THE YELLOW FROM THE BLUE—SHANGHAI—

WOMEN IN CHINA—SUPERSTITIONS—OPIUM—

CHINESE LEARNING.

[c] Old Street RF

The Yangtze River colours the Pacific Ocean for a distance of thirty miles from the China coast. The amount of earth carried down this mighty stream and deposited on the sloping sea-floor is incalculable. As a land-maker, this Chinese Mississippi cannot be excelled. It has brought down a considerable portion of the Province of Kiangsu from the west, and gradually dropped it piecemeal as mud. Large tracts of land on which many natives now contentedly live and cultivate their fields of rice, cotton and wheat, were known to their forefathers as "The Sea." To-day the river is still engaged in the manufacture of territory, robbing the West to enrich the East, and roiling the brine of the oft-times unpacific deep. The traveller to China discovers the saffron and chocolate long before he sights the low-lying coast. Sometimes it s a plunge in medias res when the sea is calm and the blue and yellow refuse to mix; then the ship glides over a distinct line from sea blue to river yellow. 

The draught of the big Pacific liners is too heavy to admit of their ascending 

-->

the little tidal river Hwangpu, on which the "Model Settlement of Shanghai" is situated, so our ship drops anchor some miles off the Chinese village Woosung, twelve miles from the Settlement, where the mouth of the Hwangpu kisses the Yangtze sea-shore. The passenger is transferred from the ship to a tug, which carries him and his baggage up the river, over the "Heaven-sent Barrier" near the mouth. This barrier menaces navigation. The tides are high and the waters of the Hwangpu run like a mill-race; many unwary junks and steamers which have incautiously ventured too much, have been wrecked on the Barrier, which sea captains have sworn as not heaven-sent.

Shanghai is the great metropolis of the East, and everybody who visits the Far Orient, at some time or other, turns up at this city, where not two, but a dozen, seas meet: Americans, English, Germans, French, Russians, Portuguese, Dutch, Italians, Japanese, Koreans, and all the rest. Says Henry Norman: "Among the many surprises of a journey to the Far East one of the greatest is certainly the first sight of Shanghai...I could hardly believe my eyes. There lay a magnificent city surrounding a broad and crowded river, though the magnificence is only skin-deep, all the architectural beauty and solidity of Shanghai being along the river; but I am speaking of first impressions of Shanghai, and in this respect it is superior to New York, far ahead of San Francisco, and almost as imposing as Liverpool itself. A broad and beautifully kept boulevard, called of course, the Bund, runs around the river, with rows of well-grown trees and and broad grassplat at the water's edge; and this Bund is lined on the other side from one end to the other with mercantile buildings second to none of their kind in the world..."

[d] Road RF

But Shanghai has made rapid advances since Norman wrote. The American, English, and French Settlements have been extended far beyond their original limits, and imposing buildings and terraces have been carried back for miles from the Bund. Large factories are in full operation making silk fabrics, thread, matches, and, we are sorry to hear, beer. It is interesting to see the varied humanity which emerges from these mills and the business houses of this cosmopolitan port when the two hands on the big Customs Clock press the button on the XII spot. Carriages, dogcarts, traps, motors, bicycles, rickshas, wheelbarrows, and even sedan chairs come pouring down the Bund and up the "Roads," or streets with geographical names—Nanking Road, Pekin Road—off across the creek called Yangkingpang, into the French Settlement, dubbed by the Chinese "France," or, in the other direction, across the Garden Bridge by the Astor House, up Broadway or Seward Road and through the American Settlement, whose native name is Honkew, or "Rainbow Mouth." 

The river is crowded with craft-junks, lorches, sampans, bit P. and O. boats and "French Mail," foreign-rigged schooners, tugs and men-of-war. What a medley! The sight is enough to make the Chinese countryman "turn up his pigtail," which is their equivalent for our "kicking the bucket"; or to astonish even a nil admirari Englishman. Instead of "civilising" the native, it only seems to confirm his opinion that these barbarians who hitch up the lightning and build houses so high are indeed veritable devils. You might as well try to sink one of the American gunboats in the Hwangpu with a pop-gun as to attempt to eliminate superstition or idolatry with what we call "Western learning" or "Civilization."

Many superficial globe-trotters have based generalisations on Shanghai. This is a gross blunder, for the port, while in China, is not China. The people of this Empire are judiciously slow to accept a new and upstart civilization for their own, which has, until these high-nosed Europeans came, withstood the tests of chiliads; but, with twentieth-century conditions, some innovations have been inevitable, and the adoption of these in China to-day represents tragedy and comedy ludicrously mixed. Shanghai is a hard field for missionary work, but, like every other enterprise, that activity centres here...

[e] Old street (not that long ago) RF

I was gladdened by my visit to Shanghai, but Shanghai is only an infinitesimal part of this great Empire. Look Westward along the great journey I am about to make—look at the men: eighty millions of them! Let this stupendous statement sink well into your mind. Sophocles said, "Many things are wonderful, but none so wonderful as man;" or, as the Chinese proverb declares, "Ren Shi Wan Wu Chih Ling," "Man is the Mind of Creation." And what record has this might nation that we treat so contemptuously? The Chinese invented the art of printing one thousand years before the birth of Caxton. They possessed libraries before we had learned the art of expressing ourselves by charcoal hieroglyphics on birch-bark. They made it possible for our progenitors to give up the use of hollow stone plates and gourd dishes by placing chinaware on the market. Silks! [D]id your eyes ever feast on more beautiful fabrics than those now seen in a Chinese silk store? 

But you ask, Are the Chinese such men as we are? It is a simple question to answer because in some respects they are our betters. In courtesy they are Chesterfields, we are troglodytes; as artisans their endurance and patience are as remarkable as their inability to invent new machinery. As farmers they raise three fairly good crops a year, but they do it with the aid only of a wooden-handed plough and by hand-planting and hand-reaping. A reaper, a threshing-machine, or a cotton gin would scare them off the field. As scholars they are giants of memory, repeating whole volumes without trouble, but when we come to applied knowledge or to practical science, they are mere babes. Engineering, for example, would strike them not as a profession but as "labour," and no gentleman in China can "labour." And yet look at the Imperial Canal, one hundred and twenty geographical leagues in length, and without a parallel in the world's history! And the Great Wall whose cubic content, Hegel computes, exceeds the mass of stone used in all the buildings in England and Scotland!...

You may say, "Oh, but they are a peculiar lot." I don't see it. You are quite mistaken in your conclusion in regard to the matter of looks. Not one in ten as oblique eyes. They walk and laugh and love and learn much as we do. As to the colour—well, remember that beauty is relative. Is the ashen, consumptive look of the European as beautiful as a good healthy yellow? You ask where they live. They live in the country; they are congregated in the cities; they dwell upon the mountains and on the plains. They are living, and dying too, in accessible places! There are fanatics among them, but there are fanatics everywhere, and it is not a bad sign. They have the qualities which, if rightly used, will make them eminently Christian...Apart from the awful predisposition for opium, the Celestial has no craze for ardent spirits. He drinks a very light wine made of rice, but he takes his liquor temperately. Outside the ports opened by the white man there is little whiskey. There is little public drunkenness in China. But opium is everywhere. It thrusts itself on the nostrils throughout the length and breadth of the country...

[f] Nearby RF

That the Chinese are men of strong passions is shown by their love of literature. This is a nation of scholars, and the founders of literature are worshipped as gods. The final authorities on all questions are the national classics. The writing of poems and essays, both poetry and prose, is the quintessence of art. The theatre has its place next to literature, and serves to hand down the manners, customs, and history of antiquity by histrionic representations. It is on the whole a respectable place. Go into a theatre seating two thousand people. many are sipping tea from little cups placed on tables before them! All have their hats on except the women. Hear the continuous sounds of laughter, but no applause, as hour after hour the spectators hang on the words of the actors illustrating the story of how China defeated the hosts of enemies arrayed against her in the early days. Here you have ample proof of the vivacity of the Chinaman. The two chief events in the average village in China are the great feast or parade of the gods and the theatre festival. The acting is almost entirely done by men. The better qualities of the Chinese are also shown by their efforts to do good. There were great charities and benevolent institutions in China before Columbus discovered America! Their books, written a thousand years before Christ, advocate philanthropy. 

Still they have never learned how to practise true benevolence. But our point is to show they have a passion for doing good; albeit this is perhaps not because of the good it does to the other man, but because of the merit which is laid up thereby for the doer. The Chinaman is a family man, which speaks well for him. It is scarcely decent for a man to live out a bachelor's life. The family is the unit of society, and not the individual. The government is patriarchal. The head of the family rules the various members, and each Chinaman is an emperor in his own domestic circle, unless his wife happens to be stronger of the two. Eighty millions of hale, energetic, strong-minded men who are walking with their backs to the future, pushing on to the past![2]

Click below for other posts in from A Yankee on the Yangtze:

Yankee 1          Yankee 2          Yankee 3          Yankee 4          Yankee 5 

Notes
[1] Even though it should not be necessary for me to point out that some of Geil's language from 108 years ago will jar...I will anyway. I am not one to take either interpretive extreme in these cases. Some consider any language we would not use today to be offensive. On the other extreme would be those who say "everyone talked that way back then." I disagree with both extremes—language changes, yet not everyone did talk "that way back then." I prefer to let all of us develop ever-deeper historical sophistication. History is complicated; Geil is complicated. Period.

[2] William Edgar Geil, A Yankee on the Yangtze (New York: A.C. Armstrong and Son, 1904), 1-11.

Bibliography

Geil, William Edgar. A Yankee on the Yangtze. New York: A.C. Armstrong and Son, 1904.

[g] Wow...now RF