100 Years Ago: February 1926

[George Thomas Wilson]

100 Years Ago: February 1926

 

This is the 133^rd entry in my series of rewrites of 100-year-old National Geographic Magazines.

 

 

The first article in this month’s issue is entitled “Round About Bogota” and was written by Wilson Popenoe, Agricultural Explorer, U. S. Department of Agriculture.  It has the internal subheading: “A Hunt for New Fruits and Plants Among the Mountain Forests of Colombia’s Unique Capital.”  The article contains thirty-four black-and-white photographs, nine of which are full-page in size.  It also contains a sketch map of Colombia on page 132.

Sketch Map courtesy of Philip Riviere

There was a timid knock.  Arising from his first night’s sleep in the chilly air of Bogota, the author opened the door and was confronted by a youth neatly dressed in a dark-gray suit, rope sandals, and a clean white collar.  He asked if he could be the author’s assistant.  His eagerness and his neat and businesslike appearance won the author completely.  Hernando Zamora was installed as assistant agricultural explorer, and a half an hour later they set off together for the author’s first glimpse of the capital of Colombia.  For months he had been looking forward to reaching the Andes.  Mexico and Central America were familiar to him.  He had wondered how it would be in South America.  Would he find the same sort of people, the same food-plants, or even the same landscapes?  He made frequent comparisons with the other Latin American cities he knew – Havana, Mexico City, and the capitals of Central America.  The general character of the buildings, the presence of an open square in the center of the city; those were strongly reminiscent of the regions he had traversed.  But there was a feeling of isolation about the place which was new to the author.  Perhaps it was partly his imagination, perhaps partly due to his 12-days’ journey up the Magdalena River from the Caribbean coast.  As he gazed past substantial houses of brick and plaster to the distant crests of the Suma Paz Mountains, as he breathed the cold, rare atmosphere of those Andean heights, and as he wandered through side streets, strangely silent – he still felt, and with conviction that increased rather than diminished as the days passed by, that he had left behind him those things which he was familiar and had launched upon a journey through a new world.  The almost total absence of Indians, so characteristic of Mexico and Guatemala, struck him forcibly.

The people appeared to be of two classes: well-dressed men and women of pure Spanish stock, and the somewhat ragged peon element – the laboring class – whose faces gave evidence that the Indian race, though vanished in its purity, still lingered in the blood of those sturdy folk of the plateau.  During the days which followed the author came into more intimate contact with the life of Bogota.  Of its many distinguishing features, none was more attractive than the elegance of its Spanish.  He had heard it said that the Spanish of Bogota was unusually pure because it had been free from the contaminating influence of other tongues.  Chibcha, the language of the aboriginal inhabitants of the plateau, scarcely survived the Conquest.  There had been less opportunity to incorporate native terms, or acquire native accents, than in Mexico or in Peru.  Freedom from contamination accounted for the purity of Bogota Spanish, but it could not account for its elegance.  Only a people of real intelligence and of leisure to cultivate the finer things of life could have made universal the use of language which for its grammatical purity and rhetorical finish was unexcelled in America.  Added to that polish was a quixotic love of flowery speech, which was to the outsider one of the most delightful traits of the Bogotano.  The author had seen no place in all the world where more attention was given to dress than in that remote Andean city.  Even the humblest citizen possessed a cutaway coat and silk hat, reserved to be worn only upon great occasions.  Those who could afford it donned that garb regularly in the afternoon, changing to evening dress at sundown.  The use of a walking stick was universal.  Thus, it was that the streets of Bogota presented the appearance of a European capital, with even more stress of formal attire than was customary in Europe.

That attention to dress extended even to shoes, and bootblacks swarmed around the citizen with dirty footwear likes flies around a molasses jar.  Needless to say, the result of all that attention to dress was highly pleasing to the visitor, though he might feel underdressed.  His clothes likely failed to meet the rigid requirements of that city, where formality was the rule, and few liberties were taken.  Daily, at 8 o’clock, Hernando called for the author at his hotel, and they started out for the market place.  At that early hour the streets were empty, save for laborers going to work.  The author thought it was the market place which made him realize more clearly than anything else that he was no longer in Central America.  All the way from northern Mexico to Panama he had seen and eaten the same fruits and vegetables.  He had seen beans, corn, and squashes remained supreme among staple foodstuffs, with only the addition of a few fruits – the banana, the orange, and others – to break the monotony.  In Bogota he soon realized that he had left behind the bean-corn-squash complex and had entered into a new region, the Andean zone, in which the potato replaced corn, to a large extent, while other root crops – cubios, hibias, arracachas, and chuguas – played important roles.  The author arranged to have them prepared for him.  With the exception of the potato, they were not often seen on the tables of the well-to-do; they were staples among the lower classes.  The author thought the arracacha was the one most likely to please a northerner.  It suggested the parsnip, but was of better flavor and texture than that unappreciated vegetable.  In the homes of the humbler folk – and on the best tables in Bogota – small chunks of arracacha root were often found in the savory sancocho, a sort of South American Irish stew.

It was the cold season; Congress was in session, and three deputies and a Senator honored the Victoria with their patronage.  Nightly they gathered about a long table with the author in the huge, chilly, dimly lit dining room, each wearing heavy overcoats.  With pleasure they hailed the arrival of those steaming bowls of sancocho, destined to serve more effectively than any overcoat in keeping down the shivers.  Chunks of juicy beef, thick slices of turnips and carrots, succulent bis of arracacha, and potatoes made up that savory stew.  The habia was a slender, pinkish-white tuber, which yielded, when stewed with sugar, a product strikingly like green applesauce.  The cubio, a white tuber about the size and shape a small sweet potato, and the chugua were of a mucilaginous consistency and insipid flavor not likely to please the novice.  The market was one of the most complete the author had ever seen in all Tropical America.  It occupied an entire city square of large size and was divided into several sections, each devoted to some product or group of products.  There was a long row of stalls, all handling nothing but root crops and grains; another row, where fruits only were sold, and close beside it, the vegetable section.  Elsewhere were baskets and articles of bamboo, as well as ropes, fiber sandals, pack saddles, and the like; and finally, along the northern edge of the enclosure, a row of tiny shops, boasting more dignity than the others, wherein the countryman could purchase a new ruana before returning home.  The ruana was the Colombian equivalent of the poncho, so widely used elsewhere in Latin America.  It was less ample than the latter, measuring four to five feet across; it was square and made of two strips of woolen cloth sewn together, leaving a slit in the center through which the head of the wearer could be thrust.

For the cold winds and drizzling rains of the high Andes, there was no better garment than the ruana, unless it be the woolen poncho of Ecuador, thicker and larger, to meet the most rigorous climate.  It was warm, it kept out the rain, and, at night, it served as an extra blanket.  The author decided to go to Fusagasuga to hunt the giant blackberry.  They planned to take the early train for Sibate and walk from the end of the line to their destination.  Hernando pleaded not to ride third class, so the author purchased two second class tickets.  At 7 in the morning, they rolled out of the station and were soon beyond the suburbs.  Broad haciendas stretched away on either side, with here and there expanses of wasteland.  To their left the mountains rose close by, while on their right the savanna spread out 30 miles or more, until it met the hills of the escarpment, where, breaking through by a tortuous channel, the river of Bogota leapt in a mighty effort reach by one sheer jump the torrid valley of the Magdalena, lying far below.  Thus, were formed the Falls of Tequendama, rivaling those of Yosemite in beauty.  When the climbed down from the train at Sibate it was drizzling gently.  They looked at the muddy road winding up into the hills; packed their supplies upon their backs and struck off.  An occasional oxcart passed them, a mule train of charcoal, a horseman.  Here and there along the roadside were small taverns, whose only stock in trade were vats of chicha and guarapo, fermented beverages which were being dispensed in large gourdes.  Over the divide they went and down a steep zigzag trail, carefully graded and cobblestoned, into a region of dense forest dripping with moisture from the clouds which blew up from the Magdalena Valley and impinged upon the escarpment.  This was where Dr. Frank M. Chapmen first observed the giant blackberry.

It had been some years since he visited Colombia for the American Museum of Natural History, but the stories which he told them on his return had not been forgotten.  [See: “Over the Andes to Bogota,” October 1921, National Geographic Magazine.]  Indeed, the giant blackberry was on the list of rare plant which the author was to seek when he left Washington.  Several days previously the author had seen several quarts of gigantic berries in the Bogota market.  Impatiently, they pushed on.  The author was tempted to leave the trail and go off hunting through the forest.  But they needed another man to do the work properly and had planned to get him at Fusagasuga.  It was nearly sundown when we entered that town.  They found comfortable quarters at the small hotel, and a hot sancocho, with plantains, rice, and potatoes.  They were tired, and soon turned in.  They arose early and looked about for a man to carry their baggage and assist in the hunt for plants.  Marcos seemed to meet the requirements and was added to the party.  They braced him for the journey with a hearty meal and took the road back toward El Penon, the region they had passed the previous day.  The small tavern of that name stood beside the rocky trail and offered none but the most meager supplies.  There were no quarters, so they spent the night on benches.  The room was not boarded up securely, so it was cold and damp.  His ones aching, the author arose at dawn.  Hernando and Marcos were shivering in the lean-to kitchen, where a small fire was being kindled by their hostess.  They made their breakfast and proceeded to business.  Marcos led the way, machete in hand.  A drizzling rain was falling, and the ground was boggy.  Moisture was everywhere; everything was dripping with it.

Suddenly Marcos stopped to cut a branch which crossed their path.  The author looked up and saw that upon it were several red fruits the size of walnuts.  It was what he had been searching.  He grasped the branch with a shout.  They dug roots, picked fruits, and took photographs as best they could.  The plants were abundant, and their long, prickly canes reached lengths of 15 feet or more.  Their purple flowers were an inch across.  The author found the giant berries to be flavored like loganberries, but had larger and harder seeds.  They packed up their spoils and took the trail for Sibate.  It was a long, hard climb through the rain, but they finally got their precious freight on board the train, and late that night found themselves back in Bogota.  After that somewhat arduous journey the author felt that he could afford a day off.  An invitation was waiting for him when he had returned.  It was from the Herreras, who had traveled up the river with him.  They asked him to join them for a picnic at their country place, near Cajica, some miles north.  They left the city on the morning train – a dozen of them or more – with almost as many guitars as people.  Various servant went with them, carrying hampers of viands and countless bottles of light beverages.  They clambered down from the train, with much shouting and pushing among the servants, as they passed guitars and baggage through doors and windows.  They walked down the broad level road for half a mile, until they came to the hacienda.  It was a morning just as the author had experienced in Maryland on a day in May – the air was fresh, balmy, and filled with the fragrance of growing things.  Birds were singing in the meadows, where cattle grazed contently.  The cornfields, visible on all sides, were broken by patches of wheat and barley.  Yet they were only 5 degrees from the Equator.

The servants prepared the luncheon, while the rest of them walked through the attractive garden, congregating finally in the large parlor.  While girls recited verses, several young men tuned their guitars, and then took turns singing couplets of the Colombian highlands.  The girls picked flowers and placed them on the men’s coat lapels.  Luncheon was announced, and they hurried into the dining room.  The table groaned with good things – roast chicken; sandwiches, various sorts of small cakes, fried plantains, boiled potatoes, and excellent black coffee.  Later, they danced the fox trot to the tune of the latest popular music from the States on a phonograph.  Then the young Colombians danced the pasillo, a slow native waltz.  Suddenly, someone noticed that it was train time.  They scrambled for coats and hats, gathered bouquets which they had picked, and bundled themselves off to the station.  The author had the pleasure of visiting the northern part of the sabana a second time, on which occasion he and Hernando traveled to the end of the railway line at Nemocon; and then, taking the highroad, they tramped back toward Bogota, 10 to 15 miles distance, collecting plants along the wayside.  It was another such day as he had enjoyed at Cajica: the air was fresh and cool, while the corn and barley rustled softly in the breeze.  The broad plain stretched away on either side, dotted with the houses of great haciendas and with the small homes of humbler folk.  Clumps of eucalyptus trees broke the monotony here and there.  Before the Conquest, the Chibcha Indians works these fields.  They must have led industrious lives.  With no domestic animals to assist them in cultivating the land, nor with any of large size for use as food, they tilled the fields with their own hands, growing maize, potatoes, and the other Andean root crops mentioned earlier.

The Chibcha were one of two native American races which made use of money in carrying on trade.  Their coins were small disks of gold.  They had many gold ornaments, as well as emeralds, which were abundant in their territory.  The emerald mines of Colombia were one of the world’s principal sources of those precious stones.  They had an accurate calendar and hieroglyphic figures attached to numerals which referred to the phases of the moon, sowing and harvesting crops, and to certain superstitions, but they had not developed a written language.  Their fiestas or celebrations were debauches of the worst sort.  At the time of the Conquest their territory comprised only the sabana of Bogota, 150 miles long by 40 miles at its widest, with a population of over one million souls.  They were ruled by two chiefs, the Zipa and the Zaque, one in the north and the other in the south.  They had a complex religious system; the sun and moon were objects of adoration, and they preserved traditions of worthy ancients who had preached to them, and had been converted into heroes and demigods.  The Chibcha did not achieved a civilization as high as the Aztecs in Mexico, the Maya in Guatemala and Yucatan, or the Incas in Peru; yet they were making progress and might have gone far, had not the cataclysm of the Spanish Conquest wiped them off the map.  The author decided to go down to Honda, on the Magdalena River, and, following the old overland route, travel on foot back to Bogota.  That would bring him over the trail built by the Spanish in colonial days.  That trail was used until the railway from Girardot was constructed.  The journey would be hard if made on foot as he planned.  He wanted a companion, and persuaded Thompson, of the American Legation in Bogota, to accompany him.

They provided themselves with two ruanas, a few tins of bacon, crackers, sardines, and other rations, and then, at 6 o’clock o a chilly morning, made their way down to the railway station.  In many inland cities of Latin America, the departure of the train for the coast was an event of social importance.  In few of them, however, did it match Bogota’s train to Girardot.  Bogota was a large city, by Latin American standards, and the people had little to amuse themselves.  Furthermore, travel from that remote Andean capital to the Caribbean coast was not that heavy.  For all those reasons, the residents rarely failed to take advantage of the departure of a friend for Europe or the U. S.  They came down to the train an hour before it was scheduled to leave – 7 o’clock in the morning; there were flowers and sweetmeats to be presented; and goodbyes to be said and resaid many times before the train finally pulled out.  Two sharp blasts from the whistle indicated that they were about to start.  People scrambled to board, while friends scramble to get off.  They pulled out across the sabana.  Ranchmen, in full riding outfits, clambered down from their cat at each small station.  Their horses, saddled and ready, were traveling in a stock car on the same train.  At Facatativa, 8,500 feet above sea level, while changing cars, everyone had time for hot coffee in the chilly air.  Then, they started down the steep slopes of the escarpment.  Their small engines, one ahead and one in the rear, puffed vigorously as they strove to hold down their speed.  Everyone in Colombia knew Esperanza.  It originally was a coffee plantation on the slopes of the Andes at an altitude of 4,000 feet which meant, at that latitude, that the air was always soft and balmy, devoid of the harsh chill of Bogota.

With the arrival of the railway, a large hotel was erected at that spot, and all trains stopped there for luncheon.  It was always hard for the author to pass Esperanza; it was an idyllic spot.  To one side there was a broad vista down into the valley of the Magdalena; to the other, the high Andes reared their rugged heads into the clouds.  There was a pool and the food was delicious, but they were not stopping this time.  They pushed on to Girardot, which they reached that evening.  The next day, they boarded a little steamer which plied the upper Magdalena.  Having the current behind them, they made the journey to Beltran in a day.  There, they changed to the train, which brought them to Honda in a few hours’ time.  They found a small but comfortable hotel, and set about purchasing a burro to carry their bedding and supplies over the long trail before them.  Burros were in abundance, but few of them were for sale.  They tramped the street approaching every owner they saw.  Finally, an old fellow sold them one for 25 pesos.  With Thompson in the lead, they set forth upon their journey.  The trail was dry and rocky, and it was decidedly warm.  Nevertheless, they stuck to it persistently, stopping every quarter hour to readjust the pack.  Darkness had already overtaken them when they reached the little tavern of Tocuy.  Gabriel, the burro, was turned loose in the corral, while they had a supper of bacon and eggs.  Then, with gracious permission, they swung their hammocks under the broad eaves of the building and turned in to sleep.  From his slumber, the author awoke to the sounds of a guitar and a voice singing of unrequited love.  He opened his eyes.  The whole valley was flooded with moonlight and the stars shone brightly overhead.  The air was still, with that heavy stillness known only to the tropic night.

The author listened.  Once more the plaintive notes broke the silence.  It was a wandering troubadour desiring a night’s lodging and singing to be admitted to the tavern.  It was late and the occupants were not to be aroused by ordinary means.  Finally, he heard the heavy bolt shoot back and the lumbering door creak open on its hinges.  The troubadour passed in and the author was left in peace.  At daybreak, they were up and upon the trail.  The ascent grew steep and their throats dry, as they found no springs or streams.  At last, they reached Las Cruces, a tavern on the mountainside.  There, they enjoyed Bogota beer and a bowl of sancocho.  As they were finishing their meal, they were approached by a youth begging for money for an operation on his leg.  He offered verses of poetry in exchange for alms.  The poetry was bad.  It was during that same day that they began to appreciate the handicap under which they were traveling.  They were social outcasts because they were on foot.  Two or three small inns at which they applied for lodging turned them down with flimsy excuses.  In Columbia a gentleman went always on horseback.  To the villagers they constituted a puzzling anachronism.  From their clothes and bearing, they appeared to be respectable foreigner, but they were on foot and driving a burro.  Obviously, there was something crooked about the business.  Once past the prosperous town of Guaduas, they began climbing the huge face of the escarpment, the central cordillera of the Andes.  Their third night they camped beneath a thatch for mule drivers, after being refused shelter at the inn.  It rained all night.  The morning found them waiting for it to clear up, so they could proceed.  Toward noon they pushed on, and at night made Alban, a town of some size, whence travel by oxcart was possible to Facatativa.

Up to that point the road from Honda had been suitable only for pack and saddle animals.  With much persuasion, the lady who owned the hotel agreed to take them in, though she was dubious regarding their character.  Gabriel was holding up well and had shown no aversion to the corn and alfalfa which they were feeding him.  The author and Thompson were footsore, but gained new enthusiasm from realizing that they were within striking distance of the plateau.  It was noon the next day when they splashed through the mud into Facatativa and selected the Hotel Gonzales as their headquarters.  The trip was over, as far as tramping was concerned, for they decided that little was to be gained by crossing the sabana on foot.  They bundled Gabriel into the train and with mud-spattered ruanas climbed aboard.  It was pleasant to be in the capital once more, though the damp, chilly air made him remember the lowlands with longing.  The author’s stay in Bogota was drawing to a close.  He got out his map to study the route across the mountains to the Cauca Valley – an earthly paradise which stood out in the author’s memory.  He had a new pair of saddlebags made and all the weak spots in his equipment touched up.  The morning of his departure dawned all too soon.  Hernando squandered a week’s salary to by tickets to Facatativa and back so he could see his patron safely started upon the long journey.  Then, for the last time, the author saw the broad green fields of the sabana fade away into the distance; for the last time he watched his fellow-travelers climb down from the train, mount their horses, and ride away.  They crossed the divide, and the brakes commenced to groan as they started down the mountainside.  The days spent round Bogota were at an end.

 

 

The second story listed on the cover of this month’s issue is entitled “Fishing for Pearls in the Indian Ocean” and was written by Bella Sidney Woolf.  The article contains twenty-four black-and-white photographs of which ten are full-page in size.  Before the article starts, there is an inscription quoted which reads: “In the sea of changeable winds his merchants fished for pearls.” – Cuneiform inscription, Nineveh.

The fame of the Ceylon Pearl Banks went back into the mist of ages. It was recorded that in 600 B. C., Vijaya, who landed in Ceylon in 543 B. C. and became its first king, sent a gift of chanks and pearls to his father-in-law, the King of Madura.  Pliny wrote of the value of Ceylon pearls and on their formation.  Ibn Batuta, that shrewd medieval globetrotter, gained firsthand knowledge of a pearl fishery in the fourteenth century.  From time to time in the long history of the Ceylon Pearl Fishery breaks had occurred.  The spat had vanished; the young oysters had been swept away by adverse currents or had been destroyed by fish.  After one of those intervals, lasting 19 years, a pearl fishery was opened in February 1925.  The scientific operations were in the hands of Dr. Pearson, Marine Biologist to the Government of Ceylon, and Mr. A. H. Malpas, both of whom had devoted many years of study and research to the life history of the pearl oyster.  On a Sunday afternoon they set out with the author on the government trawler Nautilus from Colombo Harbor, to visit the historic Pearl Banks.  The Nautilus, commanded by Captain Karkham, R. N. R., was a very comfortable boat for her size; there was no hint of hardship or discomfort.  The night was rough, so they turned in early, but were up a 4 o’clock, when the Nautilus dropped anchor.  It was a starlit night, and out of the darkness there came lights, green and red, moving mysteriously.  They were the trawlers Lilla and Violet, towing the fishing fleet.  Slowly the dawn came and revealed the gray throbbing waters of the Gulf of Manaar, with red-and-white flags bobbing up and down at irregular intervals.  They were over the famous Twynam Paar, the pearl bank that had recently been located.  Those rocky “paars,” on which oysters congregated, lied in from 5 to 9 fathoms.

The fishing fleet took one back 3,000 years.  In high-prowed dhoneys like these, the fishermen set out to sea in the days of King Vijaya, and the rigging and tackle had not changed one bit.  The sun flooded the sea; the dhoneys had cast off from the trawlers and were being directed into position by the Nautilus.  The decks of the dhoneys were packed with brown figures who lowered the divers, busy with their ropes.  The divers clambered over the sides.  It was an entrancing sight – the boats, some painted bright blue or yellow, bobbing up and down on the translucent blue water, the fluttering of gay-colored cloths and turbans hung on spars and rigging, the muscular brown bodies shining in the sunshine or gleaming in the water.  The divers were chiefly Tamils from southern India, and Arabs, the latter being the more efficient.  The Tamils made a terrible ado about it.  The Arab went down into the depths and worked swiftly, bringing in far more oysters than the excitable Tamil.  There was a difference in method of the divers.  The manduck (deckhand), controlled two ropes.  A stone or metal “sinker” was attached to one, a net basket to the other.  The diver descended with one foot on the sinker and the second rope and net bag in his hand.  At the sea bottom, he gathered the oysters and threw them into the bag; then he pulled at the rope and the manduck hauled him up to the surface.  The Tamil did not hold the rope till he reached the surface; he began to swim.  The Arab came up holding the rope, saving time.  The Arab put on a nose-clip; the Tamil held his nose with finger and thumb.  The effect of an Arab diver rising to the surface was very striking.  The man looked like a brown frog, as he came through the water.  The average time that a diver stayed underwater was between 60 and 70 seconds, but nearly 2 minutes below had been known.

Divers worked in pairs, and their shells were packed into bags on the decks of the dhoneys.  It was fascinating to watch the men at work in the water, and outlined against the sky pulling at ropes.  The Arab divers hauled themselves out of the water onto the decks with superb ease, even after making many descents.  In some cases, the divers discharged water and even blood from their mouth, ears, and nostrils; but, watching them close at hand, the author did not detect any of those symptoms.  The men seemed perfectly comfortable and, in the case of the Arabs, thoroughly contented.  A good diver could make 40 or 50 descents a day.  It was astonishing that they were not attacked by sharks, but no such attacks occurred during the fishery.  At noon, the “hooter” sounded and diving ceased for the day.  The government sealing officer set out in his launch and went from one boat to the other, putting the government seal on the bags.  When that work was accomplished, the dhoneys collected around the tugs, set their sails, and were attached to the tugs by towlines.  In the old days, the fleet made for Pearl Town under its own sail and took many long hours to make the journey.  That towing of the fleet was one of the few innovations introduced into the age-old procedure of the fishery.  It was interesting to watch the crowded decks of the dhoneys from the stern of the trawler.  The Arabs, after the day’s work, wrapped themselves in their burmooses.  They herded round the fire lit in the dhoney, stretched themselves out, and slept till the boat approached Pearl Town.  Then there was bustle and stir on board.  About half a mile from shore the dhoneys cast off from the tugs, and a race for the shore took place.  It was a case of “first come, first serve,” and every diver was anxious to get his oysters into the government enclosure where they were counted.

Meanwhile, they on the trawler transshipped to a launch and hurried shoreward, in order to see the arrival of the boats.  Marichchukaddi, Pearl Town, seen from the sea, was a most attractive spot – a low, reddish coastline, tree- and turf-covered, with a background jungle, stretching away to a game sanctuary.  The shore was crowded with people, in colored clothes and turbans.  It was hard to believe that when there were no pearls fishery, the place was deserted, save for a few native huts.  Now [in 1925], a town of 30,000 to 40,000 inhabitants had sprung up, as if by magic.  A day or two after the closing of the fishery, those inhabitants melted away like the figment of a dream.  Only the palm-leaf huts and a few substantial buildings remained.  The shore was deserted and silence reigned where for weeks rose a babel of many tongues, while Pearl Town enjoyed her crowded hour of glorious life.  It was delightful to watch the dhoneys making for the shore like a flock of birds on brown-and-white translucent wings, skimming over the shining waters.  The moment the boats were beached, the divers leapt ashore, seized their bags, and carried them up the beach on their heads.  The bags were dumped in the huge palisaded enclosure, the kottu, with a numbered place set aside for bags from each numbered boat.  The shells were counted by government officials and made up into bags of 1,000 each.  The government’s share was two-thirds, the divers kept one-third.  The hustle and bustle in the kottu could be imagined when one realized that, at one point of the fishery, 125 boats were out and 1,908 divers had to pass through the enclosure.  All was conducted in a very systematic manner; the divers came in one entrance and left by another, bearing their share of the catch, which they carried to an open market, held in a pleasant, green, tree-encircled hollow.

A crowd of buyers of every nationality and age swarmed round the divers like bees, chattering and bargaining.  At the beginning of the 1925 fishery, they obtained as much as a rupee a shell.  The purchasers thrust their shells into palm-leaf bags, which was a staple article for sale in Pearl Town shops, and hurried off to open their treasures.  It was a unique sight to watch them seated, knife in hand, searching for pearls, absorbed in the hunt.  Finding the pearls was a tricky business, for they were often deeply embedded in the flesh of the oyster.  In one small oyster, eleven small pearls were found.  In some cases, the pearl was not detached, but was formed on the shell.  It was known as a “blister pearl.”  If it was well raised above the shell, it was cut out and set in a ring or brooch, where perfect roundness was not required, as for a necklace.  When the divers had sold all their oysters, they sought the Divers’ bathing Pool and washed the salt from their weary limbs.  Pearl Town itself provided a fund of entertainment.  There were long streets of huts, in which every variety of article was displayed for sale – clothes, umbrellas, bead necklaces, foodstuffs, and household utensils in profusion.  There was a hospital, a police station, a post office, and a courthouse.  There were elaborate sanitary arrangements and procedures to prevent any outbreak of the dreaded epidemics – cholera and plague.  The pearl dealers, grave, breaded men who had come from India, sat in a row of huts, with their brass sieves for grading the pearls and their huge brass-bound chests.  Under a tulip tree sat the pearl drillers, who performed the delicate operation of piercing the gems.  One could wander for hours through Diver Street, Old and New Moor Street, Tank Street, and Chetty Street, or study the family camps, or examine the Rest House, where primitive lodging was available.

Toward evening Pearl Town looked its best, especially if one strolled out to the edge of the jungle.  At 9 o’clock every evening, the government auction of oysters was held.  The auction took place in the courthouse.  The bidding was conducted in Tamil, Singhalese, and Arabic by means of interpreters.  Oysters were sold in lots of not less than 1,000.    The highest price paid per thousand was 110 rupees; the highest daily average was 74 rupees; the average for the whole fishery was 45 rupees.  The total revenue for the government was 514,326 rupees.  The value of the rupee in 1925 was about 48½ cents.  The purchasers of large quantities of oysters placed them in enclosures, called totties, where they rotted.  Millions of maggots consumed the flesh.  The residue was examined, sieved, and sifted innumerable times, and even the dust was picked over, so even the tiniest of seed pearls did not escape.  The following notes on the formation of pearls were made by Dr. Pearson, the Ceylon Government’s Marine Biologist.  The formation of the pearl was variously ascribed by the ancients to the consolidation of drops of dew, to the distillation of the tears of the Nereids, or yet again to the effects of a flash of lightning.  The most reasonable theory ascribed the creation of a pearl to the intrusion into the tissues of the oyster of some foreign particle, such as a grain of sand or parasitic worm.  The pearl oyster had its soft parts covered by a skin, which produced the nacre, or mother-of-pearl, with which the inside of the shell was lined. When a particle found its way between the soft parts and the shell, a secretion of nacre was stimulated around the intruder and a blister pearl was formed.  Or again, a parasite might bore into the skin, carrying a few nacre-forming cells, which proliferated and enveloped the parasite.

It was not until the Portuguese occupation of Ceylon (1517-1658) that we found any detailed account of the manner in a which pearl fishery of those days was conducted, although fragmentary references to earlier fisheries were frequent.  From those, it would appear that the general method had remained unaltered during the last 2,000 to 3,000 years.  During the Portuguese period, Manaar was the center of the pearl-fishing industry, but it had lost much of its prosperity when the Dutch captured it in 1658.  The Dutch held a number of profitable fisheries before they lost Ceylon to the British in 1796.  The pearl oyster was not a true oyster, but a member of the mussel family.  It somewhat resembled the scallop in shape, although the two halves of the shell were almost equal in size and they were not corrugated like the scallop.  Like the marine mussel, the pearl oyster had a byssus, or bundle of tough, horny threads, which it could cast off and reel in at will.  By means of that byssus, it anchored itself to rocks or other suitable objects.  There were two spawning seasons a year, coinciding with the northeast and southwest monsoons, when millions of young oysters were liberated.  The first few days of the young oyster’s life were spent as a free-swimming larva in the surface waters of the sea, until such time as the shell was formed, when the oysters sink to the bottom and attach to other oysters or any existing anchorage.  If a young oyster fell on sand, it did not survive for long.  Only those oysters falling on rock reached a fishable age.  The pearl fishery of 1925 lasted 37 days, but due to bad weather, the catch was small – 16,000,000 oysters.

 

 

The third article in this month’s issue is entitled “Rothenburg, the City Time Forgot” and was by Charles W. Beck, Jr.  It contains eight “Illustrations from Natural Color Photographs by Hans Hildenbrand.”  These are full-page color photographs on a set of plates embedded in the article and numbered I through VIII and representing pages 185 through 192 in the issue.

The author recommended that the traveler to visit Rothenburg ob-der-Tauber, that perfect medieval walled town, to witness a unique festival, so picturesque and so pleasantly diverting as to have no equal in continental Europe.  On that occasion the city honored a man who took the biggest drink in all history, bar none!  Thereby he saved the lives of Rothenburg’s town council.  During the Thirty Years’ War, Rothenburg felt secure behind her great wall, with her towers and wide moat; with her citizens trained in combat and a garrison of Swedish soldiers.  But the city was besieged by Tilly, with an army of 40,000.  Tilly’s cannon battered the walls, but whenever a breach was made, his soldiers were driven back by the citizens.  Tilly warned the city that capture was inevitable, and the only salvation was surrender’ but they would have none of it.  At last, a luck shot exploded the Rothenburg powder magazine.  The citizens kept fighting, but the garrison of mercenaries hung out the white flag.  Tilly was enraged at the prolonged resistance of the town, that, after allowing the Swedes to march out, sentenced the town council to be hanged.  After much pleading from the wives and daughters, he decided to hang only four.  He told the council to draw lots, but they refused.  Tilly said that they would all die.  At that point, a diversion was created by the appearance of the town Pokal, the state beaker, a huge, three-quart glass, filled with the town’s best wine.  Tilly and his seven aides drank and drank but could not finish it.  Perhaps the wine softened Tilly’s heart.  He swore that if any an among them could empty the Pokal at one draft, he would spare the council and show mercy to the citizenry.  One brave soul, ex-Burgomaster George Nusch said he would try, saying if he failed, he rather be drunk when hanged.

The keeper of the town cellar refilled the beaker, and George Nusch lifted it – and drank – and drank – and drank – and drank.  Down it went to the very last drop!  With the last drop, Nusch fell senseless.  Tilly was amazed and the council cheered.  Nusch came to presently and suffered no ill effects from his draft.  Tilly was as good as his word – nearly.  He spared the council but he made them pay him heavily in cash for his leniency, and he turned the town over to his soldiers for a week of looting and pillage.  But George Nusch had won a place in history and in the hearts of his countrymen that well deserved the annual Whitsuntide party the city staged for him.  That was the pageant of Whitsuntide which the tourist must not miss.  Each year a thousand or more townsfolk don the costumes of 1631 and reenact the whole drama of the siege, the capture, and the emptying of the Pokal – except that the 1925 George Nusch did not have to finish the drink.  It was all done with superb accuracy of detail, with spirit, gusto, and rare historic power.  It would not have been possibly to perform the drama were not Rothenburg still very much as it was in medieval times.  The moat had been drained, but the walls and towers had been restored.  Moreover, the townsmen had refused to let any modern innovations creep into the architecture or the city’s streets.  Rothenburg looked as it must have looked before Columbus discovered America.  Indeed, parts of the city dated from two centuries before that time.  With its Renaissance beauty, Rothenburg attracted many artists.  Indeed, strolls about the town in summer were rather complicated by the number of easels and tripods that cluttered the streets, each with a hard-working artist attached.  Most tourist went first to see the Rathaus, though not all of them climbed its 193 steps to the top of the tower.

The older part of the Rathaus was built in 1240, while the newest part dated from 1572, and later.  The largest room in the Rathaus, the Kaiser-Saal, was where the last scene of the play occurred, in which Nusch drained the flagon.  Below the Rathaus were torture chambers and dungeons, without which no medieval town hall would be complete.  Criminals were executed there by sword as recently as 1804, when Bavaria stepped in and revoked the city’s right to use that bloody punishment.  The Jakobskirche, a high and handsome basilica, was built on the site of a pilgrimage chapel from which it inherited its sacred relic, a crystal vial reputed to contain drop of blood of Christ.  There, in March 1525, that Florian Geyer read the articles of association of the Peasant League to the assembly, and invited them to join the Franconian Peasant War.  In one of the chapels inside the church was the tomb of Heinrich Toppler, an even greater hero to Rothenburg than Nusch.  He was a burgomaster of the earlier days.  He died in 1408, and to him the town owed much of its prosperity and many of its buildings.  Toppler directed much of its wall-building and the double bridge over the Tauber.  He was called Rothenburg’s greatest citizen; but he died by poison in one of the dungeons.  When the traveler was weary of churches he should go out into the parks and enjoy the view.  After visiting the park, a walk around the city on top of the old wall was in order.  Loopholes in the outer parapet gave the defenders their chance to fire on the enemy.  As a last touch, one should read the old Latin motto on the nearby Kobollzellertor, the most picturesque of all the city’s gates: “Peace to those who enter; safety to those who depart” – not a bad thought to cherish during the long half-mile trudge to the railway station where one bade Rothenburg a regretful farewell.

A list of the caption titles of the full-page color photos, with plate numbers, is as follows:

• “In the Shadow of the Gallows Tower” – Plate I
• “A Parting of the Ways: The Plonlein, Rothenburg” – Plate II
• “A Bastion Near the Kobollzeller Tower” – Plate III
• “Rothenburg Citizens Re-enacting, At One of the Gates, A Scene During the Siege in 1631” – Plate IV
• “Marshall Tilly and His Soldiers as Portrayed in the “Meistertrunk” Pageant” – Plate V
• “After the Capture of the City” – Plate VI
• “Marshall Tilly Inspects His Troops in Camp” – Plate VII
• “The Hofbronnen, or Court Well” – Plate VIII

 

 

The fourth article in this month’s issue is entitled “The Road to Wang Ye Fu” and was written by Frederick R Wulsin.  It has the internal subtitle: “An Account of the Work of the National Geographic Society’s Central-China Expedition in the Mongol Kingdom of Ala Shan.”  The article contains twenty-eight black-and-white photographs taken by the author.  Five of these photos are full-page in size, and four half-page photos comprise a two-sided frontispiece for this article.  The article also contains a sketch map of the author’s route in China om page 199.

Sketch Map courtesy of Philip Riviere

It was in Paotow, near the southern edge of the Mongolian Desert and the terminus of the railroad northwest from Peking that the National Geographic Society’s Central-China Expedition made its final arrangements for an eight-months’ inland journey through the Province of Kansu, in the extreme northwestern corner of China proper, where Mongolia, China, and Tibet came together.  [See: “Where the Mountains Walked,” May 1922, National Geographic Magazine.]  Their mission was to gather from those little-known regions botanical and zoological specimens, which were subsequently presented by The Society to the U. S. National Museum, in Washington.  In addition, the author hoped to study the people of northwestern China.  Their caravan consisted of 27 camels, besides horses, which they purchased at Paotow, and the retinue included 15 Chinese employees, among whom were 4 camel drivers, who accompanied them as far as Wang Ye Fu, in Ala Shan, a Mongolian kingdom, about 23 days’ march to the west.  There, they were to find other transportation for the rest of their journey.  Those 23 days grew to 39, for the way was longer and the going worse than anyone had expected.  The route to Paotow laid to the northwest, over dry, open country, dotted with a few Chinese homesteads.  The straight trail to their destination was far south of their actual route, but they had to avoid it, for at two points it crossed the Hwang (Yellow) River.  Advancing spring had melted the ice, and there were no bridges for 1,200 miles.  They kept to the northern bank, far enough from the river to avoid irrigation ditches, for a camel dreaded mud more than cold, thirst, or hardship.  His big, padded feet slipped on wet ground, his long legs got tangled, and a fall might result in permanent injury.

The Chinese made their camels work all winter, leaving no opportunity to put on fat and build muscle.  Camels owned by Mongols, to the contrary, only made two trips a season, and could start out in the best condition, march fast, and keep going long hours.  Theirs were the inferior Chinese animals.  They fed best I the morning, after resting; so, they traveled in the afternoon and evening.  Their Chinese cook did not like that arrangement, and they agreed.  Breakfast and lunch were combined into one meal called “brunch,” taken at 10 in the morning.  The next, except for hard-tack munched in the saddle, came late in the evenings, sometimes at 11 o’clock.  They often finished a march in the dark; but with a full or waxing moon, which lit up the desert brightly, night marching was glorious.  One evening, they ended their march by dim starlight.  The author’s wife had been riding with him all afternoon, far in advance of the camels.  They came upon the camp of caravan traders.  One of the traders led them off to the south to a small farmhouse.  It was small, crowded, and reeked.  They set up their tents in the courtyard, among the pigs, donkeys, and oxen.  Their cook elbowed his way to the fire and soon sent them canned soup, boiled millet, and a scrawny chicken.  The millet was filling, and they soon sank into oblivion.  At 3 a. m., a gale sprang up, whirling all the debris of the courtyard.  They lashed down their tents which threatened to blow away.  Each lull in the gale was punctuated by shrieks from a demented woman, a member of the farmer’s family, who sought to out-howl the storm from her corner of the house. Dawn brought better weather and took them out to study the surroundings.  There were a few fields, some sand dunes, and a brook.  Four or five farmhouses stood close together.  One was in ruins.  Beyond stretched the bare, brown plain of Mongolia.

As they advanced, the farms became fewer, and after a week they turned due west over stony plains, empty and unfit for tillage.  Soon they saw the tents of their first pastoral Mongols, which were small, round buildings of felt stretched on wooden framework.  The Mongols lived on their sheep, goats, camels, and horses.  They eat the flesh, drink the milk, and sell the hair and wool.  They traded at the frontier towns and posts for tea, cloth, ironwork, boots, and sugar.  All their wealth was in animals and their lives were governed accordingly.  They were obliged to take down their tents and move on, with all their belongings, when the pasturage near the camp was exhausted.  In the past, a severe drought had often caused long migrations in search of good grazing, with war possible if invading the range of others.  Pasturage there was not green, but sparce and dry, and the grass grew in tufts.  It was worse spring, for the rainfall came in the summer.  Autumn was the best season to travel; it was neither hot nor cold, and there was new grass for the animals.  Their journey was made in the spring, and their camels grew thinner and thinner, though they gave them grain to supplement the grazing.  Eventually, the dry, stony country gave way to a desert of sand and dry brush that rose and fell in dunes and hillocks.  Only one of their camel-drivers had ever crossed that region in years past, so they were happy to pick up a one-eyed Mongol with a white donkey, who offered to guide them.  He was about 40 years of age, a very homely man, pock-marked and sunburned.  His native tongue was Mongol, but he spoke also a half-Chinese jargon.  One night they camped in a great circular bay in the mountains, surrounded by cliffs of red sandstone, floored with sand, and cut by a stream of ice-cold water.

Next day, a steady procession of lamas – red-robed priests of Mongolian Buddhism – shepherds, merchants, and travelers, stopped to water their animals.  In the afternoon, on the march, they met a caravan of 140 camels carrying hides and wool from Kanchowfu, in Kansu, to the railhead at Paotow.  Later, an ancient Mongol lady and her descendants came toward them over a sand dune.  They dismounted and photographed the party, which paused to inspect them.  Two days later, they came to Ta Shui Ko, a mud-walled trading post on the northern border of the kingdom of Ala Shan.  The trail divided there, one part leading straight over the desert to western Kansu, the other turning south toward Wang ye Fu, the capital of that little country.  They took the south fork, and continued over sandy, hummocky, brush-covered desert.  Their guide was rather hazy.  The trail was ill-marked and wells were uncertain.  Sometimes they hunted for them until late at night.  High winds blew and filled their eyes with sand.  The camels grew distressingly weak, and at times they had to flog them to make the last half mile to water.  At length they came into rolling grasslands, where Mongols were tending their flocks.  The trail became well beaten and the wells were deep holes lined with timber, not simple shallow pits in the sand.  The gaunt, ragged crests of the Ho Lan Shan appeared on their left, 15 or 20 miles away, and Mongol caravans passed them more frequently.  Suddenly one evening, at sunset, they saw a row of trees and a farmhouse with irrigated fields alongside a brook.  That was the first green they had seen for days and they were filled with joy.  They had come to the edge of the desert.  The next morning, after an hour’s march, they rounded a hill and saw the walls of Wang Ye Fu close before them. 

A great load fell from the author’s shoulders as the camels wound down a long street lined with trees, blacksmiths, carpenters, and shops under the city wall.  The first three days were spent in search of a dwelling.  The camels had dumped them in a muddy courtyard of a Chinese inn, with low rooms opening all around it.  There, from 200 to 300 Mongols gathered and stared at them for the greater part of three days.  Finally, they discovered what might be called a horizontal apartment house, a courtyard on which a dozen rooms opened, each rented to a different tenant.  They hired six, had them whitewashed, set up camp cots, put their books in a corner, and installed themselves.  From the housetop they could see Wang Ye fu spread around them, the walled city rising to the north, and flat roofs shaded by green trees on level ground to the east, west, and south.  Three mud forts, commanding the northern wall, broke the skyline.  Beyond their court laid another, where their taxidermist had quarters.  Their landlord, Mr. Mung, received his guests there, and his customers, for he had a grain and feed store and a wine-shop and held the office of postmaster.  The flour mill of the establishment, ran by donkey power, laid at a lower level, under the main one-story building.  Their activities almost crowded Mr. Mung out of his courtyard.  The taxidermy shop was always busy and often crowded.  Several of their men were out every day, shooting birds in the field near the town, and once they sent a party into the Ho Lan Shan for more protracted hunting.  The expedition botanist was constantly in the mountains.  Their scientific collections grew rapidly.  They posted big red placards in Chinese all over the city, offering to buy any wild animal brought to them.  Soon a steady stream of people invaded the courtyard in answer to their advertisement.

Others wanted to be photographed.  They had been shy at first, but after they had persuaded a few social leaders to have their pictures taken, it became very much the fashion and fresh sitters appeared at all hours.  Their house was situated on a quiet, shady street – “East Wall Street,” they called it – which ran along outside of the city wall and led to the main gates.  Inside the walls they met lamas in read robes, soldiers off duty, officials, and rich Mongol and Manchu ladies in fine silks who strolled in dignified leisure.  The government offices occupied a row of plain brick buildings behind an ornamental arch.  Nearby was the king’s palace – an attractive two-story, semi-foreign house, set back in a garden – and the lama temple, the real heart of the city.  Most of Wang Zye Fu lied outside the walls, and consisted of flat-roofed houses with big gardens.  Three small streams cut straight across the city.  A long street of blacksmiths, coppersmiths, and carpenters wound west from the gate along the city wall.  Logs were transported on donkeys from the neighboring mountains, and carpenters turned them into boards.  Most of the wood was pine and spruce, too soft to be of value for export.  It was made into furniture for the Mongol market.  The coppersmiths hammered out great, flat, circular water-bottles, nearly two feet in diameter.  Those hung from the camels’ packsaddles on a journey.  Tall, round pots with handles, for tea, and lower, broader pots, for cooking over a dung fire, were also made.  There were three silversmiths in the town, who, working with fine files and tiny hammers, made the gorgeous earrings which the Mongol women wore.  Most of the blacksmiths used the street for a workshop, setting up their anvils and forges near a house wall, under an awning.

The dyers worked their vats on the streets or in courtyards, and hung long strips of dripping blue cotton in sequestered nooks.  Down in the stony stream beds half-naked men set sheepskins and goatskins to soak; then beat and scraped them for market.  The main shopping street ran south from the gate.  A few big trading firms had imposing Chinese gateways which led to great inner courtyards.  Most of the retail trade, however, was done in shady little shops which opened wide on the street.  Merchandise came in by caravans.  The Mongols came in for a few days to shop, leading camels from booth to booth as they bargained; then, loaded up, they turned back to the desert.  As the desert was the key to Wang Ye Fu’s industries, so Mongol migrations were the key to its history.  It was founded nearly 250 years prior by a Mongol tribe, which sought refuge with the emperor of China.  They were driven from their ancestral home near Koko Nor.  The emperor granted the refugees the land they still occupied in 1925, north of the Province of Kansu.  The kings of Ala Sha enjoyed high favor with the emperors of the late Manchu dynasty, and on several occasions married daughters of the Imperial family – a fact which accounted for the presence of rich Manchu families in that out-of-the-way corner.  They came in the retinue of a princess, or as refugees after the 1911 revolution, which overthrew the dynasty.  Although there was something resembling a court in the capital, most of the people of Ala Shan were still nomad herdsmen.  Their country was about 300 miles long from east to west and as wide from north to south, with the southern edge resting on the Great Wall of China and its northern border lost in the Gobi Desert.  On the southeast the Ho Lan Shan, a steep and stony mountain range separated Ala Shan from the valley of the Yellow River.

To the west Ala Shan extended to the Edsin Gol, a small river which flowed down from the mountains of western Kansu and lost itself in two desert lakes.  To the northwest the desert and prairie stretched 1,200 miles without a city.  Wang Ye Fu was one of the few towns which bordered on the empty land of the nomads and afforded its dwellers glimpses of some of the comforts of settled civilization.  The pastoral life was full of hardships and, as a rule, diseases were quickly cured or were fatal.  Many of the Ala Shan Mongols had had smallpox, which was treated successfully by Chinese methods.  Sometimes, however, Chinese and Mongol ideas of medicine were disconcerting.  The Ala Shan Mongols were well-formed and healthy.  They were short, thickset men with round, brown, weather-beaten faces; not lean and spare like Tibetans, but solid and muscular.  In Wang Ye Fu, the country Mongol was just a visitor, though a frequent one, and his character had left its mark in every detail of the city.  Most of the town’s working population was Chinese, from Chenfan, in Kansu, 150 miles to the west, across the desert.  Life was hard in Chenfan and the land was very poor.  The people migrated to Wang Ye Fu, where there was a market for their labor as merchants, gardeners, carters, and blacksmiths.  They were gladly received by the Mongols, who did not care to do those things themselves and yet needed the services rendered.  Rich Mongols had irrigated fruit and vegetable gardens adjoining their houses, on the edge of town, but the gardeners were generally Chinese.  The Mongol might move to a town and learn letters, but he always remained far more apt at praying and riding than trading.

There were only two cities in Ala Shan – Tongkow, a salt market and shipping point on the banks of the Yellow River, and Wang Ye Fu.  The latter lied in a well-watered oasis below the western flanks of the Ho Lan Shan.  Almost all the country was desert, with wells here and there which were used for watering goats, sheep, horses, and camels.  The author was unable to obtain an accurate estimate of the population and the regent seemed amazed that he made inquiries on the subject.  The regent admitted that there were probably several tens of thousands of inhabitants, but that was all he seemed to know.  From the fact that there were less than 6,000 lamas in the three temples in and near Wang Ye Fu, the total population was probably less than 50,000.  Ostensibly, a Mongol king ruled Ala Shan, and his brother, a Mongol duke, was regent in his stead.  But in reality, the power lied with the nearest Chinese garrison, for the Mongols of 1925 were too poorly armed and too few in number to oppose the Chinese with success.  When two Mongols quarreled, the case was decided by the Mongol authorities; but if the suit was between a Mongol and a Chinese, it went to the nearest Chinese official for decision.  Farmers were constantly coming up from China to settle the land.  At first, they paid rent, but soon stopped paying.  Lacking deeds and landmarks, the Mongols were without means of redress.  When Chinese settlers became numerous in any one location, Chinese officials followed, to take over administration of the district.  The wiser Mongols realized that eventually all except the most arid parts of Mongolia would be lost to them; but they were helpless.  It was the age-old struggle between the farmer and the nomad, in which the farmer almost always won.

 

 

The fifth item listed on the cover of this month’s issue is entitled “Scenes in the Celestial Republic” and has no byline.  It is not an article but a set of “16 Full-page Illustrations in Duotone” embedded withing the fourth article, on pages 217 to 232.  Duotones, formerly called Photogravures are image transfers which use acid etched metal plates and special ink.  The deeper the etch in the plate, the darker the transfer.  The ink used in this set has a distinctive brown hue to it.

A list of the sixteen caption titles for these duotones is as follows:

• “Boat Life in China”
• “The Five-Arched Marble Gateway to the Ming Tombs”
• “The Outer Tower of the Te Sheng Men, or Gate of Victory, Peking”
• “Chinese Workmen Tamping Dirt with a Large Metal Disk, Chihli Province”
• “Chinese Coolies Pitching Pennies”
• “A Carved Marble Stairway in the Temple of Confucius, Peking”
• “One of the Superb Bronze Lions in the Court of the Lama Temple, Peking”
• “A View of the Upper Foochow, Fukien Province”
• “The Three Pagodas at Kashing, on the Grand Canal”
• “A Peking Cart”
• “Mongolians Bringing Young Falcons to Peking”
• “Entrance to the Tomb of the Ming Emperor, Yung Lo”
• “A Mah Jongg Craftsman at Work in Shanghai”
• “Mother and Son Grinding Beans on a Farm in Northern China”
• “Women at Work in a Chinese Rice Field”
• “Sunrise of the Chinese Coast”

 

 

Tom Wilson

[Scott T. Shier]

Absolutely superb write-up and summary as always Tom! 

Very detailed and most excellent w/ all your embedded images   : - ) 

[George Thomas Wilson]

I hurried it out before the storm hit.  Last time we were out of power for a few days.

[Scott T. Shier]

Oh, I hope you guys are okay? No power outage yet?