100 Years Ago: August 1926

[George Thomas Wilson]

100 Years Ago: August 1926

 

This is the one-hundred-thirty-nineth entry in my series of rewrites of National Geographic Magazines as they reach the centennial of their publication.

 

 

The first article in this month’s issue is entitled “Through the Great River Trenches of Asia” and was written by Joseph F. Rock, Leader of the National Geographic Society’s Yunnan Province Expedition, Author of “The Land of the Yellow Lama,” “Banishing the Devil of Disease Among the Nashi,” “Experiences of a Lone Geographer,” “Hunting the Chaulmoogra Tree,” etc., in the National Geographic Magazine.  The article has the internal subtitle: “National Geographic Society Explorer Follows the Yangtze, Mekong, and Salwin Through Mighty Gorges, Some of Whose Canyon Walls Tower to a Height of More Than Two Miles.”  The article contains forty-seven black-and-white photographs, of which twenty-seven are full-page in size.  Sixteen of those full-page photos are in a block and appear to be duotones, which I will discuss latter.  The article also contains a sketch map on page 134 of the region of China from the article with an inset of southeast Asia.

Sketch Map courtesy of Philip Riviere

Where in all the world was to be found scenery comparable to that which awaited the explorer and photographer in northwestern Yunnan Province, China, and in the mountain fastnesses of Tsarung, in southeastern Tibet?  Few had been privileged to climb the towering ranges separating the mightiest streams of China, if not of Asia.  The whole region was once one vast, high plateau, now intersected and eroded by some of the longest rivers in the world.  Those rivers changed that high plateau not merely into a land of lofty mountains, but of deep valleys with gloomy shadows and forbidding gorges never trodden by human foot.  In those trenches the Salwin, Mekong, and Yangtze, cutting through mountain ranges 20,000 feet in height, made their way to the oceans.  Those three rivers, flowing parallel, north to south, for some distance in western China and southeastern Tibet, at one place came within 48 miles of each other, as the crow flies, and yet their mouths were separated by thousands of miles.  It was that region which the author wanted to bring home to America in pictures when he led the National Geographic Society’s Yunnan Province Expedition.  [See: “The National Geographic Society’s Yunnan Province Expedition,” April 1925, National Geographic Magazine.]  No white man had previously had a glimpse of many of the scenes there photographed, for the few explorers who had penetrated those terrifying fastnesses had done so when the snow-crowned peaks were hidden from view by the enveloping monsoon clouds of summer.  All three of those rivers had their origins in the high plateau land of Tibet, but their ultimate sources were still unknown.  The Salwin, which flowed for a long distance through Tibet proper, entered Yunnan south of Tibet.

In its southward course the Salwin became part of the Burmo-Siamese border and finally entered the Indian Ocean at Moulmein.  The Mekong paralleled the Salwin to about the 20^th degree of latitude; then turned westward, forming the border of three countries – Burma, Siam, and Indochina – and finally entered the tropical South China Sea near Saigon.  The Yangtze, the mightiest and longest of them all, was also the least consistent.  It flowed parallel to the Mekong to a point near Shiku, and thence made a sharp curve, turning directly north; described a huge loop which added hundreds of miles to the length of the river; returned to the south, then turned east, becoming in part a boundary for the provinces of Yunnan and Szechwan, and at length bent to the northeast and entered the Pacific Ocean near Shanghai.  Of those rivers, the Salwin was the least known; it was navigable for only a short distance above its mouth.  The Yangtze, on the other hand, was navigable for a distance of some 1,500 miles, to Chungking, and thence by small boats as far as Suifu.  Beyond that rowboats ply as far as Machang, in eastern Yunnan.  In the north, near Batang, it was navigable by skin boats or coracles, but only for short distances.  Extensive stretches of that river, which was more than 3,000 miles long, were unknown and parts of its course appear on accurate maps as dotted lines.  Much had been written about the Yangtze gorges in the vicinity of Ichang, so very well known to tourists, but very little had been said about the much grander gorges north of Likiang.  Few had penetrated even part way into that most terrific of all canyons, among the first being J. Bacot and Dr. Handel-Mazetti, who ventured as far as the hamlet of Djipalo, while the author continued his journey to near Taku.

That long stretch of the easternmost arm of the great loop, from Fungkoa to Tsilikiang, had also been unexplored, especially south of Lapo.  The author follow that stretch nearly all the way, bringing back the first photographs of that part of the Yangtze which flowed through arid gorges, the walls partly covered with a cactus, a species of opuntia native to America, but now widely distributed in Yunnan by birds, which fed on the succulent fruits, disseminating the unharmed, undigested seeds.  The grandeur of the deeply entrenched rivers was enhanced by the mighty ranges with snowclad peaks which separated them.  One of the finest was Kaakerpu range, separating the Salwin from the Mekong, and which reached 24,000 feet, the highest peak of the range being Mount Miyetzimu.  The Mekong-Yangtze divide reached its highest point, some 20,000 feet, in Mount Peimashan, while the Salwin-Irrawaddy divide culminated in Mount Kenyichunpo, nearly 20,000 feet high, the eastern branch of the Irrawaddy flowing parallel to the three great streams for some distance, especially in the Chinese part of its course.  Lured by the magnificence of the mountain ranges and the weird and little-known chasms in which those mighty rivers flowed, as well as by the strange tribes living on the slopes of their gorges and in their valleys, early one October the author left his headquarters in the little Nashi hamlet of Nguluko, on the Likiang snow range to explore and photograph.  [See: “Banishing the Devil of Disease Among the Nashi,” November 1924, National Geographic Magazine.]  During the whole summer botanical explorations had been carried on in those regions; but, as photography during the rainy season was out of the question, the author undertook this special fall and winter journey for the purpose of bringing back photographic records.

The monsoon rains were not yet over when the author set out with his retinue of 15 men and a large caravan, with supplies for three months.  Their train took them down the Likiang plain to the hamlet of Poshakai; thence over a small spur, on the top of which they partook of their noonday meal at a Nashi wayside kitchen.  As the first day of their journey was always a short one, the caravan never getting started before 10:00 or 11:00 a. m., they decided to stop at the Nashi hamlet of Toke, on the slopes of a spur which they were to cross the next day.  The night spent at the little temple at Toke was far from restful; fleas innumerable made sleep next to impossible.  The following day they climbed a high spur, reaching an elevation of 10,000 feet.  A well-graded rock trail brought them down into the Yangtze Valley, and following along the left bank upstream, they reach the hamlet of Shiku, or Rock Drum.  The Yangtze, coming directly from the north, made a very sharp curve at that village and returned north again, flowing parallel to itself, not more than 15 miles separating opposite channels.  The river there was very wide and in winter the course was full of islets and sand bars, the breeding ground of waterfowl.  It was market day in Shiku and its single street was crowded with men, women, mules, pigs, dogs, children, and whatnot.  In Shiku, the author occupied a large, barnlike structure containing stables and granaries, belonging to a rich Likiang Buddhist priest addicted to opium smoke.  The next morning, they started with as much noise as when they arrived.  How glorious to get out of such a foul place into the pure, fresh air!  Their trail led them up the Yangtze for several days.  The country was quiet and peaceful; clouds hung heavily about the mountains enclosing the river – the last of the monsoon summer.

At Budsuolo, a Nashi village, someone had given up his mortal toil; mourners were parading around in grayish-white garments and headdresses, while leaning against the wall of the deceased’s house was a long row of human effigies, made of bamboo covered with paper.  Many lateral ravines opened out into the main Yangtze Valley, while the trail passed through dense growths of spiraea, bauhinia, and Rhamnus.  Those bushes and shrubs lined the narrow trail, at times almost closing over it.  Myriads of spider webs were interlaced and entwined among those shrubs.  The trail skirted a sandstone wall, built up artificially from the river bed.  The rocks were loose near the edge the path had sagged considerably and in many places was washed out.  The mountains there were bleak and dreary, only grass covering the slopes.  Along a weary trail, over mighty passes and through deep and gloomy canyons and glorious forests, they proceeded to Befengchiang, where they stopped for the night in an old farmhouse.  The author slept in an attic festooned with corncobs.  The fifth day from Likiang they reached Chutien, on the banks of a tributary of the Yangtze, along which their trail now followed a mountain range, up and down through valleys and villages, till they came upon the plain of Lutien and the much-scattered village of the same name, on the slopes of the Mekong-Yangtze divide.  It was difficult to find a place to rest.  On account of the rain, they decided not to pitch their tents, but the first building, a dilapidated schoolhouse was no good.  They went on in search of better quarters, which they found the best house of the place.  Opium smokers were evicted from the loft, and the author had the place cleaned.  The evening air was wonderful at that elevation (9,000 feet); the rain had stopped bringing a starry sky.

They were now ascending through pine and spruce forests to the summit of the Yangtze-Mekong watershed.  Litiping, as the divide was known, was one broad, undulating range of alpine meadows, some 11,000 feet in elevation, bordered by a dense forest of the loveliest hemlocks.  The undergrowth consisted mainly of a canebrake, while a thick carpet of moss covered the ground.  The meadows were a sea of blue and white, for the gentians and edelweiss were in bloom.  Rhododendron, anemones, and irises formed a border on the edge of the forest.  Late that afternoon they arrived at the prefectural town of Weihsi, a forlorn place of about 400 houses situated on a small tributary of the Mekong River.  There they stopped for two days to develop their pictures, pack seeds, and write notes and letters, for Weihsi had a post office.  After leaving Weihsi their goal was Kakatang, only about ten miles distant.  It was situated in a narrow part of the valley of the Weihsi stream, a row of log-and-mud houses and pigsties.  The first two buildings in which they looked for lodging had unburied coffins in them.  The finally put in the first house of the village.  From Kakatang they continued their journey through narrow defiles, always following the stream until they reached the Mekong River.  They followed the Mekong upstream to Petsinhsun, where they stopped for lunch at the home of the headman of the village.  Their trail led up the Mekong to Tsehchung, on the east bank of the river, some seven days distant.  Strange as it mayseem, the most important crop grown by the natives of the Mekong Valley was Indian corn.  They were still in the land of the Nashi, although one encountered other tribes, such as Lissu and Tibetans.  At Kangpu they stopped at the house of the Nashi chief who ruled over that and other villages farther south.

It was in Kangpu that the author encountered the first real Nashi lamas.  They spoke Tibetan, besides their mother tongue, and some of them had even been to Lhasa, where they had studied.  Following up the Mekong north of Weihsi, one became aware that one was nearing the Tibetan border.  Chinese were very scarce and the tribal people, such as the Nashi, had adopted the religion of the lamas.  Beyond Yetche, Tibetans outnumbered other tribes.  Other signs were the many shrines, pyramids of rock slabs, upon which were carved a prayer.  Their trail descended from Kangpu to the stream bed, only to lead zigzag over a rocky bluff.  Big boulders projected in all direction; the crevices being filled with large clumps of orchids.  A few miles more and they reached Yetche, where reigned a Nashi king, whose name was Lee.  He was exceedingly friendly to foreigners, and all strangers who passed through Yetche stopped with him.  They spent the day in the king’s establishment, occupying a small garden and veranda next to the private lama chapel.  The Mekong became more interesting and the scenery much grander, as they proceeded northward.  A contingent of Nashi men, with headquarters in Tsehchung, had been collecting seed for the author on the great divides separating the Mekong, the Yangtze, and the Salwin, and the author sent a messenger to inform them and Father Ouvrard, a French Priest, of his approach.  He was hailed by his Nashi men from the other side of the river at the rope bridge of Tseku.  He planned to cross using the rope bridge at Tsehchung but was persuaded to cross at Tseku instead.  These bridges were only possible across rivers flowing in trenchlike valleys, such as the Mekong and the Salwin.  The starting platform was usually from 100 to 250 feet above the river, while the landing platform was from 25 to 50.

The difference in height provided a fairly steep decline.  There were two rope units for each crossing place, one to the right bank and the other to the left.  A necessary instrument was the slider; a semicylinder made of oak.  The slider fit over the rope.  The Traveler was tied into a rawhide sling.  Before the trip was attempted the slider must be greased with yak butter.  After about three hours all of the author’s men, as well as his baggage, were safely landed.  At Tsehchung the author was hospitably given a room at the mission.  He now made preparations for his journey to the Salwin.  With the help of Father Ouvrard, he hired 13 porters, Nashi, Lutzu, and Tibetans, and off they started one cool morning.  They left their caravan behind and took only riding horses, beds, provisions, warm clothes and blankets, and photographic equipment.  The trail led back toward Tseku, but before reaching the village it ascended steeply the enormous mountain slope at a terrific angle.  It was exceedingly narrow and zigzagged through scrub oak and pine forest over rocks and boulders.  As they ascended, they emerged from pine forests into a deciduous growth of wild cherry, maples, and rhododendrons, with here and there a sumac.  Narrower and narrower became the trail, leading finally to the top of the first preliminary ridge, some 10,500 feet above sea level.  They were in another world, overlooking a forest of fir trees with mighty trunks and more than 150 feet in height.  Great birch trees reared their crowns among the firs.  It was the finest rain forest the author had ever seen.  Through that hallowed shrine of trees they descended, across crystal brooks bordered by red-flowered balsams, ferns, and orchids, over an alpine meadow surrounded by tall conifers, with peaks rising thousands of feet above them.

On they wandered through a more open forest of rhododendrons and birches, following a glacial stream to their camping place for the night.  A brilliant sunset over snowclad peaks closed their happy day.  The sky was cloudless and a near-full moon shed a silvery light over the landscape.  Their camp was at 10,500 feet, and starry nights at such a height were icy cold.  A steady climb brought them to the foot of the Sila, a regular paradise of rhododendron; one could gather more than a hundred species on that range alone.  The sky now blackened and a snowstorm raged among the peaks.  The trail, mere hook-marks over the boulders, could be located only with difficulty, but not sufficient snow had fallen to obliterate it.  By the time they reached the actual pass, at 14,500 feet, the gentle snow had become a blizzard.  Glad to turn their back on that bleak, inhospitable spot, they descended over a steep, well-constructed trail which extended all the way to Bahang, two days distant.  At the foot of that enormous range flowed the Sewalongba, a tributary of the Salwin, and on its banks they camped in a one-room stone house erected by missionaries.  It afforded them grateful shelter on a night colder than the previous one, 4,500 feet higher up.  The Salwin in the rainy region had two parallel tributaries flowing in deep, V-shaped trenches; those must be crossed before the main stream could be reached.  Theyhad crossed the first of those, the Sewalongba, but there remained the Doyonlongba to be negotiated.  The following morning found them on their way, climbing to the summit of another pass.  They reached the pass at 13,000 feet, where a matchless panorama spread before them.  They could overlook the Salwin Valley, while beyond rose a mighty range separating the Salwin from an eastern branch of the Irrawaddy.

Once more they descended through beautiful fir and spruce forests, deep down into the valley of Doyonlongba, where, on a bluff at 8,200 feet, was situated the last outpost of a Christian mission, Bahang.  To the author that was the loveliest mission station of which he knew.  There lived, all alone, a young priest, Father Andre.  Two days north of him was the forbidden land, Tibet, and two days to the south the treacherous Black Lissu land.  There were 18 huts at Bahang, situated around the hill, on top of which the church and mission stood.  Twice it had been burned by Tibetan lama, and twice Father Genestier had to flee and find shelter among the Lissu farther south.  He was the only survivor of the massacre of 1905.  The Lissu who inhabited that stretch of the Salwin were a poor lot.  They lived solely on corn, their staple food, which they used for making liquor of which they drank a great deal.  They descended to the Doyonlongba and climbed the next divide, a broad, bracken-covered ridge bordered by forests of magnolia, oak, and birch, and finally reached Chjonra, a scattered Lutzu hamlet on the Salwin.  The whole village had assembled at the last house nearest the river to celebrate a sale, a woman to become one of many wives of a Lutzu man.  All were drunk, but offered at once to ferry them across the broad, swift-flowing Salwin.  A rope bridge spanned the river there, but the author preferred the drunken Lutzu to the old rope.  All their belongings made it safely across but their horses had to swim the icy waters.  Following a narrow trail through buckwheat, they reached Champutong, within sight of the mightiest glaciers of the highest peaks of the Salwin-Irrawaddy divide.  There, the scenery was tropical, and it was a different world entirely from that along the Mekong, only a few miles distant as the crow flies.

Champutong was a village of forty scattered mud houses, roofed with huge slabs of slate.  It was situated on a high alluvial fan or plain deeply cut by two streams which flowed into the Salwin.  Before 1905, an imposing Buddhist monastery stood in a grove of oak trees, but after the massacre of the French priest in that year the Chinese retaliated and burned down that as well as the Atuntze and other monasteries to the north.  The Champutong temple alone remained, in a dilapidated state, tended by four poor lamas.  From the temple they made their way to the manificent marble gorge through which the Salwin had cut its way, the walls rising vertically hundreds of feet on both sides and in many places overhanging.  Well within the gorge the trail was a bare hand’s breath and in one place consisted of a couple of sticks, on which one had to balance oneself with toes pointing to the wall and hands against the cliff.  Ad yet the Lutzu negotiated that trail carrying heavy loads.  The next day they climbed the Salwin-Irrawaddy divide to get a photograph of its highest peak, Mount Kenyichunpo (about 20,000 feet).  Normally cloud covered, the gods favored them.  It was crystal-clear that morning; the peerless peak remained sharply outlined against an azure sky.  The glaciers laid crescent-shaped before them and a deep, narrow, forested valley opened out into the Salwin beyond the marble gorge.  Up that valley led a perilous trail for three or four days’ march over snow-clad passes to the Nmaihka, an eastern branch of the Irrawaddy.  The region was as yet an unexplored, virgin land for botanist, geographer, and geologist.  The Lissu, wildest of the tribes found in Yunnan, had settled in that vicinity.  Like the Lutzu, they were dexterous in the use of the crossbow and were skilled hunters.

It was there that the black rhododendron flourished on lonely alpine meadows, among lovely primroses of indescribable colors.  Across the divide was the home of the Kjutzu, a primitive, harmless jungle people who, the Chinese said, lived in trees like monkeys.  Enriched with large collections, they returned to Champutong down a perilous grass-covered ridge.  They had to hasten now, for winter was approaching.  They left Champutong by glorious moonlight long before dawn of October 28.  Through the deep ravine they picked their way along a narrow, rocky trail, high above the Salwin River bed, which was filled with snow-white clouds.  They reached Tjonson and crossed to Chjonra in the dugout after signaling their Lutzu friends with revolver shots, for they were sound asleep.  They camped that evening deep in the forests of the Doyonlongba.  In clearest weather they followed the stream through virgin walnut forests, some trees being 80 feet tall.  After a wonderful night in a forest of rhododendron, maples, firs, and spruces, they left their camp in bright moonlight and climbed higher and higher, until about noon they reached the pass which led to the Mekong Valley.  They spent one night along a glacier stream in rhododendron woods.  There, their Tibetan guide left them, as he was afraid to venture down to Londjre, a Tibetan hamlet deep in the canyon, where it was said a plague had raged and all survivors had fled into the hills.  When they arrived at the village, they found that it was deserted, many having died, not of plague, but of relapsing fever, a disease carried by lice.  They now followed the arid, rocky gorge of the Mekong.  They reached Yangtza, a busy place that time of year, for thousands of pilgrims crossed there to visit sacred Dokerla.  As they approached, Tibetans kept sliding on rope bridges both ways from bank to bank.

The terrific gorge of the Mekong engulfed them and their caravan looked like mere dots on the narrow trail, against the huge cliffs.  It was best to negotiate the narrowest parts of the trail before 10 a. m., as later in the day terrific gusts of wind howled through the arid canyon, making traveling unsafe.  So dry and arid was the gorge and so hot the wind, that traveling was a real hardship for both man and beast.  Of all the trails along which they had passed thus far, none could compare with that which led from Londjre gorge out into the Mekong.  It was a veritable corkscrew up a weird black chasm, at the bottom of which roared the stream coming from sacred Dokerla.  Through a narrow gap they eventually emerged once more into the Mekong Valley, with the river far below.  Their trip to the Salwin had taken just twelve days.  They now entered a still deeper and more terrifying canyon, absolutely barren, through which the river wound in long loops.  High above the gorge to the west rose the peerless peak of Mount Miyetzimu, some 24,000 feet into the azure sky.  Next to it was a huge crest of ice; then came Kaakerpu, from which the range derived its name.  The river flowed some 15,000 feet below the summit.  Leaving the Mekong, they entered a narrow, rocky ravine to the right, at the end of which laid the frontier town of Atuntze, a conglomeration of flat-roofed huts.  The author decided to cross to the sacred Dokerla and photograph that glorious range from Tsarung, in Tibet, following the trail trodden by 20,000 pilgrims every year.  The journey took eleven days.  To reach the Doker Pass, at 15,000 feet, one must first cross the rope bridge at Yangtza, and camp several days on the way.  They were in a stream of pilgrims and a host of Tibetan coolies carried their luggage.

Dokerla was on the border between Tibet and China.  On the Tibetan side of the mountain was very steep, the trail descended in 118 zigzags to the bottom of the ravine.  They started on their return journey to Likiang on November 30 by a different route, crossing the mighty Peimashan range, which separated the Mekong and the Yangtze.  That range was much less eroded than the Salwin-Mekong divide, which acted as a rain screen, precipitating the monsoon clouds.  By far the finest of all the gorges in Yunnan were those through which the Yangtze flowed north of Likiang, as it slashed through the mighty snow range.  From Shiku, where the Yangtze turned north, flowing parallel to itself, the waters were broad and placid, the current was gentle, and near Yulo, where a ferry plied, one would never dream that only a few miles farther on the river became a mad torrent flowing through a terrifying gorge.  The Yangtze flowed at 6,000 feet elevation where it entered the gorge, and as the peaks of the range in which it pierced were more than 19,000, the gorge was about 13,000 feet in depth.  In many places the river was only 20 yards wide and was one continuous series of cascades and rapids.  The depth of the water must have been enormous.  The cliffs rose steeply on both sides, culminating in jagged crags and pinnacles.  They entered the gorge after having crossed the Chungtien River, which flowed into the Yangtze.  A narrow trail for mules permitted ingress to Loyu, a hamlet within the gorge.  From there on the path could be used only by porters and led at times 2,500 feet above the river.  On the right cliff, perched in a small hallow, was a Lissu village, accessible only with great difficulty, while on the left were three small hamlets, veritable castles on the rocky bluffs.  Beyond Djipalo it was possible to go down to the river banks and watch the rapids.

For three days the journey lasted, until Taku was reached.  Beyond Pentiwan, the third hamlet in the gorge, the trail was dangerous, as rock slides occurred continuously.  As the ferry at Taku was smashed by the Tibetan hordes in April 1923, and the owner placed in jail for possessing such a convenience for travelers, they were forced to return to Yulo, where we found another ferry.  From Taku the Yangtze flowed north, only to return again above Fungkou, by Lapo, where it flowed in rocky gorges worked by Nashi gold-diggers, who soldtheir precious metal to jewelers in Likiang.  Mr. Eric Teichman stated in one of his books that in the whole length of the Yangtze course not a single bridge spanned the river.  He overlooked the imposing structure at Tsilikiang, one and a half days journey southeast of Likiang.  That bridge was the result a romance. Long ago a man living in Hoking, south of Likiang, tried to eloped with his love.  News traveled fast in China and the ferryman refused to take them across the river.  The man swore that if he ever be blessed with riches, he would build a bridge across the Yangtze for future lovers.  The gods were good to our hero and he in turn to others; hence the bridge.

 

 

As mentioned above, there is a block of sixteen full-page duotones embedded within the first article, pages 145 through 160.  Duotones, formerly called photogravures, are images transferred to paper using acid-etched metal plates and special ink.  The deeper the etch, the darker the transfer.  The ink used in this batch of as a slightly brownish tint to it.  None of the images are credited or copyrighted save for being in the magazine.

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

• “A Lutzu with His Crossbow”
• “The Caravan of the National Geographic Expedition Stops at a Yunnan Village for Lunch”
• “The Market of Shiku”
• “Huts Comprising the Village of Djipalo, in the Yangtze Gorge”
• “The Rope Bridge at Tseku”
• “One of the Horses of the Expedition Being Sent Across the Rope Bridge at Tseku”
• “The Hamlet of Londu on the Mekong”
• “Mount Kaakerpu, with a Huge Glacier Descending to the Mekong”
• “The Expedition Climbing the Dokerla on the Tibetan Side”
• “Yaks in the Tibetan Village of Atuntze; Elevation, 11,500 Feet”
• “Looking Up the Yangtze Gorge at Tsilikiang”
• “A Smile from a Citizen of the Forbidden Land”
• “A Rocky Road Along the Banks of the Yangtze Above Shiku”
• “Tibetan Porters in a Snow-covered Stream Bed at the Foot of the Dokerla”
• “The Mekong Entering a Narrow Gorge Near Yangtza”
• “Three Nashi Lamas of the Kangpu Lamasery in Front of a Shrine”

 

 

The second article in this month’s issue is entitled “The Life of the Moon Jellyfish” and was written by William Crowder, Author of “Marvels of Mycetozoa,” in the National Geographic Magazine.  The article contains six black-and-white photographs, one of which is full-page in size.  The articles internal titled is slightly different: “The Life of the Moon-Jelly.”  Together with the third item listed on the cover, “Jellyfishes – Living Draperies of Color,” a set of “Eight Reproductions of Paintings from Life,” this article comprises another in the series of field guides which periodically grace the pages of The Geographic.

The author’s first insight into the history of the moon-jelly (Aurelia aurita) was due to chance.  It was a late afternoon in October.  At the thwart of his little boat, he was studying a varied population that covered the crumbling framework of an old and partly submerged wreck.  Mussels and barnacles had for the most part preempted the available areas of the rotting hulk; but here and there, exposed by the falling waters of the outgoing tide, were also to be seen the flaccid forms of seaweeds and hydroids, anemones and starfishes, and other less rigid shapes which made up the more colorful part of the living mantle that draped the dripping hull.  Eventually darkness came and the tide turned.  A heavy mist arose. Out of the starless void, the incoming waters flowed silently, swiftly, luminously – a ghostly stream, a river of sulphureous light!  Pale, pulsating patches of glaucous light swirled by, losing themselves in eddies of vaporous blue.  Scintillating points of purple would suddenly flare, then suddenly fade.  The mist cleared and the outline of the hull above the waterline loomed black and indistinct. Below the waterline it was invested with a drapery of ambient fire – of azure and violet, flashes of mauve, and ripplings of ruby and rose.  Free and vigorous use of the author’s dip-net was made, and soon the half-barrel at the bow of his boat contained a crowd of the creatures swimming to and fro, emitting violet flashes and filling the tub with a continual glare.  The author described the moon-jelly as a flattened, soft, jelly-like hemisphere, about the diameter of a soup bowl.  Within the outer, transparent dome was another one less arched, but equal in diameter, and joined to the other throughout the extent of its rim.  That rim was notched at eight equidistant points, dividing the periphery into eight lobes, each bearing threadlike tentacles, a half inch long.

The inner dome was a bluish milky white, marked with veinlike patterns extending from the central region.  There were four horseshoe-shaped gonads placed with their open ends facing the center.  Those prominent organs allowed Aurelias to be easily distinguished from other jellyfish.  The individuals in the tub differed in color of those gonads.  Some were pinkish (the males); others were yellow, females laden with eggs.  The bowl-like part of the jellyfish was called the “umbrella,” which was both a swimming apparatus and a covering for the stomach and other organs.  Suspended from the central part folds of four dangling veils were much in the position of the shaft of an umbrella.  And just as an umbrella opens and closes, the jellyfish does so to propel itself.  It became evident that Aurelia was not the only light-producer in the tub.  In smaller numbers there was a smaller form, the comb-jelly.  Diaphanous, transparent almost as the water in which it swam, and seemingly with the merest trace of substance in its delicate body, it reflected the luster of a hundred evanescent hues.  Their generic name was Mnemiopsis, and their more colorful areas were restricted to the eight rows of hairlike cilia extending along the longitudinal axis of their pear-shaped bodied.  It was with the aid of those cilia that they swam.  The hairs were tiny oars, lashing in unison, vibrating rapidly.  At various angles, the jellyfish resembled a comb.  One morning, within a week of transferring the moon-jellyfishes to the tanks of his laboratory, the author noticed the water had turned cloudy and the jellies were lethargic at the bottom of the tank.  Gradually the cloudiness faded and localized, condensing into a haze on the side of the tank facing window light.  Could it be that they were hatchlings swimming toward the light?

The author examined the jellyfishes, which were making their last attempts at locomotion, and discovered that the brood-pouches were bare and the oral appendages were as clear as glass.  The cloudlike haze was composed of the multitude of young Aurelias.  Under a low-power lens the little creatures appeared pear-shaped, transparent, and about the size of a fingernail.  The author transferred the water to smaller containers, as the adult jellies were dying.  He observed the young transform through several stages.  Barely had he completed the transfer when the larval hordes ceased swimming and congregated on the bottoms and sides of their respective containers.  Most of them had so altered that they looked like chalices.  As he watched, further changes took place.  Around the rim of the cuplike bodies, prominences began to appear.  Finally, each larva was adorned with eight threadlike tentacles.  In the center area was a slight protuberance punctures with a crisscross; an unmistakable mouth had formed.  That early, fixed form of Aurelia was called scyphistoma, since the animal and its mouth were cuplike.  Feeding the jellies became a problem. After each feeding, two or three times a week, the water in the containers had to be changed with new sea water.  While feeding then a broth of finely divided crab or clam meat, the author observed how the creatures used their murderous arms, tentacles that paralyzed and captured their prey.  Under the microscope the cells appeared egg-shaped with a coiled filament, like a spring, the end of which was charged with poison.  When any organic matter, dead or alive, came into contact with the tentacles, the cells in the vicinity released the coiled darts, and those were driven into the object, arresting it.  Thereupon the morsel was brought to the mouth and devoured.

Winter was well on its way when the scyphistomae showed signs of a further change.  They were increasing in size and were a quarter of an inch high.  The tentacles had shrunk and dozens of constrictions encircled their bodies.  The topmost constriction was so deep it almost severed the terminal part carrying the mouth and tentacles.  A few days later, the tentacles at the top disappeared.  In their place was a corolla of eight lappets.  The mouth-parts became four veil-like appendages, which, in lieu of the vanished tentacles, capture the creature’s food.  The constrictions were now so pronounced that the animal seemed almost completely divided into thin segments resembling a pile of tiny saucers, each nestling snugly into the hollow of the one underneath.  In descending order from the top, the segments were obviously at different stages of development: each was of a smaller diameter than its neighbor above and resembled less and less the topmost and first-formed disk until the foot was reached.  The lowermost supporting segment was the only one still bearing tentacles.  Here was the strobila form of Aurelia.  It was no longer an individual organism, but a string of little jellyfishes, each individual inverted from the normal adult position, and each attached to its fellow by the central part of the umbrella.  The topmost unit of every column, an ephyrula, started pulsating as if trying to break free.  This stopped, but was repeated more frequently until it broke free, flipped over, and began swimming like an adult.  The pulsating swimming continued throughout the animal’s life, much like a beating heart.  In less than a fortnight the strobilae were no more.  The ephyrulae that were formed later had followed their first-freed fellows and were coursing here and there, doubtlessly trying to find that liberty of the open waters which the tanks could not provide.

Each baby jellyfish was provided with eight primitive eyes, located around the rim of the umbrella, within the forks of the fingerlike lappets that took the place of the tentacles.  They were visible as minute scarlet dots.  A small transparent hood covered each eye.  This was the lowest animal in the living scale wherein the eyes appeared as a structural organ.  It was probable that such a lowly eye could distinguish nothing more than light and darkness, or at best, moving masses.  Not long after, a new set of tentacles made its appearance, between the lappets and around the underside of the umbrella rim.  Most Aurelias were short-lived, probably never completing the year in which they were liberated from the larval form.  In fact, the greater number of those delicate creatures did not survive the autumnal storms, which tore asunder their gelatinous bodies and dashed them upon the shores, where they disintegrated.  But that unseemly end was not without compensation, for thus were released countless numbers of unborn young to begin the cycle anew.  Such was the story of one of the commonest creatures that swam the temperate seas, a creature which took rank as on of the ocean’s loveliest ornaments.

 

 

As stated above, the third item listed on the cover, “Jellyfishes – Living Draperies of Color,” is not an article but a block of “Eight Reproductions of Paintings from Life” on eight plates embedded within the second article.  The plates are numbered I through VIII in Roman numerals and represent pages 193 through 200 in this issue.

A list of the caption titles of each painting is as follows:

• “Aurelia aurita, Variety flavidula (the Moon-Jelly)”
• “Dactylometra quinquecirra (Upper); Gonionemus murbachii (Lower)”
• “Stomolophus meleagris, a Root-Mouth Jelly”
• “Cyanea capillata (Top); Pelagia cyanella (Middle Left); Linerges mercurius (Lower Right)”
• “Mnemiopsis leidyi (the Rainbow-Jelly)”
• “Zygodactyla groenlandica (Upper); Sarsia mirabilis (Lower)”
• “Pleurobrachia rhododactyla (Upper); Beroe Cucumis (Lower)”
• “Eutima variabilis (Upper); Cunoctantha octonaria (Lower)”

 

 

The third article in this month’s issue is entitled “Struggling Poland” and was written by Maynard Owen Williams, author of “Czechoslovakia, Keyland of Central Europe,” “At the Tomb of Tutankhamen,” “Latvia, Land of the Letts,” “Russia’s Orphan Races,” “The Grand Duchy of Luxemburg,” “Through the Heart of Hindustan,” etc., etc., in the National Geographic Magazine.  The article has the internal subtitle: “A Journey in Search of the Picturesque Through the Most Populous of the New States of Europe.”  The article contains forty-eight black-and-white photographs taken by the author.  Ten of these photos are full-page in size.  The article also contains a sketch map of Poland on page 213.

Sketch Map courtesy of Philip Riviere

A picture of the day-by-day life in Poland, without regard to is seething political undertone, was the object of the author’s stay of several months in that reincarnated republic, the most populous of the new states created as an aftermath of the World War.  [See: “Partitioned Poland,” January 1915, National Geographic Magazine.]  In a search for the picturesque, he traveled to all quarters of the republic, which accounted itself the sixth largest state in Europe, embracing an area of nearly 150,000 square miles.  The porter who met one at the train in Warsaw was but yesterday a millionaire.  Fantastic figures gave birth to fantastic habits.  No one asked for change.  With a mass of brain-cluttering zeros, it was easier to deal with round numbers.  Then came the zloty, worth a gold franc, twenty cents, or 1,800,000 Polish marks.  There were no zeros to toss around and many travelers, likewise reduced from the ranks of millionaires, preferred to carry their own bags; hence there were three porters for every job.  As a droshky rolled up, the blue-coated driver in a leather cap handed his number to a policeman, who slipped it onto one end of a broken ring.  A duplicate number hung between the shoulder-blades of the cabby.  When an arriving passenger wanted a carriage, a number was slipped off the other end and the driver of that number won the fare, according to the first-come-first-serve principle.  Occasionally, when demand for droshkies exceeded supply, a number never got onto the ring, and instead of a lot of tags representing idle carriages, there was a queue of potential patrons.  At the hotel, a long succession of boots and shoes had reduced to paper-thinness the carpets in which one once waded through luxury.  After years of war and depreciation, fund must be found to restore the hotel to its former state.

On to of the necessarily high price, the municipality imposed an 80% surtax, plus a dollar for passport inspection each time one returned to town.  Beautiful parks and gardens surrounded by dull, gray, depressing streets were the first impressions which Warsaw, the capital city, made upon the visitor.  The buildings were huge, impressive because of their size but not picturesque.  Coupled with heaviness of construction, there was a somberness whose psychological effect was disheartening.  There was nothing depressing about a country scene, even on a moonless night, but in a city, with the sky shut out, darkness weighed upon the heart.  Everywhere merchants complained of poor business, yet the dullest of operettas was playing to packed houses at $3 a seat because people were starving for brightness.  From 6 to 8 every evening, young Warsaw paraded the thoroughfares between Theater Square and the Saxon Garden.  Polish men were supposedly vivacious.  Polish women were reputed beautiful.  For want of adequate lighting, what might have been a brilliant concourse was more like a funeral in the darkness.  The Poles were said to be the greatest dancers in the world, but the traveler found it difficult to witness any in public places.  The polish capital had many churches, massive and ornate, full of memorials, for under Russian rule, no public monuments could be raised.  In the Church of the Holy Ghost, in accordance with the great composer’s wish, the heart of Frederic Chopin was buried.  In one of the busiest parts of the capital was a figure of the Savior, before which men removed their hats.  Even the motorist, in passing, raised his hand from his control lever to make the sign of the cross.  Modern though Warsaw was, it was still a city of horses.  The finest sight in the streets was that of splendid steeds used by the natty mounted police.

Although many a droshky was dull of coat and pace, there was always some sleek, active pony pattering by with the silver buckles and ornaments on its black harness agleam and ajingle.  For every taxicab there were lines of horse-drawn carriages.  The streets of the capital were humanized by newsstands with papers in several languages, excellent illustrated journals, some innocent gaiety, and much nudity in silk stockings.  The Warsaw cigarette stand consisted of a box which could be suspended from the shoulders and carried to a location chosen for the number of potential buyers who passed at any given hour.  Brighter still were the soft-drink or refreshment booths with pink and yellow syrups, red and russet apples, shiny rolls of chocolate, and various types of breadstuffs.  There was a certain informality about the markets of Warsaw.  The traffic in vegetables and flowers, dried mushrooms, milk and eggs, live and dressed poultry, juicy pears and enormous walnuts, overflowed from the two market halls into the streets and courtyards on all sides.  Near the food markets, the fronts of several buildings were draped with piece goods, and across the road was a dimly lighted shambles, where the shoddiest of goods and ugly finery were sold to those too poor to profit from buying honest goods.  North of those markets one came to the Nalewki, where Yiddish the was the native jargon.  The Nalewki differed from Polish Warsaw in that its buildings had no fine facades, but two slovenly backs.  Between it and the Vistula there remained the Old Town Square, once the haunt of fashion.  Some of the fine carved doorways still hinted of ancient glories.  There was nothing distinctive about the Warsaw skyline.  Until recently, the dominating features were the five gilt domes and 240-foot campanile of the Russian Church, which had been torn down.

There, in the heart of the heart of Poland, the Russians had built the beautiful by overbearing church, decorated with wonderful mosaics.  The ground on which it stood had once been the courtyard of Polish kings.  Standing in the proudest spot in Warsaw, that reminder of Russian oppression was an affront to Polish feelings.  It had to come down.  Poland was plundered repeatedly in its history.  From the Zamek and Lazienki palaces, both in the century before the World War and during the conflict, scores of wagonloads of priceless paintings, statues, and tapestries were transported abroad.  In accordance with the Treaty of Riga, those art treasures had been returned.  Flanders tapestries dating from 1620 had come back from Red Russia without a stitch broken.  Paintings which were evacuated by a hurried army in retreat before the Germans were back unharmed after years of adventure in disordered Europe.  On e tread the beautiful marquetry floors of the spacious Zamek Palace as he did the carpets of St. Sophia or the marble courts of the Kalyan Mosque at Bokhara, in flapping slippers.  There was a time when that royal palace was second only to Versailles.  Rebuilt and redecorated after many disasters, the palace, now that its paintings and tapestries were back in place, was much the same as it was in its glory days.  In 1926, those spacious floors were empty, those splendid salons devoid of life.  The palace remained.  The light laughter, the flirtations, intrigue, and wallflowers which made up the old life of Zamek were gone.  Paintings and statuary, outliving their models, acquired a sardonic irony with age.  Warsaw’s Citadel, with its overworked execution grounds and infamous Pavilion X, was built to punish the Poles for the Insurrection of 1830.  Pavillion X was being torn down when the author was there.

From the Citadel walls one looked down upon the Vistula, whose basin embraced most of Poland and on whose banks were more than half of the nation’s cities.  Sadly, neglected until now [in 1926], it might become as important a waterway as the Rhine or the Seine.  A few dirty steamers were tied up to the Warsaw wharves.  Under the Kierbedz bridge, women from the country moored their flatboats, piled high with rosy-cheeked apples.  Important reclamation works were in progress and a new foreshore was being built there.  When the author visited the scene, hundreds of women were unloading flatcars and shoveling the earth down the new bank to fill up the space behind the weir of willow withes.  After the dirt and idleness of the Citadel, the busy train of cars, dotted with bright bandanas and sweaters, was a pleasant sight.  The nation offered no spectacle more colorful than the Sunday procession in Lowicz.  In rude farm wagons and on foot, the peasants came from humble villages in the widespread plain whence Poland got its name.  The abbey church, walled into a grassy enclosure, backed up to a great cobbled square.  On fine Sundays, each of the three entrances was a veritable rainbow of colorful skirts and bright aprons, below which were shiny high shoes with laces to match the outfits.  Those shoes!  Surely Cinderella’s sisters suffered less from footwear than those Polish women.  Economy put a limit on the time such finery may be worn, but comfort also vied with pride.  Up to the town’s edge the women strode, barefoot and carefree, with their shoes and stockings wrapped in their capes or dangling from their hands.  At the outskirts of town they sat down on rugs, drew on their shoes, tied the long laces, and marched, bravely, eagerly, on the one colorful event of their drab week of toil.

The men wearing long frogged coats and orange trousers stuffed into well-blacked boots, stood in somber groups.  As the women stood packed together in a church whose altars, bright with gilded seraphim, were clothed with rainbow wool like that of apron and skirt, the brilliant colors of their lower garments were not disclosed.  Outside the church the women waited as though restrained by some invisible barrier which would yield only by numbers.  Then they turned to the left and started the half-hour procession in which all the bright colors glowed and faded away in the crowd.  Once, the women dyed their own wool; now that was done commercially.  A bright hank suspended outside a shop proclaimed where the highly colored yarns were sold.  On Sundays the peasants frankly “dressed up,” as unspoiled children did, taking pride in the newness of the fabric, in its stiffness, and the brilliancy of its chromatic scale.  All about Wilno, northernmost of Poland’s cities, there still remained large estates whose owners lived in almost feudal magnificence, unaffected by such agrarian reforms as had split up the vast domains of Estonia and Latvia.  In 1578, Stephen Barthony promoted a small parochial school to the rank of academy, which soon drew to it many Polish intellectuals.  Then came war, famine, and pestilence to decimate the population.  Though made the pagan capital of Lithuania in 1323, Wilno became Christian in 1387, when Wladislaus Jagiello, Grand Prince of Lithuania, married Jadwiga, Princess of Poland, and thus became King of Poland.  Jadwiga married the last of the pagan princes, and brought his tribe into the Christian fold. Her sacrifice united the lands of Lithuania and Poland under one control, so that the decisive battle of Grunwald was won, and she founded a dynasty under which Poland rose to the zenith of its extent and power.

Among the descendants of the Jagiello line were two Czartoryski brothers, whose patriotic efforts stirred the jealousy of other Polish families.  Rather than suffer defeat at the hands of their fellow-countrymen, the brothers asked for aid from Russia.  Catherine, ambitious pupil of Peter the Great, was quick to seize the chance.  Russian aid came in the form of Russian rifles, which drove from Warsaw those members of the Diet unfavorable to the brother’s patriotic plan.  Catherine’s favorite was lifted to the throne of Poland.  After the partition the brothers were so persistent in their patriotism that Catherine found it politic to hold Adam Czartoryski as hostage, in which role he made himself so charming that he became aide-de-camp to Catherine’s grandson, Grand Duke Alexander.  When he became Tsar, he transformed the moribund Academy of Wilno into a university and named his former aide-de-camp curator.  Czartoryski lost no time in making his new university a cultural and propaganda center, with an independent Poland as its ideal.  But he and the Polish nobility soon deserted Alexander to follow Napoleon’s rising star.  When Napoleon’s star was dimmed by the flames of burning Moscow, in whose sacking Polish legionnaires played a part, the Polish gentry found themselves backing the wrong horse.  With the Insurrection of 1832, the University of Wilno was suppressed.  In 1919 its opening was one of the first acts of the Poles after freeing Wilno from the Bolsheviks at Eastertime.  Gdynia, the author’s next goal, was in the same latitude as Wilno, but Lithuania, East Prussia, and the Free City of Danzig separated the two.  Gdynia was entirely off the Vistula, was remote from the heart of Poland, and was situated on a shallow bay sheltered only by a sand fishhook ending in Hel.

Hel was a spotless town, whose half doors suggested the Hollanders, Zeelanders, and Frisians whom Albert the Bear welcomed as colonists and whom the portion of the Free City of Danzig, which lied below sea level, owed its being.  Gdynia consisted of two piers, many incongruous villas, an ambitious but deserted band-shell, a bulky Pharos, and a fishing strand cobwebbed with nets.  There were a casino and a hotel called the Polish Riviera.  If the long pier which tied the shelving shore to the shallow sea proved a failure, the pleasure pier might offset the loss, for it was decreed that Gdynia was to be the rival of Zobbot as well as Danzig.  For the present [in 1926], the beach at Gdynia was charming on one of those late October days.  The fisheries used fine-meshed nets, some suspended from high frames, others hung from rude stakes.  Antiquated boats, sawed in halves and upended on the beach, served as shelters for the tackles.  Old women plodded across the sands, bent low under burdens of driftwood.  In spite of gawky piers and gaudy villas, Gdynia was still picturesque.  Poznan was the most thoroughly Polish and most modern city in the republic.  The morning of the author’s arrival, that cradle of the Polish race was half hid by a mist which gave grace to the bulky palace of the Kaiser, added a note of northern softness to the Raczynski Library, and banished the ugly from the buildings overhanging the Warta, in whose dark waters great blocks of ice were slowly floating.  In the Poznan Cathedral rested the ashes of Poland’s first kings, and there their statues stood like royal actors in a historical pageant.  There was something splendid about the little gold chapel in that dusty old church on the tranquil island where the first settlement stood, just a Paris grew up around the Cite on which Notre Dame was to rise.

Fire and flood had assailed that old cathedral time and again, and although it had not always withstood, it withstands.  So too with the Poles.  Defeat had been many and humiliations common, but, in 1926, the Keiser’s palace was given over to university halls thronged with Polish students.  The bulky German theater was now the opera.  The author heard “Carmen” in Polish there.  For the last few years, writers had mentioned the “New Poland” as though discussing an actuality.  When the downfall of the Central Powers occurred, the world was surprised by the cooperation between three groups, nominally Russian, German, and Austrian, but actually Polish.  Oppression by three distinct powers had done for the Poles what they, in the later days of the kingdom, had not be able to do for themselves – given them a national consciousness.  But New Poland was still in the process of being born.  Poznan gave one an unusual opportunity to study the Poles, not because they were more Polish than their brothers in Warsaw, but because, since they formed 95% of the population and were among the most progressive of their race, each could be less aggressively Polish than in the city where they formed a bare majority of the citizens.  Along Poland’s only natural boundary, the Carpathians, two salients projected southward, one into the jumble of mountains called the Tatras, whose further slopes were in Czechoslovakia; the other to the banks of the Czeremoza, over against Bukowina.  In those two salients were to be found two of the most interesting peoples in the Polish complex.  In the Tatras lied Zakopane, Poland’s chief mountain resort, beautifully situated, with several large sanitariums for weak-lunged patients, and the most charming group of villas in Poland.  Dr. Chalubinski “discovered” it in 1873 and the railway came in 1886.

Round about Zakopane lived the Gorals, or mountaineers, who came down to the church on Sunday and turned the terrace into a pansy bed and the double staircase into cascades of color; but bright as was the costume of the women, it was the men who lent the more picturesque note to the group.  The young men in Goral costume were the handsomest the author saw in Poland – fresh-cheeked, deep-chested, lithe young giants, who looked like university football men in a college play.  Probably not all of them were Gorals, for on going to Nowy Targ, the author found the mountaineer costume worn by the townsmen and farmers on the plain.  Years ago, the salt mines of Wieliczka appealed to the author’s youthful imagination.  Thousands of workers toiling hundreds of feet below the ground, and having their chapels, a ballroom, a post office, and buffets.  His childish assumption was that the workers lived underground, day and night.  The waiting room gave a clue to what followed, and only those with a passion for curiosities should descend into the mine.  Before one had entered the hoist, he was asked to buy souvenir post cards and crude carvings of eagles in rock salt.  The whole thing had the atmosphere, not of a salt mine employing 1,500 workers, but a subterranean dime museum with a dollar admission fee.  There was a huge chapel with rock-salt saints, well preserved despite their age.  There were a ballroom and a buffet as empty as the ballroom itself.  The chapel service was held once a year.  The ballroom was used at infrequent intervals, but the post office was important.  A man followed the visitors, hundreds of feet below ground, with a tray of post cards in order to induce them to use that abysmal mailbox.  The author wanted to see some of the 1,500 workers who mined salt, but that was forbidden.

The prize city of Poland was Krakow.  Jagiello came all the way from Lithuania to be baptized and made a Pole-in-law on the Wawel – Hill of Kings – after Casimir the Great had carried Krakow to such heights of glory as no other Polish city ever reached.  It was Krakow’s usefulness as a trade mart which won it continental favor and support.  The grains of Hungary, the silks of Italy, the amber of Danzig, and the spices of the East passed through Krakow.  Men trusted their lives to yew bows from Galicia and her oaks furnished the framework for many a ship.  But Columbus and the Turks dealt Krakow blows from which it never recovered.  The former’s discovery of America turned men’s thoughts away while the Turks, cutting the trade to the East, smashed the wheel of land-born commerce of which Krakow was the hub.  The royal court deserted that charming city for Warsaw and disease humbled what had been a proud metropolis.  From the station one followed the beautiful gardens, which had replaced the medieval moat and walls, and almost immediately came upon the Rondel, a circular barbican spired with pepper-box towers.  Through one of the surviving gates out of six, one went past a small, shadowy shrine set in the wall and in a few minutes stood in one of the finest squares in Europe.  On the right was the tower of the old town hall.  A fascinating market hall filled the center and the Church of Panna Marya lifted its two unequal towers at the left.  Later, one came upon the restored chapel of St. Adalbert, Apostle to the Poles.  Ten minutes further on, one reached the Wawel – cathedral, palace, fortress, and national monument – once bought by the Poles to free it from Austrian troops and presented to the Austrian Emperor.  Each donor for restoring the building had his name on one of the blocks which formed the lower walls.

The Panna Marya Church stood out not only above the many churches of the former capital, but of all Poland.  Coming in from cold streets where ragged beggars cringed beside the door, one stood in wonder under a vault second only to that of Strasbourg.  The church warmed the eyes with its polychrome mural decorations and rested the soul with its peacefulness.  In Krakow and throughout Little Poland, or Galicia, one sensed the greater degree of freedom and autonomy which the Austrian Poles enjoyed.  Street names needed no changing with the advent of Polish liberty.  The Mickiewicz monument was not hidden in a churchyard, as in Puznan, but stood foursquare to the view on the grand market place.  The most famous painting in the National Museum at Krakow was Siemiradzki’s “The Torches of Nero.”  The museum reflected the nation in its paintings, its novels and its music.  The author first saw the Rynek, Krakow’s great square, by moonlight, between trains, and never again was he able to find as much romance there, even on the night when the vast expanse was flaming with the torches and transparencies of a student parade; but even on that perfect night mob psychology got the better of him.  Twice he turned aside from the big show to see what the people were most interested in.  The first crowd was looking at a poster showing a young ruler being hoisted from his throne by a looped rope suspended from the ceiling.  The second crowd was denser.  A transparency pictured a fair lady whose pearly teeth were the result of using somebody’s toothpaste.  Due to some mysterious mechanics, she opened and closed her eyes as naturally as a fifty-cent doll.  How she did it the author did not know.  In those glorious days of science, there were so many more things to be ignorant about than formerly.

In Krakow there were other things more interesting than markets, but in Lwow there weren’t.  Lwow, Leopol, Lemberg, Leopolis, The City of Lions, The Nest of Heroes – the city had as many names as a confidence man.  Here and there in its wide area, there was an outcropping of hills whose steep slopes were given over to beautiful parks heavily wooded with splendid trees.  Barracks were everywhere.  Lwow had never recovered from its role of fortress, which it had played ever since the Ruthenians built it as a defense against the Tatars.  Lwow’s place as capital of a now and then autonomous Galicia won it many imposing buildings, upon which Italian architects and German sculptors lavished much skill.  The old University, dating from 1660, had taken on a new life with the coming of liberty.  There was to be another, solely for Ruthenian students from East Galicia, where that “racial minority,” separated by nothing but an imaginary line from 25,000,000 racial and religious brothers in the Ukraine, outnumbered the Poles two to one.  The main break in Lwow’s skyline, aside from its hill parks and plain Ratusz tower, were made by church spires, domes, and steeples.  Lwow had three cathedrals with a Catholic archbishop, a Uniat Metropolitan, and an Armenian bishop.  None of those churches served the majority of the people one met – Jews.  The fish market of Lwow was interesting despite its odor.  Most of the fish were alive in tubs.  That substitute for cold storage enabled the dealers to carry over the unsold stocks from day to day, but it also saturated the place with unsold smells.  Down in the remotest and most outlandish corner of Poland lied Zabie.  It was worth the trip across the republic to be there on Sunday, to see the men (Huzuls) descended from free lances of several nationalities wearing costumes twice as picturesque as those in the Tatra.

War had left nothing of Zabie except the most extensive village in Poland.  It stretched so far along the curving Czeremosz that the price one paid to come down from Kosow, 20 miles away, varied according to what part of Zabie one wished to visit.  Were it not for the Huzuls, who came down to their church on Sundays, Zabie would not have been irresistible.  But with the Huzuls and the Huzulin – that was another story.  Bare-kneed Amazons rode on pink-eyed ponies to smoke their pipes outside the church.  One was the handsomest woman the author had ever seen.  Perhaps an inch short of six feet, erect and deep bosomed, with real color in her olive cheeks and a spring in her moccasined stride.  The Huzulin shared the Arab’s fondness for bundling up her head.  Her scarf was not only colorful, but usually in good taste.  Nowhere in Poland did the author find women freer from self-consciousness and more willing, without being eager, to have their pictures taken.  On one point the women showed embarrassment.  They did not want him to take their pictures while smoking their pipes.  But one woman had a sense of humor.  Seeing his disappointment, she borrowed a pipe from a man, stuck it between her lips, and told the author to “shoot.”  He wanted a little smoke in the photo.  When she tried to puff, her agonizing cough prove she was not a smoker.  That sent the whole company into a roar of laughter, in which she cheerfully – and tearfully – joined.  Then a small, toneless bell sounded, and the author’s brightly clad friends slowly filed through the shingled gateway toward their simple church.  As the loose-jointed fiacre bore him along and the Huzul church merged into the cloudy notch between the Carpathians, a vivid bit of color and friendliness faded slowly away, like a candle that burned itself out.

 

At the bottom of the last page of the third article (page 244) is a notice with the heading “Index for January-June, 1926, Volume Ready”.  The one-line text of the notice states “Index for Volume XLIX (January-June, 1926) will be mailed to members upon request.”

 

The fourth article in this month’s issue is entitled “Siena’s Palio, An Italian Inheritance from the Middle Ages” and was written by Marie Louise Handley.  The article contains three black-and-white photographs, of which one is full-page in size.

From earliest morning there was a thrill in the air, as if of some portentous event about to occur.  And well, there might be, for Siena the classic, Siena the medieval, was about to celebrate its greatest annual civic festival, the Palio, a striking pageant inherited from the Middle Ages, still held in the costume of the period, and featured by the running of a strange, almost barbaric, horse race on the historic Campo.  There was no other place in the world where one might lay hand so palpably on the Middle Ages as in Siena.  The architecture, the costumes, the very people, had a touch of bygone days.  It gave the impression of a segment of the fifteenth century passed down to modern times, with its good and its evil, and, above all, with its intense local attachments, practically unchanged.  For upward of four hundred years the little Tuscan city had been organized as it was in 1926, in contrade, or wards, each district a separate entity, though part of the common life.  Each still clung to its own individual traditions, its own love and hates, and was ready to rally to the same flag and colors that it had cherished for centuries.  That gave to Siena a characteristic atmosphere, which more than anything, save its art, had contributed to center upon it the continued interest of the traveler.  As to the Palio, it was a remarkable manifestation of that keen, burning rivalry between wards which had existed since their inception and which time and the passing of events had been unable to ally.  The origin of that strange horse race hailed back to the zest for sport and the love of pomp so prevalent in the Middle Ages.  The most remote records of Siena told of jousting and tournaments.  Later bullfights were adopted, only to be suppressed in 1590 by Ferdinand I, and races on buffalo-back took their place for a time.

Even in early times, horse racing was a favorite pastime of the Sienese.  In 1492, a horse owned by Cesare Borgia won an important event, probably the predecessor of the Palio.  The first Palio took place on the Campo in 1605 and had been regularly scheduled since 1651.  In its present form, with all the wards represented, and the distance established at three times around the big square, the race had been held since 1656.  The Palio was introduced to celebrate a religious anniversary, the feast of Santa Maria Assunta.  At one time Siena’s 17 wards all participated in the Palio, each entering one horse, due to accidents on the narrow track, it was now limited to ten horses.  Seven wards were privileged and ran by “right.”  The other three were drawn by lot.  The horsemen rode bareback, armed with a punishing whip.  The Sienese, to preserve the joust-like character of the race, had decreed that their champions may belabor one another with the heavy whip whenever the chance presented.  The men were allowed to wear metal helmets, but the flaying weapons sometimes inflicted wounds which were carried for weeks.  No sooner did the starting gun sound that the excited jockeys began to ply their whips.  Ten high-strung, fear-crazed horses racing furiously around the hard, slippery, stone-paved course; ten riders recklessly urging their mounts to greater speed and raining vicious blows at each other.  It was thrilling, savage, fantastic.  Three days before the race, ten horses were selected and the captains drew lots for them.  The riders at once took possession, adjoining to the Compo for a practice gallop.

At last, the great day arrived.  Following the streaming population, the author sallied forth under a cloudless sky of an August morning.  The streets were packed from wall to wall, and following the streaming populace, she was led to the votive chapel on the Piazza.  Mass was being celebrated and the little church was crowded with men, only a few women hanging around the outskirts.  The ten riders knelt shoulder to shoulder in front of the altar.  Then the ceremony was over and they again were in the street.  The author and her friends had set out with mild, amused curiosity, and presently they asked themselves to what quarter of town they belonged; which horse was theirs; who was to ride them; what his colors were?  Obviously, it was to the quarter in which they had taken lodging that they owed their allegiance, and they posted themselves without delay.  It proved to be the Contrada dell’ Oca, its emblem a goose, and they went at once in search of their favorite.  They saw the horse where he was stabled, then sauntered over to the Oratory of Santa Catrina where a priest blessed the racers.  It was now time for the procession of the delegations from the various wards.  They appeared in full regalia.  Each still deported the gorgeous costumes of the period and bore the ward banner, blazoned with the Lion, the Goose, the Ram, etc., which gave to the various districts the names by which they were known.  The procession had remained an important feature of the Palio.  They repaired to the Campo to watch the parade, and it proved an imposing sight.  Each ward formed a separate group, led by a drum major.  Behind him marched two ensign-bearers.  The wards would each pause in turn, as they passed the dwellings of city authorities and the palaces of the nobles.

Following the ensign-bearers came the captain of the quarter, fully armored and surrounded by four youths, two carrying his weapons, the other two carrying halberds and acting escorts.  Next march a page in gorgeous raiment, bearing the ward standard, a great banner of silk and velvet, heavily embroidered in gold and blazoned with the armorials of the district.  Then came a palfrenier, leading the ward’s racer, handsomely caparisoned and plumed, followed by the chosen rider mounted on a charger and attired in the garb of his fellow wardmen.  The ten wards having candidates for the Palio headed the procession; then, sandwiched in between them and the others, strode the Chief Magistrate of Siena, supreme arbiter of all factional strife, and the city officers.  Rolling in the rear of the last ward was the war chariot of olden days – ugly, cumbersome, and dilapidated, but gaily decorated with flags and shields and drawn by four great horses.  A squad of men at arms trailed the old war chariot and closed the procession.  As soon as they left the Campo a great beating of drums announced the mounted riders had come through the portals of the Podesta.  There was a silence now on the big square, a silence of vibrant anticipation.  Every man and woman waited for the sharp crack of the pistol to start the race.  It came suddenly, almost unexpectedly, and the blood leapt into action at the sight which followed.  In serried ranks the racers sprang forward, moving at terrific pace, their riders sitting as if a part of them – knees tight, bodies swaying nimbly, arms waving the wicked whips and administering great blows right and left.  Sparks and sands flew from the horses’ hoofs; the crowd leaned forward without a sound, thrilled and expectant.  Then, abruptly, a cry of alarm broke the silence.

At a sharp turn where the course sloped suddenly, a man had been flung to the pavement, his horse stumbling and rolling over.  He was lucky as none of the other horses trampled him as they went by and he was able to get up and stagger off the course before the horses came around again.  Harder and harder the pelting horses strove as they entered the last lap.  Now the crowd came to life and yelled encouragements or curses at the riders.  Oca, their own ward entry was leading, neck and neck with the Montone entry.  Montone pressed forward at the turn, and a fierce execration broke from the Ocaioli, to be followed by a cry of joy; for Morello, their hope, again drew abreast of his rival.  Nose to nose they thundered toward the stretch – now one, now the other a few inches ahead; then, on straightening out, Montone made his last bid.  But it was the dying effort of the game creature.  Ten lengths from the post Morello began to creep up, eye aflame, nostrils quivering.  For a moment he hung beside the rocking Montone; then with a wonderful leap he spung forward and floundered across the line a winner!  A roar of mingled triumph and bitter disappointment shook the air.  People swarmed over the course even before the last horse had finished.  Mellini, the winning rider, was pulled off of his horse and surrounded by police.  Factional feelings ran so high at that hour of pandemonium that more than once a knife stab had been the reward for the winning jockey.  Hurriedly the man was led before the judges to receive their congratulations.  Then the crowd surged about the war chariot and seized the coveted banner to carry it in triumph through the streets.  The hero was hustled quietly to the Palazzo della Republica, there to spend the night.  There was little sleep in their neighborhood until morning.  The cheer was Gander!  Gander!  Gander!

 

 

The last item listed on the cover of this month’s issue is entitled “Under Radiant Italian Skies” and has no byline.  It is not an article but is a block of “Eight Natural-Color Photographs” embedded within the fourth article on plates numbered I through VIII in Roman numerals representing pages 249 through 256 in this issue.  [Note: this is the second time where an issue had two blocks of plates bearing the same Roman numerals.]

A list of caption titles for the eight color photographs is as follows:

• “Amalfi Climbs to the Heights from the Blue Waters of Salerno’s Gulf”
• “Frowning Riva Smiles Again”
• “Peacetimes Along the Italian Riviera”
• “Posthumous Flowers for the Caesars”
• “Multihued Sails Brighten the Fishing Boats in Trieste’s Harbor”
• “An Early Rival of Pisa and Genoa”
• “A Quiet Haven on Lake Garda”
• “Reminders of an Ancient Past”

 

 

Tom Wilson