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YVETTE BORUP ANDREWS
YVETTE BORUP ANDREWS
PHOTOGRAPHER OF THE ASIATIC ZOÖLOGICAL EXPEDITION ILLUSTRATED D. APPLETON AND COMPANY NEW YORK LONDON 1918 Copyright, 1918, by D. APPLETON AND COMPANY Printed in the United States of America THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED TO PRESIDENT HENRY FAIRFIELD OSBORN AS AN EXPRESSION OF GRATITUDE AND ADMIRATION — Service ....
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PREFACE
PREFACE
The object of this book is to present a popular narrative of the Asiatic Zoölogical Expedition of the American Museum of Natural History to China in 1916-17. Details of a purely scientific nature have been condensed, or eliminated, and emphasis has been placed upon our experiences with the strange natives and animals of a remote and little known region in the hope that the book will be interesting to the general reader. The scientific reputation of the Expedition will rest upon the technical rep
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CHAPTER I
CHAPTER I
THE OBJECT OF THE EXPEDITION The earliest remains of primitive man probably will be found somewhere in the vast plateau of Central Asia, north of the Himalaya Mountains. From this region came the successive invasions that poured into Europe from the east, to India from the north, and to China from the west; the migration route to North America led over the Bering Strait and spread fanwise south and southeast to the farthest extremity of South America. The Central Asian plateau at the beginning o
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CHAPTER II
CHAPTER II
CHINA IN TURMOIL During the time the Expedition was preparing to leave New York, China was in turmoil. Yuan Shi-kai was president of the Republic, but the hope of his heart was to be emperor of China. For twenty years he had plotted for the throne; he had been emperor for one hundred miserable days; and now he was watching, impotently, his dream-castles crumble beneath his feet. Yuan was the strong man of his day, with more power, brains, and personality than any Chinese since Li-Hung Chang. He
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CHAPTER III
CHAPTER III
UP THE MIN RIVER Y. B. A. Three days after leaving Shanghai we arrived at Pagoda Anchorage at the mouth of the Min River, twelve miles from Foochow. We boarded a launch which threaded its way through a fleet of picturesque fishing vessels, each one of which had a round black and white eye painted on its crescent-shaped bow. When asked the reason for this decoration a Chinese on the launch looked at us rather pityingly for a moment and then said: "No have eye. No can see." How simple and how enti
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CHAPTER IV
CHAPTER IV
A BAT CAVE IN THE BIG RAVINE A few days after our arrival in Yen-ping we went with Mr. Caldwell and his son Oliver to a Taoist temple seven miles away in a lonely ravine known as Chi-yuen-kang. The walk to the temple in the early morning was delightful. The "bamboo chickens" and francolins were calling all about us and on the way we shot enough for our first day's dinner. Both these birds are abundant in Fukien Province but it is by no means easy to kill them for they live in such thick cover th
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CHAPTER V
CHAPTER V
THE YEN-PING REBELLION On Sunday, June 18, we went to the bat cave to obtain a new supply of specimens. Upon our return, just as we were about to sit down to luncheon, four excited Chinese appeared with the following letter from Mr. Caldwell: Dear Roy: There was quite a lively time in the city at an early hour this morning. The rebels have taken Yen-ping and it looks as though there was trouble ahead. Northern soldiers have been sent for and the chances are that either tonight or tomorrow mornin
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CHAPTER VI
CHAPTER VI
HUNTING THE "GREAT INVISIBLE" For many years before Mr. Caldwell went to Yen-ping he had been stationed at the city of Futsing, about thirty miles from Foochow. Much of his work consisted of itinerant trips during which he visited the various mission stations under his charge. He almost invariably went on foot from place to place and carried with him a butterfly net and a rifle, so that to so keen a naturalist each day's walk was full of interest. The country was infested with man-eating tigers,
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CHAPTER VII
CHAPTER VII
THE BLUE TIGER After one has traveled in a Chinese sampan for several days the prospect of a river journey is not very alluring but we had a most agreeable surprise when we sailed out of Foochow in a chartered house boat to hunt the "blue tiger" at Futsing. In fact, we had all the luxury of a private yacht, for our boat contained a large central cabin with a table and chairs and two staterooms and was manned by a captain and crew of six men—all for $1.50 per day! In the evening we talked of the
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CHAPTER VIII
CHAPTER VIII
THE WOMEN OF CHINA Y. B. A. The schools for native girls at Foochow and Yen-ping interested us greatly, even when we first came to China, but we could not appreciate then as we did later the epoch-making step toward civilization of these institutions. How much the missionaries are able to accomplish from a religious standpoint is a question which we do not wish to discuss, but no one who has ever lived among them can deny that the opening of schools and the diffusing of western knowledge are pot
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CHAPTER IX
CHAPTER IX
VOYAGING TO YÜN-NAN We had a busy week in Hongkong outfitting for our trip to Yün-nan. Hongkong is one of the best cities in the Orient in which to purchase supplies of almost any kind, for not only is the selection excellent, but the best English goods can be had for prices very little in excess of those in London itself. The system which we used in our commissary was that of the unit food box which has been adopted by most large expeditions. The boxes were packed to weigh seventy pounds each a
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CHAPTER X
CHAPTER X
ON THE ROAD TO TA-LI FU On August 6, we dispatched half our equipment to Ta-li Fu, and three days later we ourselves left Yün-nan Fu at eleven o'clock in the morning after an interminable wait for our caravan. Through the kindness of Mr. Page, a house boat was put at our disposal and we sailed across the upper end of the beautiful lake which lies just outside the city, and intercepted the caravan twenty-five li [1] from Yün-nan Fu. On the way we passed a number of cormorant fishers, each with te
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CHAPTER XI
CHAPTER XI
TA-LI FU On Friday, September 28, we were at Chou Chou and camped in a picturesque little temple on the outskirts of the town. As the last stage was only six hours we spent half the morning in taking moving pictures of the caravan and left for Ta-li at eleven-thirty after an early tiffin . About two o'clock in the afternoon we reached Hsia-kuan, a large commercial town at the lower end of the lake. Its population largely consists of merchants and it is by all means the most important business pl
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CHAPTER XII
CHAPTER XII
LI-CHIANG AND "THE TEMPLE OF THE FLOWERS" We left a part of our outfit with Mr. Evans at Ta-li Fu and with a new caravan of twenty-five animals traveled northward for six days to Li-chiang Fu. By taking a small road we hoped to find good collecting in the pine forests three days from Ta-li, but instead there was a total absence of animal life. The woods were beautiful, parklike stretches which in a country like California would be full of game, but here were silent and deserted. During the fourt
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CHAPTER XIII
CHAPTER XIII
CAMPING IN THE CLOUDS We hired four Moso hunters in the Snow Mountain village. They were picturesque fellows, supposedly dressed in skins, but their garments were so ragged and patched that it was difficult to determine the original material of which they were made. One of them was armed with a most extraordinary gun which, it was said, came from Tibet. Its barrel was more than six feet long, and the stock was curved like a golf stick. A powder fuse projected from a hole in the side of the barre
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CHAPTER XIV
CHAPTER XIV
THE FIRST GORAL We were awakened before daylight by Wu's long drawn call to the hunters, " L-a-o-u H-o, L-a-o-u H-o, L-a-o-u H-o. " The steady drum of rain on our tent shot a thrill of disappointment through me as I opened my eyes, but before we had crawled out of our sleeping-bags and dressed it lessened to a gentle patter and soon ceased altogether. It left a cold, gray morning with dense clouds weaving in and out among the peaks but, nevertheless, I decided to go out with the hunters to try f
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CHAPTER XV
CHAPTER XV
MORE GORALS Both gorals were fine old rams with perfect horns. Their hair was thick and soft, pale olive-buff tipped with brownish, and the legs on the "cannon bones" were buff-yellow like the margins of the throat patches. Their color made them practically invisible against the rocks and when I killed the second goral my only distinct impression as he dashed down the face of the precipice, was of four yellowish legs entirely separated from a body which I could hardly see. This invisibility, com
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CHAPTER XVI
CHAPTER XVI
THE SNOW MOUNTAIN TEMPLE On October 22, we moved to the foot of the mountain and camped in the temple which we had formerly occupied. This was directly below the forests inhabited by serow, and we expected to devote our efforts exclusively toward obtaining a representative series of these animals. Unfortunately I developed a severe infection in the palm of my right hand almost immediately, and had it not been for the devoted care of my wife I should not have left China alive. Through terrible ni
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CHAPTER XVII
CHAPTER XVII
GORALS AND SEROWS Gorals and serows belong to the subfamily Rupicaprinæ which is an early mountain-living offshoot of the Bovidæ ; it also includes the chamois, takin, and the so-called Rocky Mountain goat of America. The animals are commonly referred to as "goat-antelopes" in order to express the intermediate position which they apparently hold between the goats and antelopes. They are also sometimes called the Rupicaprine antelopes from the scientific name of the chamois ( Rupicapra ). The hor
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CHAPTER XVIII
CHAPTER XVIII
THE "WHITE WATER" Y. B. A. October had slipped into November when we left the temple and shifted camp to the other side of the Snow Mountain at the "White Water." It was a brilliant day and the ride up the valley could not have been more beautiful. Crossing the gangheisa or "dry sea," a great grassy plain which was evidently a dry lake basin, we followed the trail into the forest and down the side of a deep cañon to a mountain stream where the waters spread themselves in a thin, green veil over
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CHAPTER XIX
CHAPTER XIX
ACROSS THE YANGTZE GORGE In mid-November we left the White Water with a caravan of twenty-six mules and horses. Following the road from Li-chiang to the Yangtze, we crossed the "Black Water" and climbed steadily upward over several tremendous wooded ridges, each higher than the last, to the summit of the divide. The descent was gradual through a magnificent pine and spruce forest. Some of the trees were at least one hundred and fifty feet high, and were draped with beautiful gray moss which had
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CHAPTER XX
CHAPTER XX
THROUGH UNMAPPED COUNTRY We left the Taku ferry by way of a steep trail through an open pine and spruce forest along the rim of the Yangtze gorge where the view was magnificent. Someone has said that when a tourist sees the Grand Cañon for the first time he gasps "Indescribable" and then immediately begins to describe it. Thus it was with us, but no words can picture the grandeur of this titanic chasm. In places the rocks were painted in delicate tints of blue and purple; in others, the sides fe
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CHAPTER XXI
CHAPTER XXI
TRAVELING TOWARD TIBET Since the hunters at the "Windy Camp" had proved so worthless and the traps had yielded no small mammals new to our collection, we decided to cross the mountains toward the Chung-tien road which leads into Tibet. The head mafu explored the trail and reported that it was impassable but, after an examination of some of the worst barriers, we decided that they could be cleared away and ordered the caravan to start at half past seven in the morning. Before long we found that t
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CHAPTER XXII
CHAPTER XXII
STALKING TIBETANS WITH A CAMERA Y. B. A. The road near which we were camped was one of the great trade routes into Tibet and over it caravans were continually passing laden with tea or pork. Many of them had traveled the entire length of Yün-nan to S'su-mao on the Tonking frontier where a special kind of tea is grown, and were hurrying northward to cross the snow-covered passes which form the gateways to the "Forbidden Land." The caravans sometimes stopped for luncheon or to spend the night near
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CHAPTER XXIII
CHAPTER XXIII
WESTWARD TO THE MEKONG RIVER During the night of December 4, there was a heavy fall of snow and in the morning we awoke to find ourselves in fairyland. We were living in a great white palace, with ceiling and walls of filmy glittering webs. The long, delicate strands of gray moss which draped themselves from tree to tree and branch to branch were each one converted into threads of crystal, forming a filigree lacework, infinitely beautiful. It was hard to break camp and leave that silver palace,
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CHAPTER XXIV
CHAPTER XXIV
DOWN THE MEKONG VALLEY On December 11, we had tiffin on the summit of a twelve thousand foot pass in a beautiful snow-covered meadow, from which we could see the glistening peaks of the vast mountain range which forms the Mekong-Salween divide. In the afternoon we readied Wei-hsi and camped in a grove of splendid pine trees on a hill overlooking the city. The place was rather disappointing after Li-chiang. The shops were poor and it was difficult to buy rice even though the entire valley was dev
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CHAPTER XXV
CHAPTER XXV
MISSIONARIES WE HAVE KNOWN During our work in Fukien Province and in various parts of Yün-nan we came into intimate personal contact with a great many missionaries; indeed every traveler in the interior of China will meet them unless he purposely avoids doing so. But the average tourist seldom sees the missionary in his native habitat because, for the most part, he lives and works where the tourist does not go. Nevertheless, that does not prevent the coastwise traveler from carrying back with hi
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CHAPTER XXVI
CHAPTER XXVI
CHINESE NEW YEAR AT YUNG-CHANG Y. B. A. The last half of the expedition began January 18 when we left Ta-li Fu with a caravan of thirty miles for Yung-chang, eight days' travel to the south. The mafus although they had promised faithfully to come "at daylight" did not arrive until nearly noon and in consequence it was necessary to camp at Hsia-kuan at the foot of the lake. We improved our time there in hunting about for skins and finally purchased two fine leopards and a tiger. The latter had be
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CHAPTER XXVII
CHAPTER XXVII
TRAVELING TOWARD THE TROPICS We left Yung-chang with no regret on Monday, January 28. Our stay there would have been exceedingly pleasant under ordinary conditions but it was impossible not to chafe at the delay occasioned by the caravan. Traveling southward for two days over bare brown mountain-sides, their monotony unrelieved except by groves of planted pine and fir trees, we descended abruptly into the great subtropical valley at Shih-tien. Mile after mile this fertile plain stretches away in
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CHAPTER XXVIII
CHAPTER XXVIII
MENG-TING: A VILLAGE OF MANY TONGUES During the eight days in which we remained at the "Good Hope" camp, two hundred specimens comprising twenty-one species were added to our collection. Although the altitude was still 5,000 feet, the flora was quite unlike that of any region in which we had previously collected, and that undoubtedly was responsible for the complete change of fauna. We were on the very edge of the tropical belt which stretches along the Tonking and Burma frontiers in the extreme
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CHAPTER XXIX
CHAPTER XXIX
CAMPING ON THE NAM-TING RIVER Every morning the valley at Meng-ting was filled with a thick white mist and when we broke camp at daylight each mule was swallowed up in the fog as soon as it left the rice field. We followed the sound of the leader's bell, but not until ten o'clock was the entire caravan visible. For thirty U the valley is broad and flat as at Meng-ting and filled with a luxuriant growth of rank grass, but it narrows suddenly where the river has carved its way through a range of h
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CHAPTER XXX
CHAPTER XXX
MONKEY HUNTING Our most exciting sport at the Nam-ting camp was hunting monkeys. Every morning we heard querulous notes which sounded much like the squealing of very young puppies and which were followed by long, siren wails; when the shrill notes had reached their highest pitch they would sink into low mellow tones exceedingly musical. The calls usually started shortly after daylight and continued until about nine o'clock, or later if the day was dark or rainy. They would be answered from diffe
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CHAPTER XXXI
CHAPTER XXXI
THE SHANS OF THE BURMA BORDER We saw many Shans at the Nam-ting River, for not only was there a village half a mile beyond our camp, but natives were passing continually along the trail on their way to and from the Burma frontier. The village was named Nam-ka. Its chief was absent when we arrived, but the natives were cordial and agreed to hunt with us; when the head man returned, however, he was most unfriendly. He forbade the villagers from coming to our camp and arguments were of no avail. It
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CHAPTER XXXII
CHAPTER XXXII
PRISONERS OF WAR IN BURMA Y. B. A. The camp at Nam-ka was a supremely happy one and we left it on March 7, with much regret. Its resources seemed to be almost exhausted and the Mohammedan hunter assured us that at a village called Ma-li-ling we would find excellent shooting. We asked him the distance and he replied, "About a long bamboo joint away." It required three days to get there! Whether the man had ever been to Ma-li-ling we do not know but we eventually found it to be a tiny village buil
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CHAPTER XXXIII
CHAPTER XXXIII
HUNTING PEACOCKS ON THE SALWEEN RIVER From Ma-li-pa we traveled almost due north to the Salween River. The country through which we passed was a succession of dry treeless hills, brown and barren and devoid of animal life. On the evening of the third day we reached the Salween at a ferry a few miles from the village of Changlung where the river begins its great bend to the eastward and sweeps across the border from China into Burma. The stream has cut a tremendous gorge for itself through the mo
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CHAPTER XXXIV
CHAPTER XXXIV
THE GIBBONS OF HO-MU-SHU It is a long hard climb out of the Salween valley. We left on March 24 and all day crawled up the steep sides on a trail which doubled back and forth upon itself like an endless letter S. From our camp at night the river was just visible as a thin green line several thousand feet below, and for the first time in days, we needed a charcoal fire in our tents. We were en route to Lung-ling, a town of considerable size, where there was a possibility that mail might be awaiti
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CHAPTER XXXV
CHAPTER XXXV
TENG-YUEH; A LINK WITH CIVILIZATION After a week on the pass above Ho-mu-shu we shifted camp to a village called Tai-ping-pu, ten miles nearer Teng-yueh on the same road. The ride along the summit of the mountain was a delight, for we passed through grove after grove of rhododendrons in full blossom. The trees were sometimes thirty feet in height and the red flowers glowed like clusters of living coals among their dark green leaves. In the northern part of Yün-nan the rhododendrons grow above ot
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CHAPTER XXXVI
CHAPTER XXXVI
A BIG GAME PARADISE A few months previous to our arrival, Mr. Abertsen had discovered a splendid hunting ground near the village of Hui-yao, about eighty li from Teng-yueh. He had been shooting rabbits and pheasants and, while passing through the village, the natives told him that a large herd of gnai-yang or "wild goats" lived on the side of a hill through which a branch of the Shweli River had cut a deep gorge. Although Abertsen was decidedly skeptical as to the accuracy of the report he spent
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CHAPTER XXXVII
CHAPTER XXXVII
SEROW AND SAMBUR We had a delightful visit from Mr. Grierson during our first week in camp. He rode out on Thursday afternoon and remained until Sunday, bringing us mail, war news, and fresh vegetables, and returning with goral meat for all the foreigners in Teng-yueh. On the afternoon of his visit I had killed three monkeys which represented a different species from any we had obtained before. They were the Indian baboon ( Macacus rhesus ) and were probably like those of the Salween River at Ch
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CHAPTER XXXVIII
CHAPTER XXXVIII
LAST DAYS IN CHINA It was of paramount importance to pack our specimens before the beginning of the summer rains. They might be expected to break in full violence any day after June 1, and when they really began it would be impossible to get our boxes to Bhamo, for virtually all caravan travel ceases during the wet season. Therefore our second stay at Hui-yao was short and we returned to Teng-yueh on May 24, ending the active field work of the Expedition exactly a year from the time it began wit
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