Exchanging Favors: the fossil hunter and the Yangtze Patrol, March, 1923 (working paper)

Morgan, V. L., 2009, “Exchanging Favors,” TGPP, Paper No. 1, - p. 1

(Working manuscript) EXCHANGING FAVORS:The Fossil Hunter and the Yangtze Patrol, March, 1923

by Vincent L. Morgan

Contact: [email protected]

Copyright 2010 (Working Manuscript) by Vincent L. Morgan

ABSTRACT

Rare is the recorded encounter between an American paleontologist and an American gunboat on the Yangtze River. Equally rare is a paleontologist’s eyewitness account of a warlord confrontation. Both these events were documented during March 1923 by Walter Granger, chief paleontologist and second in command of the Central Asiatic Expeditions (1921-1930). Granger was removing his party from a warlord battle for Wanhsien. For several days, Granger and his expedition party were trapped on the outskirts on the south side of the River while his wife Anna was sheltered at a Christian mission in the city. Now all were joined aboard a rented junk loaded with expedition gear and prized fossils that was making ready to head downriver to Ichang. The skipper of the American gunboat USS Palos (II), George W. Sampson, has just offered Granger gunboat escort as far as Pan T’o, 25 miles below Wanhsien before entry into the first of the Three Gorges. But Sampson has a favor to ask in return. The Palos commander had been hoping to accomplish a vital mission in Ichang. But the ongoing military situation at Wanhsien required the Palos to remain on duty there. Time was of the essence regarding the Captain’s delayed mission at Ichang, however. He asked Granger to assist him.

I. Midday, March 24, 1923Tiffin time drew to a close aboard a rented Chinese junk as it headed down the Yangtze River to Ichang. American paleontologist Walter Granger tried to relax with his wife Anna and the other members of his expedition party while, on their second day of travel, the junk slipped into the Wu (or Witches) Gorge.

Wu Gorge was the middle of the Three Gorges below the river city of Wanhsien. Wanhsien lay 173 miles upriver from Ichang and was the first major upper river city in eastern Szechwan province. Its canyon walls were so sheer and magnificent that it was hard to believe they could harbor danger. But Granger had been warned that bandit ambushes were likely to occur within this captive space. To this fossil hunter, it was another obstacle recently placed in front of him. Just days before, Granger and his men had been caught in military maneuvering for Wanhsien. They were on the south side of the River. Granger’s wife Anna was trapped in the city on the other side.

Wanhsien was a prize to be captured. The Myriad City, it was a picturesque nugget of historical interest and robust commerce. Charon, the shadowy author of the tiny but informative book Excelsior, identified Wanhsien as “one of the outstanding ‘showplaces’ of the Upper River.” Charon was a British gunboat crewmember during this little known naval era when

westerners regarded the Yangtze basin as a very remote part of the world. Patrol of the Yangtze by western gunboats remains a little known history today.

Wanhsien derived a rich income from its taxation of industry, river traffic, shops and farms. Its thriving nature and excellent location made it highly desirable strategically. Refining wood oil from the nuts of a tree that flourished in the district was the city’s main commerce. One of the main uses of the oil was in the base for making varnish. Craftwork was another local industry and many well-made items could be bought rather cheaply.

The riverbank upon which Wanhsien sat was so steep that wheeled traffic of any kind was still unknown to the city in 1923. Upper-class Chinese and westerners usually resorted to carrying chairs to access the city from the river, a ride that often seemed precarious.

The small foreign community living in Wanhsien included a few British missionaries, a French postmaster and his wife, British customs staff, and the employees of the American Standard Oil company installation located a mile below the city.

This was an unsettled time politically. In 1913, Szechwan Province declared itself independent of the national government seated in Peking. Three years


later, other provinces to the south were following Szechwan’s lead and joined to defend Szechwan against an offensive by Peking’s Northern army. It had been agreed that those who helped defend Szechwan would be paid, but they never were. Some of them now occupied sections of the province. Since the Northern Army remained a threat to the province, as well, the situation was fluid politically and militarily.

It was still understood in 1923 that westerners held immunity during riots and revolutions. But recently, isolated ‘small outrages’ against some had begun to occur. Granger carried quasi-diplomatic status with a passport loaded with western and Chinese credentials and always a huchao, or official pass, from the local military ruler to go along with it. Nevertheless, Szechwan was in a state of open rebellion against Peking and the embryonic South China Republic equal in open contest for recognition. Granger’s willing entry into that state of affairs on a scientific mission was impressive.

General Chang Chung of the Northern (First) Army was now in charge of Wanhsien. Granger had met with him several times during his second expedition to the Yangtze in 1922. The General appeared to be not over thirty-five, Granger noted, and seemed intelligent. He had had some military training in Japan. He also took an interest in Granger’s fossil hunting.

During the course of their meeting with the "usual bad champagne [and] chocolate as layout," the General issued the requisite huchao to Granger "to use in our work." This granted him safe passage throughout the Wanhsien district. At Granger’s request, the General also agreed to provide a notice for the local druggist Chang to post on his shop wall ordering the General’s soldiers not to use his shop as a barracks. Granger’s plan was to store fossils there and did not want them disturbed.

At the General’s invitation, Granger attended an ‘official’ dinner a few days later. Granger described the affair as follows:

Dinner [at] the General's at 7 o'clock. Present besides the Mission people and Anna & I[:] Wanhsien Magistrate[,] General Chang's Secretary, [General Chang’s] Newest wife, Capt. Nielson of the "[USS] Monocacy," [and] Mr. Annette [Customs].

A rather peaceful meal in the absence of anything to drink––and the Magistrate went to sleep in the drawing room afterward, much to the amusement of the "newest wife" who is a good-looking woman in her teens (one baby) and came decked out in gorgeous costume and loaded with jewelry [].

General Chang had a history of being locked in a struggle with General Yang Sheng of the independent-provincial Southern (Second)) Army for control of Wanhsien and the surrounding district. Chang Chung had ousted Yang Sheng from the city not long ago and then repelled Yang Sheng’s attempt to retake the city.

In 1923, however, Yang Sheng approached with the backing of a major Chinese warlord named Wu P'ei-fu. Rumors of Sheng’s plan to attack were known to U.S. gunboat intelligence in the area by late September 1922. On September 30, 1922 the USS Monocacy reported that Wu Pei Fu planned to attack and replace Yang Seng Yao-nan [NatArch.-tape transcription]. Granger was in the area by then and apparently had wind of the brewing conflict.

Chang Chung fretted over Yang Sheng’s advance this time. His wife was sent from the city to safety in the north, ‘conclusive proof’ according to the locals, wrote Granger, that Chang Chung did not expect things to go well.

The two generals initially clashed at Chang’s Northern army perimeter in the hills just above Granger’s expedition camp at Yenchingkou (Salt Well Valley). This was a remote mountain hamlet located ten miles up the Yangtze from Wanhsien and another ten miles inland up a steep incline from the river’s south bank. The village sat 1,000 feet above the river. It nestled at the foot of a limestone uplift that rose another 1,700 feet and extended on a parallel to the river for 50 miles. Surprisingly to Granger, fossils were to be found in that ridge.

Yenchingkou and the entire region were accessible only by footpath: travel and commerce were by foot or chair. A main trail from the Yangtze to Yenchingkou came up from a landing at the mouth of Pei Shui Chih (White Water Creek). That entered the river on the south bank just below a set of rapids named Fu Tan. Pei Shui Chih came down from above Yenchingkou past the village and parallel to the trail all the way to the river. Granger set up his base camp in a temple on the trail in the Upper Village. The Lower Village was about 200 yards back down. The


trail continued past Granger’s front door and up in to the limestone ridge and beyond to link up with a network of trails. Granger later made a crude map of the key trails he used on a small sheet of paper taken from his field book.

Fig. 1. – Walter Granger’s CAE headquarters at end of ten-mile climb from Yangtze River below. The paddies drained into White Water Creek.

Fig 2. – Granger’s diagram of his temple headquarters from approximately the same angle as in Fig. 1. The front door is at left.

Granger’s temple base camp was an ancestral hall that belonged the T’an family who were prominent in Yenchingkou region. The rent was $1.50 (U.S.) a month, the family also retained daily use of the altar for morning and evening religious ceremonies and occasional family meetings. Granger found that to be an interesting mix of activities with his.

2. Walter GrangerWalter Willis Granger was the chief paleontologist and second-in-command of the American Museum of Natural History’s famed Central Asiatic Expeditions to China and the Mongolias from 1921 to 1930 (CAE). These were the expeditions that would discover in Outer Mongolia the first whole dinosaur eggs and nests as well as dinosaurs new to science such as the Protoceratops, Velociraptor and

Oviraptor. Over wintertime interludes between his summertime explorations of Mongolia, Granger and a small band of Chinese assistants hunted for fossils in the Yangtze highlands around Yenchingkou. These fossils from the Pliocene and Pleistocene were known to the Chinese as ‘lung ku’ (dragon bones) and ‘lung ya’ (dragon teeth). Local farmers mined these fossils from earthen deposits left in eroded pits, vertical cave-like shafts found along the top of the Paleozoic limestone ridge above Yenchingkou. The fossils were sold wholesale to druggists who had them crushed into powder for retail as a medicinal cure.

Fig. 3. – One of the fossil pit operations located in the limestone ridges above Granger’s base camp at Yenchingkou.

This practice was generations old. Fifth century Chinese philosopher Lei Hiao once advised that if one washed a dragon bone twice in hot water, then reduced it to powder and placed it in a thin bag with two young eviscerated swallows for one night, and afterward mixed it in with a medicinal preparation, it would provide a divine effect.

Granger later wrote,

[F]or generations vertebrate fossils, known to the Chinese as Dragon Bones and Dragon Teeth (Lung Ku and Lung Ya), have been articles of the Chinese pharmacopia. They are prescribed by Chinese physicians of the old school for all sorts of complaints, ranging from headache to Bright’s disease, and are usually taken in powdered form, although sometimes the fossils are soaked in alcohol and then the alcohol is drunk, or fried in grease and the grease is eaten, it presumably having absorbed the virtue of the dragon’s bone [].

The lung ku and lung ya trade in the region of Yenchingkou was just a few generations old. It had begun with the accidental finding of fossils in a pit by


one of the local farmers. Since farming was a summertime activity, this accidental discovery gave the farmers something to do over the winter.

The Pleistocene fossils came from a period of time known as an Epoch that began 1.8 million years ago and ended 10,000 years ago. That Epoch was characterized by the alternate appearance and recession of northern glaciers. It was during this time that the appearance and spread of hominids ensued, as did the extinction of Pleistocene megafauna that basically was any animal greater than 100 pounds such as the mammoth, mastodon, saber-toothed tiger and giant panda. The Paleozoic limestone in which the Pleistocene fossils were found was formed at a much older period of 540 to 250 million years ago. But by the Pleistocene, eroded fissures and pits had formed in the limestone that became catchalls for animal remains.

But until 1921, no one outside of the villagers of Yenchingkou and the one or two wholesale druggists they supplied knew about the existence of these pits. Chinese and western scientists only became aware when a British consul named J. Langford Smith stationed in Ichang, and an amateur fossil collector himself, passed along a report that some of the druggists’ fossils were coming from the mountains of Yenchingkou in the Wanhsien region.

That fossils existed in Szechwan Province, however, was not totally unknown to science. In 1915, in a paper entitled “On some fossil mammals from Sze-chuan, China,” Japanese paleontologist Hikoshichiró Matsumoto summarized the history as follows:

Fossil mammals from China are recorded by Waterhouse (1853), Busk (1868), Owen (1870), Gaudry (1871), Koken (1885), Lydekker (1885, 1886 & 1891), V. Lóczy (1898), Suess (1899), Schlosser (1903), &c. Among these authors’ works, Owen’s, Gaudry’s, Koken’s, Lydekker’s and, especially, Schlosser’s are most important [].

Matsumoto had studied at the American Museum of Natural History and Columbia University earlier in his career. As for the work of the German professor Max Schlosser, Granger later observed that:

It is interesting to note that the first real information paleontologists had of the fossil mammalian faunas of China was from a large collection of fossils purchased by a German doctor [who

had no information] about the source of these fossils themselves, but from bits of matrix still adhering to some of the fossils themselves, [Schlosser] was able to classify the specimens in a fairly satisfactory way and to draw the first adequate picture of the mammalian life of the region during late Cenozoic time [].

Granger’s explorations also hoped for evidence of hominids, the early members of the human family.

No trained fossil expert had ever ventured into Szechwan Province, now considered too unsafe for scientific exploration. Granger became the first professional, along with a colleague, herpetologist Clifford H. Pope who operated in nearby provinces. Beginning in 1921, they pioneered the "China Branch" of the Central Asiatic Expeditions and over several winters developed a significant assemblage of fossil vertebrates, modern birds, recent mammals, fish, reptiles and archeological artifacts. CAE archaeologist Nels C. Nelson started assisting them beginning in 1925. (The scientific results are treated in works listed in Note 3 below.)

3. The Szechwan ExpeditionsBy the winter of 1922-1923, Granger was in his second consecutive winter season of fossil hunting in Szechwan Province. He typically traveled up the Yangtze by steamship and down by rented junk. A junk was needed to transport his sizeable collections of fossils, recent mammals and birds as well as his expedition party and equipment. He was by now fairly well acquainted with life on the Lower and Upper Yangtze River and their rather different facets. He regarded the river not only for its natural beauty and multiple uses, but also for its awesome and unforgiving power. Upper River travel from Ichang up often was difficult, usually stressful and sometimes outright dangerous.

As if the natural perils were not enough––Granger had already negotiated all of the treacherous rapids and confining gorges between Wanhsien and Ichang several times––bullets occasionally flew by as well. His 1921-1922 trip had begun with a front row seat at the battle for Ichang that lasted two days before Granger’s steamer finally could shove off and make way for Wanhsien. Granger could find at least one bullet hole in almost every Yangtze River vessel he ever stepped stepped aboard. Provincial warlord battles along with indiscriminate rogue militia and bandit assaults on riverboats, Granger knew, were


two of the reasons why western gunboats were patrolling the Yangtze River.

Granger maintained regular contact with western gunboat commanders, particularly those aboard the American boats Monocacy (II) and Palos (II) and the British boats Widgeon and Teal. These craft patrolled the upper section of the Yangtze and Wanhsien harbor was a duty station. Officers often socialized with the westerners ashore, including Granger. Exchanges of information during these gatherings helped with monitoring and assessing this increasingly turbulent area.

Occasionally, British and American and British gunboat officers visited Granger's camp, mainly to hunt, but also just to escape the river. It was a four to six hour climb from the Yangtze. Granger’s base camp was isolated from western contact and protection. Despite having a few native assistants and being well-armed, visits by naval officers helped remind him of western military presence as well as refresh his socializing.

Fig. 4. – A down river junk at the far shore taking rapids in the Yangtze. A tracker village sits on the shore in the background. Trackers stand on the near shore in the foreground.

4. Close CallOne respite from expedition routine and gunboat patrolling came just before Christmas in 1921 when Commander Geoffrey Corlett of the HMS Widgeon invited Granger for a duck hunt along the river. Corlett was the British Navy’s senior naval officer on the Upper Yangtze. Granger agreed. The plan was for the Widgeon to come up from Wanhsien and pick him up at the river landing early in the morning. Granger had walked down the night before to stay at an inn there in order to be ready first thing.

Hours passed as he waited at the landing the next morning before the Widgeon finally hove into view. It had trouble raising one of its anchors out of the muck in Wanhsien harbor. Weighing anchor often gave trouble to boats on the Yangtze since, because of the current, it took little time for them to become

deeply silted in. Sometimes it was necessary to cut the wire and leave the anchor at the bottom.

As the Widgeon came in, it got too close to shore as it tried to make landing. An indrift had caught and pulled it in and, before it regained headway, it scraped along rocks at the bank until it collided with a large, moored sampan crushing its matted canopy. No damage was done to the gunboat, which could have been a nasty mess, noted Granger, since gunboats were not supposed to pick up civilians off a Chinese junk and sampan landing to go duck hunting!

Corlett was heading upriver, anyway, and was also offering to take Granger to Chungchow to visit one of his field assistants, Kan Chuen Pao. Nicknamed “Buckshot,” Kan had suffered a severe abscess and was now in a hospital run by Dr. Williams at Chungchow. Corlett had been taken him there earlier that winter at Granger’s request and upon the recommendation of the Widgeon’s surgeon.

They stopped to hunt along the way. Arriving at a good location seven or eight miles below Chungchow later that afternoon, they spar-moored near a big bend in the river. Spar mooring meant bringing the boat close to shore at a spot in quiet water where the bank dropped off fairly abruptly to a depth that provided sufficient hull clearance. Both the bow and stern were then secured to the shore by wire. The boat was held against the anchoring by two spars, one forward and one aft, which were set between the deck and bank. A small sampan set at right angle to the boat made a bridge between it and shore.

Commander Corlett and Dr. John Pace, the ship’s surgeon, were the only officers on board, he noted further. The remaining crew consisted of some 22 white ratings and a dozen or so Chinese who served as the ship’s sampan boatmen, stokers, cooks and helpers. The gunboat, Granger also observed, carried two six-pounders and an assortment of rapid-fire guns.

Corlett and Granger disembarked at 9:00 a.m. on a warm and beautiful day. They hunted until dark. The captain shot one mallard and Granger shot two. They saw several hundred ducks that day, but they were very wild and difficult to approach. They also seemed always to fly high, Granger observed. Most interesting of all, was the ruddy Sheldrake that looked and acted much like a goose. Its note was a decided ‘honk’ instead of a duck-like ‘quack.’


5. Running the RapidsThe Widgeon left its spar mooring at 7:00 a.m. to steam upriver to Chungchow and arrive an hour later. Granger was put ashore and the Widgeon continued upriver. Granger went directly to Dr. William's hospital located at the extreme upper end of this small walled city.

The hospital was a part of the Canadian Methodist Mission compound that also held a school, reading room and public library. Granger found Buckshot still weak, but well enough to return to camp. Dr. Williams confirmed that only the surgically cutting and draining of the abscess could have relieved the man.

Following tea and arranging to stay overnight, Granger gave Dr. and Mrs. Williams one of the two mallards he had shot. That would be that night’s dinner. Departure the next day was aboard the little steamer Shu Tung that had come down from Chungking the night before on its way to Ichang. The stretch of river that lay ahead formed the lower half of the Upper River and contained the highest density of rapids.

Negotiating rapids was a way of life for boaters on the Upper River. The nature of each rapid altered with each change in the level of the river. Proceeding upriver through a rapid could be more complicated than traveling down one, although both held considerable danger and required great skill.

Charon described navigating up the Hsin T’an as one of the most unpleasant experiences in rapids at low river level:

In a low powered steamer at low level the ascent of this rapid is nerve-wracking, for one creeps up the left bank until abreast of the village and then one makes a wild plunge across the river to the right bank so as to wriggle between a line of rocks to starboard and the rock-strewn foreshore to port [].

Commercial traffic accommodated changing river conditions by adjusting their schedules. Gunboats, however, could not do that: they were on call at all times. Charon recounts a consequence of that in one of the smaller, slower gunboats typical of Granger’s time. It was the kind of event Granger himself had experienced. Charon captured it vividly:

[M]any a grim battle was fought out––steam v. nature. In the autumn of 1927

the writer was ‘stuck’ in a rapid called the Hsin T’an for 19 1/2 minutes with the engines going ‘all out’ and the ship being swept from side to side of the rapids and missing the rocks, literally, by inches at each plunge [].

Sometimes, a gunboat could only heave a rapid by making fast a wire from the ship’s capstan to a rock above the head of the rapid. Like a pendulum, the ship then swung itself back and forth against the wire, arcing in and out of the rapid while heaving in the wire furiously at the end of each swing, winching up the slack and gaining a few yards each time.

Boats traveling down a rapid, as the Shu Tung soon would, always took great caution. On the other hand, watching them from shore was something of a sport. Granger recounted one experience when a wind sprang up so strongly that it was thought best to wait before taking the Hsin T'an. The steamer Shu Kiang was being hauled up over the rapid while Granger’s junk stood at a mooring at the head of it on the opposite shore.

An hour or so later, the pilot said he was ready to proceed. Carrying coolies loaded with bedding and baggage followed the Grangers as they walked around the rapid while watching their boat head into the rapid. It passed through them safely. However, “a river inspector then came down in his Kua tzu,” Granger wrote, “but did not come through in as good style as ours did.”

Fig. 5. – Walter with Anna on the temple’s stage at the upper front of his CAE headquarters in the T’an family ancestral hall. A pair of ‘XX’s at bottom left mark empty T’an family coffins stored beneath the gallery along the right side of the hall. The Granger’s field boots hang from a column.

6. Back at YenchingkouAnna Granger, Walter’s wife, ventured with him to Szechwan Province over the winter of 1922-1923. She based herself at the China Inland Mission in Wanhsien and visited Granger's camp occasionally.


He also made short trips into Wanhsien to store accumulated collections and to re-supply.

By March 6, 1923, General Yang Sheng's Southern Army was at the south perimeter of Wanhsien district not far from Yenchingkou. There they began to test the resolve of Chang Chung's Northern troops. After a short battle at Tsa Mao Lin in the hills above Granger’s base camp, the defenders retreated. They routed through a valley of rice paddies and then broke a dike to flood it. This delayed the Southern Army by eight hours. They had been forced to pile into a few small boats in small numbers to cross the flooded area. The process must have seemed endless.

The Southern Army resumed full pursuit as the Northern Army entered the Upper Village of Yenchingkou on the Pei Shui Chih trail. It was headed down to the Yangtze River where junks would be commandeered to take the army to Wanhsien. This escape route had placed the matter squarely in the village, and right in front of Granger's door.

Granger and his men took up constant vigil. Granger and his men planned on only a few hours sleep while remaining fully clothed, armed and ready. They were vastly outnumbered in a rather desperate situation where hostility could break out at any time. He had his U.S. and Peking credentials along with Chung’s huchao that hopefully would serve as protection from the Northern Army. It was Sheng’s Southern Army that held the greater unknown.

The situation turned surreal as day after day the fit, the wounded and the exhausted marched by. There were many wounded, Granger noted, and that led him to conclude that the fighting had been unusually severe. This impressed him given his understanding of the poorly equipped Chinese soldier’s willingness to fight. Provincial armies such as these, Granger recalled, were “really the personal armies of the numerous Warlords and lesser Generals.” The common soldier wore

a fairly uniform type of clothing, varied to suit the region they live in. Cotton trousers and a tunic of the same material, with a few plain brass buttons on it, both garments a dirty dish-rag gray in color, a gray cap with the five-colored star of the Chinese Republic on the front, and a pair of rice straw sandals comprised the uniform. A few

dandies possessed cotton puttees and cloth shoes [].

Fig. 6. – Regular soldiers of General Yang Sheng’s army per Granger’s description in March 1923.

Troops in uniform could be deceptive, Granger knew. On January 16, 1922, a man in classic changshan (‘long shirt’) passed by with the escort of a lieutenant and his small squad all in uniform. Oddly, however, two members of the squad carried dummy wooden rifles. The civilian said they were on their way to escort a concubine from a neighboring province back to Wanhsien to become the wife of the general. It was quickly suspected by the townsfolk, however, that this also was a dangerous, possibly renegade group responsible for a recent spate of muggings and robberies in the region. Regardless, they nonetheless calmly posed for three photographs by Granger.

7. CooliesChang’s fleeing army carried simple equipment borne mostly by elderly coolies recently drafted. They struggled with their loads under threat of bayonet––younger men who might have been drafted in their stead had already run off. These elderly men “had been pressed into service because the younger men had gone into hiding, and the army must have transportation.”

Granger noticed “bundles of dirty bedding, mostly cotton quilts, a small amount of uniforms, cooking utensils, including great iron bowls, tiers of rice bowls and bundles of chopsticks, a small amount of uncooked rice and green vegetables, probably stolen on the way, heavy boxes of ammunition and bags of empty cartridge cases, one small field piece and four or five machine guns.” A field piece had been dismantled and was being carried in pieces by twenty-five coolies. The barrel required “six men walking tandem, necessarily, because of the narrow pathway.”


Fig. 7. – A coolie at rest with a remarkable load, and smile.

Granger later was told that ten of Chang’s coolies lay dead along the trail below his camp. He calculated that as one dead man for each mile between his location and the river landing. After collapsing, they were simply tossed off the trail and left to die. Some were bayoneted where they lay.

General Yang Sheng’s army was more impressive to Granger. The officers and men seemed more polished and disciplined. Unlike Chang’s men, they did not steal, paying instead for what they took. That army also possessed several field artillery pieces and many machine guns and had a superiority of heavier guns. It was that advantage, Granger later learned, “that had defeated General Chang’s army.”

Word spread early in the morning of March 7, that General Yang Sheng was approaching the village. Granger recorded the event later in the day:

All quiet during the night. About daybreak the first group of the advancing 2nd Army passed through the valley and another group arrived shortly afterward and stopped for rest and to cook rice. General Yang, in a [four man] chair, came through about 6 o'clock and I went down to greet him as he passed. He returned the greeting most cordially [].

Granger’s predicament over several unnerving days now ebbed as the flow of troops slowed to an occasional straggler or so a day. He decided it was time to break camp and head down to the river landing. There he would rent a junk, load his party, collection and equipment aboard and make for Wanhsien.

8. At WanhsienIn the meantime, Yang Sheng's rout of Chang Chung was so effortless that he had to find a way to get the rest of his army into the city quickly enough to secure it properly. It was decided to construct a bridge across the Yangtze. His engineers spanned the river with a pontoon bridge assembled from 66 junks tied together and secured by five, stout, span-length bamboo cables tied to every second junk. Those junks would also have their anchors down. Planking would be laid across the junks to create a roadway. A telegraph wire was also strung across. The bamboo cables were continued out from both corners of each end of the bridge and anchored to shore by wrapping them around huge boulders. Longer lines were stretched to anchoring points upriver.

Sheng quickly moved another 10,000 troops into Wanhsien over the next several days. In the meantime, all river traffic remained completely blocked. Boat captains were furious and protested vigorously. Sheng countered that his need was more urgent and his bridge only temporary attempting to fend off complaints that he was blocking the river in violation of international treaty rights. The boaters then asked to have the bridge opened for a part of each day. But the bridge's engineer argued that not even a section could be opened without endangering the bridge's overall structural integrity.

The bridge was so well built that not even a powerful, screw-driven gunboat could breach it, as the French commander of the Doudart de la Grée discovered on March 13th when he attempted to break through by steaming over the cables at a low point between junks. He made several unsuccessful assaults before withdrawing. River traffic was to remain blocked.

The standoff eased on March 16th when, Anna recorded, "the bridge of boats is now open every day from 9 A.M. to 2 P.M. Walter should have no trouble in bringing his junk down from Pei Shui Chih," Granger took another three days before transporting his party and equipment to Wanhsien. Although both armies had essentially cleared his vicinity by March 12th, Granger could not to leave Yenchingkou while the river was still blocked. Only when he learned in a note from Anna on March 19 that the bridge at


Wanhsien would be opened to river traffic for five hours each day, did he break camp the next day, make for the river landing, pile his men, collections and equipment aboard a junk and head downriver.

Inexplicably, the bridge closed an hour ahead of schedule that day, forcing Granger to moor his junk above it and make his way into Wanhsien on foot. His Chinese assistants remained aboard the junk with their weapons to guard it overnight. Such unpredictability only enhanced Granger’s desire to vacate the region as soon as possible. Once the junk was brought through and into the harbor the next day, the party made ready to depart Wanhsien the next morning, March 21. Equipment and fossils were taken ashore for repacking and were then reloaded.

As he awaited final preparations for departure, Granger accepted an invitation to lunch at the Standard Oil facility. His friend Lieutenant Commander George W. Sampson of the American gunboat Palos was also there. The Palos was now stationed at Wanhsien harbor to monitor events between Chang Chung and Yang Sheng.

Military tension in Wanhsien proper had eased somewhat, but Granger knew nevertheless that he would need to keep vigilant nearly all the way to Ichang. Travel was always perilous along the river for a variety of reasons. In addition to the obvious natural dangers posed by rapids and ship traffic, armed thieves, renegade militiamen and army deserters lurked along the shores and banks and to prey upon boaters.

After learning of Granger’s plans to vacate the next day, Sampson offered to escort the junk to Pan T’o, 20 or so miles downriver. This section of the river was considered one of the most susceptible to ambush. Sampson advised Granger that Anna could travel aboard the Palos (II). But he had a favor to ask in return. The gunboat had an important delivery to make downriver at Ichang. Ongoing military events, however, required it to remain at its duty station in Wanhsien. Sampson needed Granger’s assistance. The scientist agreed.

9. Anatomy of a GunboatThe Palos (II) was a 165.5 foot long, 24.5 foot wide, 2.5 feet deep shallow-drafted, iron-hulled, steam powered, screw-driven vessel, displacing 204 tons and carrying an average crew of about fifty men. She was modeled after the British gunboat Widgeon. She had a top speed of 13.25 knots. Armament was two 6-pounders and six .30 caliber machine-guns. Named after the port of Palos de la Frontera in Spain, it was

constructed along with its twin sister Monocacy (II) at the United States naval yard on Mare Island in California’s San Francisco Bay in 1912. Both craft were then disassembled for transport to Shanghai, China, for reassembly.

Fig. 8. – Sister gunboats USS Palos (II) and USS Monocacy (II) rafted at Shanghai in 1928.

Palos (II) was launched in Shanghai on April 23, 1914. It was the US Navy’s second gunboat named Palos. The first was a decommissioned tug converted in 1870. As such, it was the first American navy ship to pass through the Suez Canal. Palos (II) and Monocacy (II), also a second naming, were the only American gunboats sufficiently shallow-drafted to operate on the Upper River of the Yangtze, the run between Ichang and Chungking. Nevertheless, and despite their emulation of the Widgeon, both the Palos and Monocacy were found to be underpowered for some of the swifter rapids in the Upper River.

10. Patrolling the YangtzeThe Palos was a member of the United States Navy’s gunboat fleet called the Yangtze Patrol. Lucrative concessionary rights acquired by treaty years ago, combined with increasingly turbulent times, left the U.S. and other western nations along with Japan and China itself finding it desirable to maintain an active, armed presence on the Yangtze. A number of diplomats, businessmen, missionaries and other civilians in the area benefited from this presence. The Sand Pebbles by Richard McKenna nicely captures the flavor and difficulties during this period.

Nicknamed ‘YangPat,’ the American gunboats operated under the U.S. Navy’s Asiatic Fleet and based in Shanghai. YangPat’s officially stated purpose was to protect American citizens and interests. It also was an intelligence-gathering operation, however, and it was not unusual for gunboat members to venture ashore for extended periods of time solely for that purpose.

Post-Qing, post WWI China was now plagued by factionalism. No central national authority existed to govern it peacefully. Foreign citizens and commercial interests in the Yangtze River valley were increasingly becoming targets for animosity and


more and more were counting on the various gunboats to guard them and their property. The gunboats, on the other hand, were pressed to stay alert in a very fluid political and military situation.

Fig. 9. – Monocacy (II), portside. The structure overhanging at the stern housed the showers and toilets.

Some Chinese wanted the foreigners out of the area completely, and some foreigners were ready to leave. But pockets of official China accepted foreign presence, especially in the area of commerce as the concessionary treaties enabled. Economic growth was now seen as China’s new salvation, even if the original concession treaties and post-WWI settlements had not favored China. Recently western-educated Chinese hoped to work matters back to China’s favor.

In addition to the U.S., other nations such as Britain, Japan and China, Italy and France also patrolled the Yangtze. American residents and travelers on the river counted upon seven or so American gunboats including the Elcano, Monocacy, Palos, Quiros, and Villalobos. Some of these ships were prizes from the Spanish-American War. Among Britain’s twelve or so gunboats were the Cockshafer, Gnat, Scarab, Teal and Widgeon. The French had as many as six gunboats including the Balny and Doudart de la Gree. Italy also had six including the Ermanno Carolotto, one of the smallest ships in the foreign fleet.

Most of these western gunboats were lightly armed and carried crews of seventy-five men or less. Ironically, stokers and cooks on these gunboats were often Chinese nationals.

Only a few of gunboats were sufficiently maneuverable and powerful to handle the upper Yangtze’s strong current and dangerous rapids. A gunboat navigating any of the roughly 72 roiling rapids between Ichang and Chungking was in constant danger of striking rocks and holing the hull. Such circumstances gave the crew little time to effect repair. So an instant remedy was devised. Bags of cement were carried aboard to be stuffed into any

hole or crack that developed. While the bags stemmed the leak, the water hardened the cement to patch the hull.

Anchorage was often a problem, as well. After setting out upriver from Ichang, it was advisable to be absolutely sure of an anchorage for the night since many stretches of the riverbed would not hold the flukes of an anchor. There were miles for which no other mooring capability was available. Since, in the minds of many, nighttime navigation was akin to madness, the spar mooring method Granger described earlier was the only choice when anchoring was unavailable.

11. Setting OffWith Captain Sampson’s invitation in hand, Granger made his final preparations for the trip down river. In a letter to a colleague written just days before, Granger confided:

It looks like another junk trip down through the Gorge for me this spring, which I don't relish but don't really worry about unless the fighting comes in to the river. I can't seem to dodge these provincial wars, although nothing serious has happened yet. Last year I ran directly into the Ichang battle and this season into the Honan bandits and there is promise of lively times hereabouts in the next few weeks. [J. G.] Andersson was kept out of this locality for several years, after he learned about it, by the political conditions and if we waited for things to be perfectly peaceful on the Upper Yangtze, we would never be here ourselves. But the missionaries and the government officials and representatives of business concerns live here and travel up and down the river and nothing much seems to happen to them. There is, however, a growing dislike of and contempt for foreigners in this section. I find it more noticeable than last winter. It is not so marked out in the country districts but in the city and larger market places one is sneered at a good deal. If our gunboats are withdrawn, as I have heard it proposed, then all foreigners will withdraw too [].

Sampson’s reason for offering coverage to Granger as far as Pan To addressed the favor he needed in


return. There were no commercial steamers running at the moment either. Granger’s junk trip presented an option. Though well armed, Granger and his party might like some extra protection for the entire journey. Sampson had a solution.

12. March 22, 1923The Grangers took breakfast aboard the Palos at 7:00 a.m. on March 22, 1923. They then made ready to push off at 9:00. Anna remained aboard the Palos as the two boats proceeded down the river to Pan To together without incident. One can imagine the experience Anna must have had riding aboard a Yangtze Patrol gunboat, and she likely was one of very few women to do so.

The Palos steamed past the junk in late midmorning to go into anchor and provide security for an overnight stop. At noon, Anna and Sampson left the Palos to walk along the bank to a point where they could watch for Granger’s junk. It came into sight at 1:00 p.m. A sampan from the Palos then picked up Anna and the captain to return them to the Palos. Walter came aboard and they all sat down to “a delicious tiffin. The ship's doctor ([Leslie] Stone) and [second-in-command] Lieutenant (j.g.) [James Monroe] Connally joined in entertaining us,” noted Anna.

After lunch, Sampson played baseball with the crew on a sandy beach nearby while the Grangers set off with Lieutenant Connally to visit a temple on the opposite shore. Granger, a longtime Brooklyn Dodgers fan, watched the game after returning from the temple. Once they re-boarded the gunboat, both men took a shower. It was “a luxury Walter had not enjoyed for many a long day,” Anna wrote.

The dinner party aboard the Palos that evening included Granger’s chief assistant James Wong. All sat out on the forward deck beforehand to watch the evening fade. The river had the appearance of a lake hemmed in on all sides by mountains, Anna thought.

A card game of "hearts" finished up the day, and then the Grangers returned to their junk. The gunboat's No. 1 Chinese assistant later went over to present them with a parting gift of silk bands to wear in their hats.

13. DepartureAt 7:00 a.m., March 23, two crewmen from the Palos boarded Granger's junk, which then cast off and headed down river. “En route between Wan Hsien and Pan T’ou,” Anna later wrote, Granger had picked up a Chinese soldier “who had begged us to take him

with us (he had a message to deliver to an army officer in Ichang)….” [“Winter Over,” Nat. Hist., p. 379].

Since Anna would transfer to the Palos for the trip from Wanhsien to Pan To, her inclusion of herself in this account suggests that the Chinese soldier-messenger must have boarded Granger’s junk while it was still moored at Wanhsien and she was still aboard. It is not said whom the soldier represented. Granger himself makes no mention of this incident in his diary, but it clearly was now an unusual circumstance.

Granger later wrote [Chin. Arm., Ex. Cl. last p. ] that he was considerably more disposed to the victorious General Yang Sheng than to the defeated General Chang Chung. So it is possible that he agreed to assist Yang Sheng in getting word to allies in Ichang. Sheng had based himself in Ichang after losing Wanhsien to Chang a few years earlier. Possibly he was trying to reach Wu Pei Fu himself.

This then resulted in a rather remarkable situation as the junk departed on the morning of March 23rd

flying an American flag. There were now 25 people aboard, including the laodah (foreman) and crew, one of whom was a uniformed Chinese soldier-messenger on a military mission, two of whom were American sailors undergoing discharge from the military and the rest of whom were members of the American Museum’s Central Asiatic Expeditions fleeing a war zone, all the while facing another possible gauntlet.

Anna later described the set-up aboard the junk:

A sort of boudoir was devised for me by partitioning off, by means of a large piece of canvas, a third of the space in the cabin which occupied the center of the boat. Mr. Granger and Mr. Wong had their cots on the other side of this improvised wall, but by folding up one of the beds in the day time, their erstwhile dormitory was restored to its proper use as a passageway from bow to stern, except indeed when we blocked it again while gathered there for our meals. The two sailors and our Chinese assistants slept on the floor just beyond the cabin. [Wintering Over, Nat. Hist, p. 379]

She did not mention where the Chinese soldier-messenger slept, as she continued:


All of the forward part of the junk was needed by the crew… The laodah...had a bunk high up in the extreme stern, but the rest of the men lay down at night on almost the identical spots where they had stood to their labors during the day. [Wintering Over, Nat. Hist, p. 379]

14. Into the GorgesAfter leaving Pan To at 7:00 a.m. following a small breakfast aboard the Palos, the junk party navigated the first of the Three Gorges, the five mile long Ch’u-t’ang. Of the three, this gorge was considered by the locals to feature the sheerest cliffs, the most narrowing (down to 350 feet at one point) and the fastest current.

Anna wrote:

The Hsing Lung Tan had first to be negotiated. We waited until the junk had passed the rapid before having our real breakfast. All hands except the cook got out and walked. The junk made the passage finely… Saw many soldiers of the Northern Army coming up river along the tracking path in a good many places throughout the day.*

*At Yun Yeng on the north side of the river we saw a wonderfully fine temple Chang Fei Mio, on the opposite bank. Has lantern perpetually lighted. Chang Fei = name of a famous army leader said to be advisor of the general who got his men out of the Kuei Fu gorge on cuts in the rock [].

The Granger party passed through without incident and arrived at the town of Kuei Fu (Kueifu) at 4:00 p.m. Chow served tea, bread, cheese and jam, and then all hands went ashore. Walter and Anna paid a call at the English Mission to see a Mr. and Mrs. Bromley. When they got back to the junk, they found that the laodah had begun loading the junk with sugar cane and coal. It took considerable discussion before Wong convinced him that he was violating his agreement with Granger that no extra cargo would be taken on during the transit. After the matter was settled, the party supped on the two ducks that crewmembers of the Palos had shot and presented to them upon their departure the day before. All were in bed by 9:30.

15. March 24, Redux.

The next morning broke sunny and almost too hot for comfort, Granger wrote. They were off at daybreak and some minor rapids were shot between the Kuei fu and the next gorge, Wu. They reached the entrance to the latter at a little after 10:00 a.m. The sun was now quite hot. All were out on deck to see the entrance to this second gorge known as Witches Gorge. The cliffs were lovely in the morning mist, Anna wrote. A huge isolated rock guarded the entrance and was a roosting place for cormorants. At this point one could see where a chain had at one time been stretched across the river. A little way beyond the party saw the holes cut in the steep cliff rock face by means of which an army once made escape. It looked to Anna to be wholly impassable.

This gorge was much longer, 25 miles, and known primarily for its dramatic peaks and dangerous whirlpools. The cliffs, though not as sheer as Ch’u-t’ang’s, were steep-walled nevertheless and also tended to block the sun, providing suitable hiding places for bandits. Granger had been so warned.

There was a slight upriver breeze until noon when it changed to a following wind. The Tze Sui, a steamer from Chung King, passed them by at about 11:00 a.m., they noted

As the party finished tiffin near Huang La Pei at 1:00 p.m., Granger decided to scan the escarpments with his field glasses. It was a precaution. The junk was now within the shaded and steep confines of Wu Gorge. He rose from his seat with his glasses and stepped into the open space behind the junk's main cabin where the man at the tiller stood. Granger trained his glasses on the cliffs and started to scan. Just seconds later, he saw a glint and then one individual gesturing to another. Granger sensed that a rifleman was making ready to fire and yelled a warning out to party and crew. His men grabbed their weapons while Anna scurried into the junk's cabin and hastily packed bedding and pillows up against the cabin walls.

Not a minute passed when a bullet whacked the water near the hull. The shot was intended to disable or kill a steersman putting the junk out of control and perhaps forcing it ashore. The junk’s party returned fire as Anna dove down onto the floor of the main cabin. One of Granger’s unarmed Chinese assistants, Chow, hurled himself through the entryway into the very same spot nearly crushing Anna. As the firing continued, they together crawled deeper into the junk's hold. After taking off his uniform, the Chinese soldier-messenger also sought refuge in the main cabin.


The steersman directed the junk toward the opposite shore. As US Navy Seaman 2nd class P.N. McRoberts and Fireman 3rd class Burt Crabtree helped return fire, one of them, an expert marksman, took over Wong’s .25-caliber Savage rifle to fire at what appeared to be the ambushers’ thatched concealment. That rifle was the only weapon aboard that had a long-range capability. The rest were of limited effect: two 12-gauge shotguns, a .22/410-gauge over-under, and four automatic pistols, including the two issued to the Palos crewmen. Nonetheless, their response was effective. Altogether, 43 rounds were sent into the cliff from the men aboard the junk. Two more shots came from the ambushers, who now appeared to be five in number with possibly more lurking elsewhere. They aimed for the oarsmen, but their shots missed again.

The snipers inflicted no damage. Whether any of them were hit was never known. One thing James Wong was sure of was that all aboard were lucky: the ambushers, he later told Anna, had sported “high-power modern army rifles.” [Wintering Over, Nat. Hist., p. 380.]

16. An Unusual Mission.McRoberts and Crabtree had not simply been assigned to protect a civilian craft, as was sometimes done on the Yangtze. There was more to it. The ship’s log entry for the Palos on March 23, 1923, noted that while the Palos was at

Pan To. Moored as before. At 6:00 McRoberts, P. N. S2c and Crabtree, Burt F3c were transferred to the junk of Dr. Granger for transfer to the United States Ship Quiros for further transfer to the United States and to act as protection for the passengers and Junk in accordance with Commanding Officer's orders [].

Even this statement is not precisely correct. The two sailors were actually awaiting transfer after bad conduct charges were found against them at a court-martial aboard the Palos. The nature of the charges is unimportant; their names are revealed here to honor their performance throughout this incident. Their new status –– awaiting dishonorable discharge –– had created a tricky situation under the heightened combat circumstances in which the Palos found itself at Wanhsien. For purposes of morale and leadership, Sampson was anxious to see the two sentenced men off his boat as soon as possible. However, for the moment, downriver transfer for remand to the United

States and discharge from the Navy was difficult to come by. Matters at Wanhsien were so fluid that the Palos needed to remain at its station there. With river traffic now interrupted by the bridge of boats, there were no foreseeable means for transporting the men out via another gunboat or commercial steamer.

It was when Granger indicated that he was departing Wanhsien, that Sampson saw his opportunity and asked to effect transfer of McRoberts and Crabtree to his junk. Granger essentially was to take responsibility for delivering the men to the commanding officer of the USS Quiros in Ichang. They then would be taken on to Shanghai for transport back to the States. It is clear, then, that Granger was providing an unusual service for the US Navy. He was accepting transfer of McRoberts and Crabtree into his custody to assist Captain Sampson. These two men were no longer regular sailors. They were provisionally armed detainees.

So far as it is known, and this research is by no means exhaustive, this is the only event of its kind in the history of YangPat, as well as of the CAE and perhaps of any other fossil hunting expedition. There were instances of assigning YangPat sailors to protect commercial steamers. There also had been occasions when YangPat sailors were assigned to guard Chinese vessels rented for commercial purposes and carrying an American flag. This latter practice, however, became deeply frowned upon by successive YangPat commanders, Admirals Wood and Strauss, beginning in 1920-21. Admiral Wood forbade the practice and Admiral Strauss was ‘furious’ over the thought of placing armed guards on Chinese junks flying the American flag.

Granger’s rented Chinese junk did carry an American flag, but two distinctions can be drawn. First, it was being used for scientific expedition purposes, not for a commercial purpose. Second, Granger had not requested American protection. Those two distinctions drawn, the two Palos sailors were not really assigned to protect the junk, but ordered to vacate the area and board it. In light of the dangers present, they were permitted handguns to protect themselves. Granger and his assistants were already carrying sufficient long- and short-range firepower to protect themselves.


Fig. 11. – One of the sailors from the Palos at left with Granger’s interpreter and assistant James V. Wong in white shirt at right. Granger, Wong and the two sailors carried automatic pistols. Wong also carried a .25 caliber Savage rifle. The party also carried two 12-gauge shotguns and a Marble’s .22/410 gauge game getter gun.

Nevertheless, Captain Sampson issued a sidearm each to the two men as "added protection" for Granger, meaning that they were required to assist him as needed. Once in Ichang, they were to hand their weapons back to Granger who would deliver them along with the two sailors to the commanding officer of the Quiros. The weapons would then be sent back to the Palos "by the most convenient method after steamer traffic opened."

Fig. 12. – Granger’s junk at a landing following the ambush. In the right foreground with backs turned are (l.-r.) Wong in white shirt with band, Anna in hat with band and the Chinese soldier-messenger looking up shoreline. The man in the white shirt aboard the junk is one of the Palos sailors. The other Palo sailor is behind him in the dark shirt at the entryway to the cabin. Whey, the expedition cook, remains seated at his station in the foredeck. There appear to be eight or so of the junk’s crew, although one of them may be ‘Buckshot.’

The junk was now in a state of siege as it went downriver with bedding and duffel bags left banked up against the insides of the main cabin and they party at the ready in case of another attack. They reached town of Kuan-tu-kou at 5:45 p.m. where a soldier from the barracks confronted them requiring

them to stop. They did so, although they were “hurrying to get to Pa Jung before dark. As soon as the officer had inspected our papers, we went on our way.” A half an hour after passing the town of Wuhan, they saw the water level marked at 195 feet on the face of a cliff. It had been posted there by the Yangtze river inspectors to indicate the height of the summer flood rise.

They reached Pa Jung at 7:15 p.m. with barely enough light to see to tie up to the bank. Wong paid a visit to the yamen (government administrative office) to report on the bandit attack. All hands turned in early. It rained during the night

17. March 25th.At 4:00 a.m. sharp, they awakened by a soldier begging to be permitted aboard. Wong refused, saying the crew was armed and prepared to repel any boarding attempt. The soldier backed off.

The junk started off at 6:00 a.m. amidst intervals of rain. The hills were white with blossoming plum trees and an occasional peach tree, the flowers of which were large and showy. It added a charming bit of color to the scenery, Anna describing it in her diary. They saw little traffic on the river. What craft they did see were filled with soldiers of the Northern Army. A strong breeze upstream made progress slow. ‘Red-boats’ coming up river had their sails set; striped, dark blue and white alternating in vertically placed sections. These were rescue boats stationed along this final gorge to assist with accidents. For here, in this stretch of the Yangtze, they were most plentiful.

They reached Lao Kuei Cho at 4:45 p.m. and moored for the night. All hands went ashore to stretch their legs. The village had just one street that ran higher up on the bank parallel to the shoreline. As they walked, Wong in American soldier's trench clothes, the Chinese soldier back in uniform, the American sailors, and Walter and Anna in riding attire must have been a quite sight to the villagers who came out to watch them. There seemed to be no apparent aversion to the foreigners, Anna wrote, as had been so noticeable to them at Wanhsien.

18. March 26th.It was cloudy and hazy at daybreak when the party got started. Through the mistiness, the sun began shining early enough to make the final gorge, which was entered directly after getting under way at 6:00 a.m. Anna found the scene to be “very beautiful.” The last of the Three Gorges, the His-ling, was 30 miles long and held the most dangerous rapids and


shoals of the three. This series began with the New Rapids followed by the Head, First and Second Rapids. Other than the Hsinlung Tan of the first gorge, Anna knew that the Hsin Tan in this third gorge was thought to be the most dangerous to navigate in springtime. For these, the Granger party disembarked and walked along the shore with their personal belongings as their junk was brought safely through each set of rapids. Finally, they reached more open water, but the upstream wind grew so strong that Granger’s junk could not continue against it. They went into shore and tied up for a time. As the breeze abated, they set off.

A band of robbers was spotted before the party reached the Hsin Tan at about 8:00 a.m. They posed no trouble. A steamer, the SS Sha Kiang was being hauled up the rapid as the junk went into mooring at the opposite shore. A pilot was sought to take the junk through the rapids. Yet another robber band was spotted, but it moved on. At 8:30 a.m. a pilot came on board and said he was ready to proceed. Carrying coolies unloaded bedding and baggage as all passengers prepared to walk around the rapid.

First we watched our boat take the rough water, then we sauntered along the tracking path, watching a native scooping fish out of the river in a dip net and emptying the catch into a basket just as fast as he could turn from one to the other. The fish were about the size & shape of smelts. We saw many of the same spread on boards to dry in the sun. Another kind of fish brought in was three feet long. Walter took photographs of the rapid, the fishers and an interesting rock, showing how continual use of the bamboo tracking ropes can wear deep grooves in hard limestone. Our boat lay at anchor in a bay below the fishing village a long time before we got there. Walter took a photograph of the laodah, our camp men, and some of the crew assembled on the beach in front of it. Peanuts and pomelos were added to our larder here and off we pushed again at 9:30 a.m. In one of the provision stores in the village, I saw bundles of green shoots from some trees tied up in small bunches. Our men say they are boiled one minute and eaten. Mr. Rob, river inspector, came down in his Kua tzu just after our boat took the rapid. His craft did not come through in as good style as ours did. This man is the one who was attacked by bandits at Pau tou [Panto]

a few days before we started from Wanhsien. Scenery through the "ox-lung" and "horse liver" gorges very fine. At the lower end of these, another bad place in the river obliged us to take on two pilots. One held the rudder and the other the sweep. A steamer, the Ta Fu, foundered at this place a few days ago, and is tied up at the town of Miao-ho [Miaoho], and bailing out water as we passed. Wind began to blow against, instead of with, us at 10 o'clock. Sun also became overcast. At one o'clock, wind died and the sun came out making the afternoon quite oppressive with the heat. The Ta Tung Tan [Tatungtan] looked villanous enough, but gave our men no serious trouble. We stopped at a little town at the head of Ichang gorge to take off some tracking ropes that the laodah wanted to have mended in this place, it being one of the centres for making bamboo hawsers. Started again at 3:45 with the wind upstream. At four o'clock, one of the oars broke and had to be replaced by a new blade. The sun was setting when we had gotten fairly well into the gorge. Fortunately the wind went down and the moon came up, making the last three hours of the journey to Ping Shau Pa [] delightful. We docked in front of the custom's pontoon and then had supper at 8:30. Before going to bed, everybody left the boat to wander about on the big stretch of sand deposited by the river at this point [].

19. March 27, 1923.It was a clear night and the mat coverings for the main cabin roof could be left open. The next dawn was bright with a cool breeze coming up river. All were up at sunrise and made ready to cast off at 8:00 a.m. Wanhsien time, Granger noting also that it was 9:00 a.m. Ping Shau Pa time.

Compared to the gorges of Wushan and Kuei Fu, Anna later wrote, the Ichang gorge seemed very tame that day.

One does not feel so strongly what an awful convulsion of nature took place to make all this river scenery the wonderful thing it is. The cliffs are neither very high or precipitous, and are mostly covered with grass & shrubs giving them a lady-like appearance. The highest water level


mark that we saw was 60 ft. The bases of the cliffs do not show the ravages of a mighty current [].

Open country of lower lying land was reached at 10:00 a.m. The party sailed into Ichang harbor at 11:30 a.m. Walter immediately boarded the Quiros to hand over the two sailors and explain the expenditure of some of their cartridges. Captain Mclaren then invited the Grangers to lunch, although he and his fellow officers had just finished theirs. The Grangers accepted, being rather glad to change from the cramped quarters of the junk. They met Lieutenant (j.g.) Buckhalter, who formerly served on the Monocacy, as well as Dr. Hubbard and Lt. Buehler. After tiffin, the captain and Walter went ashore to do errands while Lieutenant Buckhalter and Anna “visited two places where grass linen table covers and runners decorated with cross-stitching in blue are sold.”

At 5:00 p.m. Walter, Anna, the captain and the lieutenant all turned up at the Windhams for tea. Mr. P.C. Windham was Ichang manager of the Robert Dollar Steamship Co.

Their house is on the Bund. It was nice having the "eats" in true American fashion. 7:30 p.m. dinner on board the Quiros. A hard thundershower at nine o'clock cooled off the air. Heat had been most oppressive all day. Back to our quarters on board the Tung Ting at 10 o'clock (Butterfield & Swire line). We expect to leave for Hankow tomorrow or next day [].

21. Postscript.Granger later reported to Commander Sampson as follows:

Arrived safely at noon on the 27th after an unusually pleasant trip. Stages as follows: Kwei Fu, Pating, Old Kwei Chou, Ping Shan Pa, and Ichang. Five and a half days from Wanhsien. In the Wushan Gorge, at noon on the 24th, we were fired upon by a small band of robbers on the side of a cliff some two hundred feet above the river, and a couple of hundred yards away. The shot fell near the junk, which they apparently were trying to hit. We opened up with everything we had and got in forty odd rounds before the party broke up. Your men fired about ten rounds each with

their automatics and McRoberts tried a few shots with our rifle. We could not be sure if we hit anybody, but they kept pretty well concealed after the first few shots.... We might have pulled out of the mess by ourselves, but I was mighty glad to have your two men along.... I feel that the [Central] Asiatic Expedition is much indebted to the Commanders of the Upper River Gunboats....[]

Granger's letter was found in U.S. National Archives records declassified in the 1990s. No previous account of the Central Asiatic Expeditions or of the Yangtze Patrol had connected the two enterprises, as does Granger’s letter here.

As mentioned, as an adjunct member of the CAE, Anna would later publish an article mentioning this incident entitled “Wintering Over by Fire Basket in Szechuan” in the American Museum’s Natural History magazine [May-June, 1924, v. XXIV, n. 3, pp. 366-380]. Her account, however, is oblique on the true status of the two sailors from the Palos. In terms of danger, incidentally, Anna’s experiences with Granger and his small band of Chinese assistants during his Yangtze basin expeditions greatly exceeded any of those encountered by any CAE party or individual CAE member in Mongolia except the motor man Mackenzie (“Mac”) Young. Herpetologist Clifford Pope and his small band of Chinese assistants working in south China also encountered a significantly higher risk of danger than did the Mongolia ventures.

In his 1993 book Riding Shotgun on the Yangtze, David Grover did allude to this incident as follows:

On rare occasions, guards were assigned to private boathouses, as in the case of a guard on one such vessel transporting missionaries upriver; in another instance the Palos assigned two men as guards on a private houseboat while they awaited transportation downriver on another gunboat after they had been given bad conduct discharges by a court martial [].

That reference, of course, is to this incident which occurred on a rented Chinese junk, not a houseboat. And it was that junk that transported the Palos sailors downriver, as we now know.


Gunboats of the various international Yangtze patrols played a role in enabling the Granger’s CAE work in Yangtze basin from 1921 to 1925. In turn, Granger was able to assist the YangPat, as this story captures. Sampson and Granger’s exchange of favors neatly accomplished the requirements of all parties. It provided much-needed transport for McRoberts and Crabtree and enabled the Palos to remain on station at Wanhsien. Whether he needed it or not, it boosted Granger’s firepower all the way to Ichang, While this arrangement solved a tricky crew morale problem for Sampson, it obviously added unknowns for Granger as custodian. One can only speculate on the dynamics and interactions among this highly diverse complement of passengers and crew aboard Granger’s junk as it made its way from Pan To to Ichang.

Finally, for the reader this account provides a previously unknown dimension to the activities of the Central Asiatic Expeditions and the Yangtze Patrol during the turbulent 1920s in China. And archived records for the multinational Yangtze patrols during this time surely hold many other interesting, yet untold stories.

On June 3, 1937, USS Palos was decommissioned and sold for use on the Yangtze as a wood oil barge.

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY

Charon. 1934. ‘Exclesior’ (North-China Daily News & Herald Ltd).

Ch'i, Hsi-Sheng. 1976. Warlord Politics in China, 1916-1928 (Stanford University Press).

Directory of American Naval Fighting Ships (US Naval Institute).Granger, Anna. 1924. “Wintering Over by Fire Basket in Szechuan,” Natural History (May-June), v. XXIV, n. 3, pp. 366-380.

Granger, Walter. 1936. “Chinese Armies on the March,” in: Explorers Club Tales (Dodd, Mead & Company), pp. 137-149.

Grover, David H., ed. 1993. Riding Shotgun on the Yangtze (Western Maritime Press).

Howell, Glenn F. 2002. Gunboat on the Yangtze: the diary of Captain Glenn F. Howell of the USS Palos, 1920-1921 (ed., Dennis, L. Noble)(McFarland & Company, Inc.).

USS Palos, Report of Operations for Week Ending 18 November 1922 (20 November 1922)(National Archives).

USS Palos, Report of Operations for Week Ending 17 March 1923 (19 March 1923) for references to the pontoon bridge (US National Archives).

USS Palos, Ship's Log - 23 March 1923 (US National Archives).

USS Palos, Report of Operations for Week Ending 24 March 1923 (26 March 1923) for references to escorting Granger's junk (US National Archives).

USS Palos, Report of Operations for Week Ending 14 April 1923 (16 April 1923) for correspondence from W. Granger (US National Archives).

FIGURES

All photographs belong to The Granger Papers Project.

NOTES

1. Spellings of Chinese terms and locations are as employed at the time.

2. Cites for excerpts are: Fossil mammals from China [Matsumoto]; It is interesting to note W. Granger[ ]; [F]or generations vertebrate fossils W. Granger [ ]; In a low-powered steamer Charon, “Excelsior”, p. 19; [M]any a grim battle Charon, “Excelsior”, p. 7; a fairly uniform type of clothing W. Granger, Explorers Club Tales, p. 143-144; bundles of dirty bedding W. Granger, Explorers Club Tales, p. 147; had been pressed into service W. Granger, Explorers Club Tales, p. 146; that had defeated W. Granger, Explorers Club Tales, p. 148; All quiet during the night W. Granger, diary, March 7, 1923 (The Granger Papers Project); It looks like another junk trip W. Granger in letter to W. D. Matthew dated February 15, 1923 (The Granger Papers Project); Pan To. Moored as before USS Palos, Ship’s Log, March 23, 1923 (US National Archives); Arrived safely at noon USS Palos, Report of Operations for Week Ending 14 April 1923 (16 April 1923)(US National Archives); On rare occasions, guards D. Grover, Riding Shotgun on the Yangtze, p. 9.

3. For a description of Walter Granger's fossil collections at Yenchingkou (Yanjinggou, Sichuan Province) and region, see Granger, W. [ ], Volume I, Chapter XLVIII; in Andrews, R. C., 1932, Natural History of Central Asia, The New Conquest of


Central Asia, New York, American Museum of Natural History; and Colbert, E. H., Hooijer, D. A. [and Granger, W.], "Pleistocene Mammals from the Limestone Fissures of Szechwan, China", Bull. AMNH (1953), v. 102:1-134. Granger also collected a large number of recent mammals and birds. For a description of Clifford H. Pope's work, see Pope, C. H. 1935. Volume X, The Reptiles of China; in Andrews, R. C., et al., [193 ], Natural History of Central Asia, The New Conquest of Central Asia, New York, American Museum of Natural History.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The author thanks [Joan Piper, Pete Reser] for their reviews. This account is based on a presentation made at the 2007 Naval History Symposium, US Naval Academy, Annapolis, MD, on September 21. Cite as: Morgan, V. L., 2007, “Exchanging Favors––Encounters between American Gunboat Patrols and Scientists Studying the Natural History of China in the 1920s,” The Granger Papers Project, Paper No. 1.

APPENDIX AThe Gold Sifters

The duck hunting occurred while the river was at its seasonal low water level. This left exposed a great stretch of horizontal sand and rock with an irregular surface pocked in places with small potholes. Large lagoons could also be found. They were made during the river’s high and medium water stages when swirling eddies scooped out rock and soil and created catch basins. Some lagoons were a mile in length. Granger thought it was actually possible that the main channel of the Yangtze had once passed along way of the lagoons until it cut deeper and set a new course.

Covering the rock ledge in some places were deposits of sand and gravel swept down by the river. Natives were washing this material for gold.

They sat in rude bamboo shelters. The sediment was loaded into a basket that was then rocked back and forth by a crude cradle straddled over a broad sloping table. Water was constantly poured into the basket to wash out the finer sand and that was then put through a separating process to isolate black sand particles. Corlett’s surmise was that the black sand was then sent away for further separation since the native apparatus on the spot did not seem sufficiently delicate for the job.

APPENDIX BJunks and Trackers

The junk.The word ‘junk’ describing the waterborne craft dates back to the thirteenth century and referred to ‘the common type of sailing vessel in the China seas.’ Development of the flat-bottomed river junk by early river settlers likely preceded that of the seagoing junk. The design of a Yangtze River junk depended both on its use and on which section of the river it plied. This was true of sampans, which Granger often used as well. River junks and river sampans were similar in design and function. The dividing line between them was whether the craft could carry a water buffalo crosswise thwart to thwart. If it could, it was a junk. Fig. 21 shows Anna in a river sampan at the landing below Yenchingkou.

Granger’s junk was known as an Upper Yangtze junk. These junks varied greatly in design and size, but all shared one common criterion: the capacity to navigate and survive nearly impassable rapids, whirlpools, and shoals. From a photograph, Grangers’ junk appears to have been 60 to 70 feet long and of the ma-yang-tzu design. It was propelled and controlled by 12 rowers with sweeping oars and two steersmen. There also was the crew’s cook and the junk’s laodah, or captain. “We marveled at the contentedness and even joyousness of these men who worked at the oars and sang to the strokes, fed only on meager rations of rice and green vegetables with occasionally a very little pork,” Anna wrote. [Wintering Over, Nat. Hist, p. 379]

Fig. 12 shows Granger’s junk with the bow sweep is seen at rest off the bow. The port and starboard sweeps rest amidships. The steersman (or men, depending on difficulty of navigation and handling) stood aft in the open space between cabins at the long tiller seen angling upward toward the flagpole. This location was between the junk’s deckhouse and after house. Spare bamboo rope is coiled at the base of the flagpole aft on the deckhouse roof. Further forward, sheets of thatched roofing for covering the opening when not in use can be seen at the end of the deckhouse roof.

As shown in Fig. 12, the junk’s mast was un-stepped for downriver travel. It would then be raised to sail back upriver wherever and whenever it could. Otherwise, it would be poled or trackers would haul it from ashore using long bamboo lines.


Trackers.These were the river laborers who battled daily with the Yangtze, providing the muscle to drag 40 to 100 ton vessels along sections of the 1,500-mile stretch from Shanghai to Chungking that included a series of treacherous gorges and a current of six to 12 knots or more. Mostly men, they worked 12 hours a day, nine days at a time. There were two types of trackers, permanent and seasonal. The permanent trackers were based in local villages along the river. It was usually these that formed the basic crews of many junks. The seasonal trackers would hire themselves out at temporary shantytowns, set up where their need was greatest along the difficult gorge-strewn reaches of the Upper Yangtze above Ichang. The risk of storm, the potential for sudden changes in the river's water level, the avarice of ship owners and the charged, violent atmosphere to which this brutal lifestyle tended, introduced many additional, unseen risks into what was already dangerous work.

Fig. 10. – Trackers and braided bamboo haul ropes in foreground.

Trackers used long ropes to pull craft upriver. Four-inch wide braided, bamboo hawsers were attached to the boat's prow. As many as 400 trackers would hitch themselves in a long series to these and, shoed in straw slippers, would listen for drum signals to direct the progress of their haul. Along some stretches one foot wide “tracker paths” were carved into the cliff. Since these had to take into account the frequent change in water level, these tracks could be as high as 300 feet above the river. More often, however, trackers while heaving their load, had to dexterously pick their way across various-sized boulders lying along the shoreline. If a cliff stood in their way the trackers would board the craft, and by inserting hooked poles into nooks in the rock face, would inch the boat laboriously along the cliff.

Many trackers drowned in the raging torrents of the Yangtze. Many more suffered from work-induced strains, hernias and other illnesses. A tracker’s career rarely lasted more than five years.

Descent of the river, though less onerous, was equally dangerous. Trackers would now work mainly in the boat. The bow-sweep, used to direct the boat, demanded 15 men, while each of the oars 10. In descent, far less important than propelling the boat forwards was maintaining a safe position in the fast-flowing current. For this, at particularly dangerous rapids, skilled captains who specialized in negotiating particular set of rapids were hired.

Exchanging Favors: the fossil hunter and the Yangtze Patrol, March, 1923 (working paper)

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Transcript of Exchanging Favors: the fossil hunter and the Yangtze Patrol, March, 1923 (working paper)