"it was quite exciting here, at that
time. I used to have to take the boathook and push off the Chinese
corpses that caught on the prow of the boat as they floated down, thick
... they seemed to catch hold of the prow as if still alive. It was
uncanny!"
* * * * *
We slept, rolled up in our blankets, on the floor of a Chinese compound
... adventurers bound up and down the river, to and from Tien-Tsin and
Woo-shi-Woo and Pekin ... a sort of caravanserai....
* * * * *
Though it was the fall of the year and the nights were cold enough to
make two blankets feel good, yet some days the sun blazed down
intolerably on our boat, on the river....
When we grew thirsty the captain and myself resorted to our jug of
distilled water. I had been warned against drinking the yellow,
pea-soup-like water of the Pei-ho....
But one afternoon I found our water had run out.
So I took the gourd used by the Chinese crew, and dipped up, as they
did, the river water.
The captain clutched me by the wrist.
"Don't drink that water! If you'd seen what I have, floating in it,
you'd be afraid!"
"What won't hurt a Chinaman, won't hurt me," I boasted....
The result of my folly was a mild case of dysentery....
In a few days I was so weak that I went around as if I had no bones left
in my body.
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