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

(Working manuscript) EXCHANGING FAVORS:

The Fossil Hunter and the Yangtze Patrol, March, 1923

by Vincent L. Morgan

Contact: morganvl60@gmail.com

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, 1923
Tiffin 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
 Morgan, V. L., 2009, “Exchanging Favors,” TGPP, Paper No. 1, - p. 2
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
 Morgan, V. L., 2009, “Exchanging Favors,” TGPP, Paper No. 1, - p. 3
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 Granger
Walter 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
 Morgan, V. L., 2009, “Exchanging Favors,” TGPP, Paper No. 1, - p. 4
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 Expeditions
By 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
 Morgan, V. L., 2009, “Exchanging Favors,” TGPP, Paper No. 1, - p. 5
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 Call
One 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.’
 Morgan, V. L., 2009, “Exchanging Favors,” TGPP, Paper No. 1, - p. 6
5. Running the Rapids
The 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 Yenchingkou
Anna 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.
 Morgan, V. L., 2009, “Exchanging Favors,” TGPP, Paper No. 1, - p. 7
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. Coolies
Chang’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.”
 Morgan, V. L., 2009, “Exchanging Favors,” TGPP, Paper No. 1, - p. 8
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 Wanhsien
In 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
 Morgan, V. L., 2009, “Exchanging Favors,” TGPP, Paper No. 1, - p. 9

Wanhsien would be opened to river traffic for five constructed along with its twin sister Monocacy (II)
hours each day, did he break camp the next day, at the United States naval yard on Mare Island in
make for the river landing, pile his men, collections California’s San Francisco Bay in 1912. Both craft
and equipment aboard a junk and head downriver. were then disassembled for transport to Shanghai,
China, for reassembly.
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 Fig. 8. – Sister gunboats USS Palos (II) and USS Monocacy (II)
morning, March 21. Equipment and fossils were rafted at Shanghai in 1928.
taken ashore for repacking and were then reloaded.
Palos (II) was launched in Shanghai on April 23,
1914. It was the US Navy’s second gunboat named
As he awaited final preparations for departure,
Palos. The first was a decommissioned tug converted
Granger accepted an invitation to lunch at the
in 1870. As such, it was the first American navy ship
Standard Oil facility. His friend Lieutenant
to pass through the Suez Canal. Palos (II) and
Commander George W. Sampson of the American
Monocacy (II), also a second naming, were the only
gunboat Palos was also there. The Palos was now
American gunboats sufficiently shallow-drafted to
stationed at Wanhsien harbor to monitor events
operate on the Upper River of the Yangtze, the run
between Chang Chung and Yang Sheng.
between Ichang and Chungking. Nevertheless, and
despite their emulation of the Widgeon, both the
Military tension in Wanhsien proper had eased
Palos and Monocacy were found to be underpowered
somewhat, but Granger knew nevertheless that he
for some of the swifter rapids in the Upper River.
would need to keep vigilant nearly all the way to
Ichang. Travel was always perilous along the river
10. Patrolling the Yangtze
for a variety of reasons. In addition to the obvious
The Palos was a member of the United States Navy’s
natural dangers posed by rapids and ship traffic,
gunboat fleet called the Yangtze Patrol. Lucrative
armed thieves, renegade militiamen and army
concessionary rights acquired by treaty years ago,
deserters lurked along the shores and banks and to
combined with increasingly turbulent times, left the
prey upon boaters.
U.S. and other western nations along with Japan and
China itself finding it desirable to maintain an active,
After learning of Granger’s plans to vacate the next
armed presence on the Yangtze. A number of
day, Sampson offered to escort the junk to Pan T’o,
diplomats, businessmen, missionaries and other
20 or so miles downriver. This section of the river
civilians in the area benefited from this presence. The
was considered one of the most susceptible to
Sand Pebbles by Richard McKenna nicely captures
ambush. Sampson advised Granger that Anna could
the flavor and difficulties during this period.
travel aboard the Palos (II). But he had a favor to ask
in return. The gunboat had an important delivery to
Nicknamed ‘YangPat,’ the American gunboats
make downriver at Ichang. Ongoing military events,
operated under the U.S. Navy’s Asiatic Fleet and
however, required it to remain at its duty station in
based in Shanghai. YangPat’s officially stated
Wanhsien. Sampson needed Granger’s assistance.
purpose was to protect American citizens and
The scientist agreed.
interests. It also was an intelligence-gathering
operation, however, and it was not unusual for
9. Anatomy of a Gunboat
gunboat members to venture ashore for extended
The Palos (II) was a 165.5 foot long, 24.5 foot wide,
periods of time solely for that purpose.
2.5 feet deep shallow-drafted, iron-hulled, steam
powered, screw-driven vessel, displacing 204 tons
Post-Qing, post WWI China was now plagued by
and carrying an average crew of about fifty men. She
factionalism. No central national authority existed to
was modeled after the British gunboat Widgeon. She
govern it peacefully. Foreign citizens and commercial
had a top speed of 13.25 knots. Armament was two
interests in the Yangtze River valley were
6-pounders and six .30 caliber machine-guns. Named
increasingly becoming targets for animosity and
after the port of Palos de la Frontera in Spain, it was
 Morgan, V. L., 2009, “Exchanging Favors,” TGPP, Paper No. 1, - p. 10
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 Off
With 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
 Morgan, V. L., 2009, “Exchanging Favors,” TGPP, Paper No. 1, - p. 11
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, 1923
The 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. Departure
At 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:
 Morgan, V. L., 2009, “Exchanging Favors,” TGPP, Paper No. 1, - p. 12
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 Gorges
After 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.
 Morgan, V. L., 2009, “Exchanging Favors,” TGPP, Paper No. 1, - p. 13
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.
 Morgan, V. L., 2009, “Exchanging Favors,” TGPP, Paper No. 1, - p. 14
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
 Morgan, V. L., 2009, “Exchanging Favors,” TGPP, Paper No. 1, - p. 15
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
 Morgan, V. L., 2009, “Exchanging Favors,” TGPP, Paper No. 1, - p. 16
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.
 Morgan, V. L., 2009, “Exchanging Favors,” TGPP, Paper No. 1, - p. 17
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
 Morgan, V. L., 2009, “Exchanging Favors,” TGPP, Paper No. 1, - p. 18
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 A
The 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 B
Junks 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.
 Morgan, V. L., 2009, “Exchanging Favors,” TGPP, Paper No. 1, - p. 19

Trackers. Many trackers drowned in the raging torrents of the

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.
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.

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.