Memories of eighty years / by John Beddoe M.D., LL.D., F.R.S.

  • Beddoe, John, 1826-1911.
Date:
1910
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Memories of eighty years / by John Beddoe M.D., LL.D., F.R.S. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by Royal College of Physicians, London. The original may be consulted at Royal College of Physicians, London.

    298/346 (page 280)
    and replied, “ Why she no feet.” One day he dis- cussed with me, elucidating his pidgin-English by appropriate gestures, the Franco-Chinese War then going on. He drew in the sand a map like this : “ Chinaman makee foat, makee two talee foat. Frenchee come, takem foat, kill Chinaman [a shrug and a shake ofithe head], Frenchee takem nudder foat, kill many>Chinaman [shrug again], Frenchee takem nudder foat, kill ma—a—ny mo—oah China- man [shrug of resignation], but [stretching out his fathom to the utmost extent] China vely, vely, vely The situation could not have been much better or more briefly indicated. The French got tired of the business, and made peace on easy terms. Ah Sin dwelt in a hut made of slabs of bark, and his watering was facilitated by a pump which lifted water into a channel of hollowed trunks of trees. He had banana and papaw trees, pumpkins and cabbages ; but the first three were not in season, and I was a little surprised to find that a frost which had cut up the pumpkins had not injured the banana trees. Cabbages, however, were the great stand-by, and on them the squatter depends to ward off scurvy and “ Barcoo rot.” The ordinary routine of the day was: breakfast O BIG ! ”