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....