“Good. Boris, I could never tolerate that in any of our businesses. We must be on the look-out for any kind of abuse. Well treated workers do better work, and we want all of them to feel like they have a real share in our Jardine-Matheson-Tarasova-Yusupov company.”
“I agree. Let’s go down to breakfast before we’re too late.”
They encountered a surprise storm with a strong northwest wind as they rounded Taiwan and had to furl their sails to be able to make a cautious and unplanned stop in the secluded Su-ao Harbor of Taipei. They spent three days hunkered down in their ship until the fury of the storm wore itself out. Despite the torrential rains and high winds, the accommodating Chinese restaurateurs were able to bring in five-course epicurean Chinese meals twice each day. Alexandra was very familiar with the fare and took pleasure in introducing the exotic foodstuffs to her husband, who had never seen, let alone tasted such food.
Despite his original sense of disquiet at seeing stewed dog meat, garlic stir-fried rooster’s testicles, the feet of chickens, crispy smoked Indonesian fruit bats, turtle soup, and something called ‘stinky tofu’, presented as edibles, he quickly found that he rather liked it. Alexandra was adept at the use of chop sticks, but Boris could not become facile enough to get food to his mouth reliably and finally had to resort to using European utensils–much to his chagrin–which made Alexandra laugh good-naturedly at her husband’s futile attempts.
The weather cleared, and they were able to go ashore to trade—furs and machine tools for silks. Alexandra was an old-hand at the ancient art of Chinese haggling and was patient enough to wait until she obtained premium rolls of elegant silks for a third the price they went for in Far Eastern Russia. She knew which designs were most treasured and secured bargain-basement prices for what the Chinese called the “auspicious design” some of rolls of which originated in the ancient Shang, Tang, and Song dynasties. The ‘audacious’ appellation for the silk came from the use of the four meanings important to the Chinese culture: Fu, Gui Shou, and Xi.
She was shown gorgeously colored Ming and Qing dynasty themes of birds, animals, blooming flowers, meaningful stones, exotic trees, fish, and insects. Because of the great meaning attributed by the Chinese to dragons as good omens for almost anything, Alexandra bought dozens of roles of brilliant red and orange dragon motifs. As a present for Boris, and without him knowing, she bought a magnificent Silktree Albizzia whose leaves open in the morning and fold in the evening symbolic of harmony between couples and a wish for more sons.
For the next six weeks, the Far East Transporter sailed among the East China, South China, Philippine, Celebes Seas, the Pacific Ocean, the Straits of Malacca, and into the Bay of Bengal. They spent several days at a time in Hong Kong doing business with the taipan’s representatives, and several days more in Shanghai staying at the taipan’s palatial home—which he self-deprecatorily referred to as “ma-bit” or as “my wee cottage”–where they were fortunate to be able to sit down with James Matheson himself and his nephew and Alexandra’s good friend and partner, Jamie II, to discuss business.
“Gaun yersel,” the taipan said in his broad scots dialect.
Alexandra nodded her acceptance of his congratulations but held her tongue knowing that James Matheson did not appreciate idle comments.
“Here,” he said, hav’ yrsel a wee hauf.”
Alexandra and Boris accepted a two-finger measure of fine twelve-year-old Glenfiddich and shared a toast with the taipan. Taipan Matheson had a one-track mind about business in the China Sea region: the East India Company must be defeated. Where he once would have settled for a sharing of the wealth between equals, recent events had soured him to the point that only a victory in a war would suffice.
“Ye’ve surely grown up tay be a handsome quinie, my dear Alexandra,” he said, “and ‘tis a foine man ye ha’ joined wi’.”
“Thank you, Taipan. He has a good head for business, and desires to get your advice about how we can do the best during this voyage. Our profits are your profits as well, Sir. What do you suggest?”
“Ay do me best thinkin’ when I take a donner. Why don’ ye walk along wi’ me, Boris and Alexandra?”
They walked around the grounds in the cool of the evening. For the first quarter of an hour, the taipan did not speak but was lost in thought.
“First let me ask a few wee questions a ye. Wa’ was yer plan after ye leave Shanghai?”
Boris spoke first, “We are thinking of going into the Bay of Bengal and doing some spot trading along the coast, maybe Bangkok, maybe Rangoon, some of coastal cities of southern India.”
Alexandra added, “And maybe we can meet some of the sea traders and move some opium. We have some potential contacts.”
“Let’s dinna mince words, you two. Ye’ve been talkin’ wi that sleekit Chinee bandit Hou Eadric of the Three Families Tong. Ay woulnae buy a blow rag off the swick. He’s been a swick for meny yonks.”
Boris gave Alexandra a bewildered look as if the taipan had spoken to him in a dialect from a distant planet.
Alexandra gave the taipan a chance to get a few feet ahead, then whispered, “Let me translate quickly. What the man said was ‘you have been talking with that sly and untrustworthy bandit, Hou Eadric.’ I’ll tell you more later. Then he said he would not so much as buy a handkerchief from that cheat; he’s been a cheat from a long time ago.’ The taipan knows everything and everyone and where all the bones are buried. We should play close attention to what he tells us.”
The taipan waited for them to catch up, then said, “Aye presume ye are here for mi advice and help. Aye’ll tell ye that Aye cannae dae anytin’ ta help ye, if ye turn to that sleekit arse. Aye think ye should go a different way for a slew o’ reasons. First, is anyone Hou Eadric refers ye ta will be just waitin’ to skin ye. Aye know that Boris is a solid man, but he’s no match for two dozen pirates. Second, commerce is poor in the Bay these past months, yonks, if truth be told. Ye’d be better off just bypassin’ Bangkok, Yangon, Dhaka, Chittagong, Rajshahi, Comilla, and the rest of them. Third, there’s a foine opportunity awaitin’ ye in old Ceylon, across the Bay on the tip of India. It’s called Ceylon or Lakbima. It’s a British Crown Colony, well administered, well policed, and commerce is on the up-and-up, for the most part. Mind, ye still have to count fingers after a handshake; but ye’re not likely to lose everything like ye would doin’ any kind of business with the scum on those junks, or the desperately poor souls on the coast of the bay who would sell their mother for a shilling or snatch yer heid off ye when ye turn yer back.
“Aye can gie ye a few names of guid people in Colombo, and the colonial governor is a friend o’ mein. Wadda ye think?”
Alexandra held back her bit of secret knowledge, but agreed when Boris said, “We would be fools to try on our own to do what is against your knowledgeable advice. What sorts of things should we concentrate on to transport back to Russia, Taipan?”
“They have store houses full of rubber, teak, exotic kinds of tea, coffee, and spices from the Moluccas, which are part of Indonesia in the Banda Sea.”
“How difficult can we expect the passage to be across the Bay of Bengal, Taipan?” Boris asked.
“Good question, Lad. Most times these months, it’s passin’ calm; but ye can ne’er tell about old Mother Nature. Sudden turrible sea storms kin spring up in the bat o’ an eye lash. Be prepared, batten down yer hatches and furl the sails; and ye kin ride ‘em out. They’re usually pretty short—less than a day. Ye’ll do jist foine.”
With the Far East Transporter’s larders re-stocked, water supplies brought in sufficient to last a three weeks voyage, and enough coal to make it all the way to Colombo and back without danger of being stranded mid ocean, they left Shanghai the following day. The ship was perfectly capable of moving under sail alone, and the coal was a belt and suspenders requirement of Boris’s.
They outran two attacks by Bengali pirates but otherwise moved swiftly over calm waters all the way to the British Ceylo
n shoreline making it there in record time. When they put into the harbor of Colombo at the terminus of the Kelani River, they were greeted by a white clad military band of black-skinned Sinhalese with Ceylon’s governor, John Winthrop Herbert Delaney, standing at stiff attention in front of them.
“Greetings, and welcome to the British Crown Colony of Ceylon and to its grand capital of Colombo. We boast that we are the cinnamon capital of the world, the safe harbor of western civilization among backward heathen nations surrounding us,” the queen’s representative said with full formality.
“We are most pleased to be here and to receive your gracious welcome, Governor Delaney. We bring greetings from the Jardine-Matheson-Tarasova-Yusupov consortium and personally from Tai-pan Matheson to you, Sir,” Alexandra said.
“We are most appreciative of the escort you provided for us during our final day of travel on the Bay. We have come to understand just how unsafe travel here would be without your government’s assistance. We look forward to doing business in the colony and to working closely with you and the business people you recommend.” Boris added.
“Thank you, Captain, and Prince Boris. I hope your stay will be comfortable and profitable. I must tell you up front that we do substantial business with your competitor, The East India Company, and a few others of lesser standing. You should know that we do not have a monopoly agreement with East India, and we will not make such an arrangement with you. Our policy has been largely one of free trade, and we have ample commercial strength to accommodate several companies. We are no longer plagued by the Dutch and the Portuguese who fought us for the spice trade rights; so, I can assure you that your ship can return to Vladivostok with a hold full of cinnamon, mace, cloves, nutmeg, and pepper from the Moluccas with us as intermediaries at a modest handling fee, of course. You may not yet be fully aware of the value of these spices. One example which should help to convince you is that several European and South American countries still accept pepper as a medium of exchange of equal value to their money.”
“We should make a formal business arrangement and then begin to load our cargo hold. We have information that tells us that your colony and many of the principalities around you value furs—at least for trade purposes for transport to Venice—and silks which we carry which are of the highest quality. In good faith, we can sell at discount prices, if we can buy with the same courtesy, Governor,” Alexandra told him.
That information convinced the governor that this was a company—and certainly a young woman–to be reckoned with and who would be as good as her word, or at least as good as her contractual bond.
“It will be no problem to grant you a right to conduct commercial activities in our cities, among our populace, and on our territorial waters with the full protections of the British government. Your actual business arrangements will have to be conducted individually with the companies registered in British Ceylon. Perhaps you would permit me to schedule a dinner meeting with the most influential and prosperous company officers within our borders.”
“That would be a most welcome opportunity for which we thank you in advance, Sir,” Alexandra and Boris said in unison.
The dinner was held in the ballroom of the Mount Lavinia Hotel, a British Colonial Victorian style structure which had been the official residence of Thomas Maitland, Governor General of the colony, early in the nineteenth century. The handsome well maintained old building was exclusive for the crème de la crème of Ceylon Society and could boast of the most beautiful view in all of Colombo—the beachfront of magnificent Mt. Lavinia. It was resplendent with electric lamps that made a glow visible from miles around. The dinner–arranged by the governor—was splendid and expensive since almost every item on the menu had had to be imported from London and British Hong Kong. It was quintessentially British: potted shrimp, rag pudding, olio—a delicious mix, a hodgepodge, of vegetables, meats, spices, and British dumplings–pigeons, sirloin of beef roast, venison—the hallmark meat of the very rich landowners–chyne of mutton—a medieval stew laced with white wine and a large variety of spices–turkey, snipes, duck—English style, not Peking—partridge, French beans and artichokes.
Since the consumption of meat other than fish was largely restricted to the upper classes, the extravagance of having so many meat courses—and especially venison—appropriately impressed the visiting brass and coaxed their minds into a generous mood.
Alexandra sat at right hand of the governor general at the head of the long table, and across from Patrick Queensbury, the representative of the East India Company and by Sir Edwin Appleby and his wife, Margaret, among the established leaders of Colombo high society. Sir Edwin was the owner and senior director of the Ceylon Maritime Spice Trading Company and was rumored to be a millionaire many times over. Boris was seated at the opposite end by Glenleven Armitage and his august and bejeweled wife–Lady Miriam–the acknowledged first leaders of British Ceylon’s expatriate high society. Alexandra’s omnipresent and ever watchful personal bodyguard, the massive Don Cossack, Stenka Mazepa stood behind her.
To the left of the governor general, the only Sinhalese member of the xenophobic Colombo high society, sat dressed in the finest British custom-tailored grey wool evening suit available from the Hong Kong outlet of Gieves & Hawkes. He was the chief officer of the Bay of Bengal Company which moved goods and services from east to west, and to the north. The goods included spices and Chinese manufactured goods, Indian pottery and brass lamps and statues, furs from the north and from Russian Alaska, and—it was widely rumored—slaves from Africa and India to the West Indies, prostitutes to all of the major cities of Asia and Europe, and opium to England on English ships for which he held a crown license to engage in the lucrative trade over which England had fought wars with the Chinese.
After the first three courses of food and wine, Sir Edwin leaned over to Alexandra and said, “My dear, I have had business dealings with your father for over a decade. Am I to understand that he wishes you to take over that part of his enterprises? You are rather young, and a woman to boot, if I may say without intending to give offense.”
“None taken, Sir Edwin. I think further investigation will quiet your concerns about me and about my husband, Prince Boris Yusupov, both of whose families stand behind us.”
“I am acquainted with Prince Nikolai Yusupov and do some business with him. Is there any relation between Boris and the prince?”
Having been forewarned by Boris to avoid admitting any connection between him and his father or the rest of the family, Alexandra said, “I am not quite sure where Boris fits into that fine family, Sir.”
“I like to get right down to brass tacks, Princess Yusupov. First, may I call you Alexandra? My given name is Edwin, but my friends call me Eddy.”
“I would be most pleased to have you call me Alexandra, Eddy. Now, what have you to say about ‘brass tacks’?”
“Good, right to it. The usual items of commercial exchange in and out of British Ceylon are Chinese silks and teas, Indian cottons, Arabian coffee, Indonesian spices, and African ivory—of all kinds, if you get my drift. The principle final trading destination for us is Venice. How would you fit into this long-term arrangement?”
Boris, sitting at the opposite end of the long, inlaid wood table, had a very similar conversation with his seating partner, Glenleven Armitage, and his august wife–Lady Miriam–and the owners of the famous Armitage and Winterbury Commercial House. They were widely rumored to be multi-millionaires from her aristocratic family’s fortune and his business acumen.
When asked what the Jardine-Matheson-Tarasova-Yusupov consortium could offer the already established commercial pathways, Boris answered, “Let me tell you why you should do the bulk of your business with us and should encourage your influential friends to do the same.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
HIGH SEAS, HIGH STAKES COMMERCE
Creative risk taking is essential to success in any goal where the stakes are high. Thoughtless risks ar
e destructive, of course, but perhaps even more wasteful is thoughtless caution which prompts inaction and promotes failure to seize opportunity.
—Gary Ryan Blair
Mount Lavinia Hotel, Colombo, British Ceylon, May 12, 1879
Boris faced his questioner and realized that this was an all-important test of his mettle, his acumen, his knowledge, and his negotiating ability. The man sitting next to him had proved himself in the rough-and-tumble Asian business world that held to the statement of morality as “the survival of the fittest”, and the definition of success—a decades long ascension which left behind destruction of those not so fit—was “the last one standing”. Glenleven Armitage showed his age, but that did not diminish the aura of toughness that hung around him. Boris had only this one conversation to establish himself and his wife as worthy business partners or perhaps–more likely–respected opponents.
“You already have some fur trade,” he said to Armitage. “We can supply far superior furs in quantities you have not yet seen and of a quality you have only dreamt of and at prices you have never been able to get from other traders. You get ivory from Africa. We can supply more and faster because our ships are capable of traveling down the west coast of that continent with fewer impediments and better business relationships there.”
“What about ivory?” Armitage asked starting to get to the kernel of their talk.
“We will get what we need to be competitive. I take it you do a brisk business in ivory.”
“We do. It is getting harder to work in the trade ever since England banned the trade in 1833. We have to register our ships under foreign flags and to pay dearly for the privilege.”
“Are you interested in contracting with us?”
Boris paused. He was disgusted by the euphemisms and hypocrisy surrounding the slave trade. Real trafficking in elephant ivory would have been bad enough on his conscience, but he had to toughen up to deal with repugnant people in a terrible travesty against mankind. He had to stiffen his spine and determine that ‘business was business’ if he was going to succeed way out here in the east.
The Mysterious Alexandra Tarasova-Yusupov Page 21