55 Since leaving Hoboken she had traveled 6,905 miles: Bly provided a table of distances as an appendix to her book about the trip.
56 seven hundred troops: R. J. Gavin, Aden under British Rule, 1839–1967 (London: C. Hurst, 1975), 1.
57 (“They claim that a shark will not attack a black man”): Bly (1890), 79.
58 “As I traveled on”: Ibid., 75.
59 “Though born and bred a staunch American”: Ibid., 80.
CHAPTER TEN: AN ENGLISH MARKET TOWN IN CHINA
1 on November 21 she would set sail from San Francisco: Apparently, at the time of Wilson’s interview, John Brisben Walker had not yet begun his efforts to bribe officials of the Occidental and Oriental steamship line to move up the Oceanic’s departure date.
2 despite the confidence of A. D. Wilson’s assertions: And even here Wilson had one of his dates wrong: Bisland was hoping to catch the transatlantic steamer out of Havre on January 18, not January 21.
3 ghostly white French frigates: See the description in Duncan, 181.
4 like the hide of a lion: Bisland (1891), 86.
5 “Conveyance in the East”: Ibid., 119.
6 to inform The Cosmopolitan of her arrival: “Miss Bisland Leads,” San Jose Mercury News, December 18, 1889, 2.
7 “cool and unhasting repose”: Bisland (1891), 96.
8 More than 160,000 people lived there: Caine, 236.
9 “buzzing and humming”: Bisland (1891), 107.
10 “loath that I should lose a single pleasure”: Ibid., 100.
11 “Docks, hospitals, wharves”: Verne, 96.
12 “Is it an emperor?”: Bisland (1891), 92.
13 “exceedingly tall”: H. W. Warren, “Canton on the Pearl River,” The Chautauquan 8 (October 1887–July 1888), 547.
14 “It gives me my first real impression of the power of England”: Bisland (1891), 92.
15 “wicked wounds”: Donald Featherstone, Tel El-Kebir 1882: Wolseley’s Conquest of Egypt (London: Osprey, 1993), 34.
16 inspirational stories about General Gordon: See the discussion in Wilson (2002), 493.
17 “it was not superior virtue”: Max Boot, War Made New: Technology, Warfare, and the Course of History, 1500 to Today (New York: Gotham Books, 2006), 153.
18 “It is almost impossible to over-estimate”: Edward Vibart, The Sepoy Mutiny as Seen by a Subaltern (London: Smith, Elder & Co., 1898), 248.
19 “The electric telegraph has saved India”: Ibid., 252.
20 A telegraph message could be sent from London to Bombay: Standage, 102.
21 “that new and dangerous magic”: Ibid., 156.
22 “Time itself is telegraphed out of existence”: Ibid., 102.
23 “annihilated both space and time”: Ibid., 90.
24 “it has been their pleasing custom”: “Two Days Are Gained: How Miss Bisland May Beat the Around the World Record,” San Francisco Examiner, November 21, 1889.
25 The Cosmopolitan sent a cable: Ibid.
26 the Prussian broke its screw: “Miss Bisland’s Trip: Her Story of Circling the World,” Daily Picayune, February 9, 1890, 12.
27 “render a single screw steamship helpless”: Henry Fry, The History of North Atlantic Steam Navigation (London: Sampson Low, Marston and Company, 1896), 50.
28 “I am advised to go in her as far as Ceylon”: Bisland (1891), 108.
CHAPTER ELEVEN: “THE GUESSING MATCH HAS BEGUN IN BEAUTIFUL EARNEST”
1 “Nellie Bly Guessing Match”: See, for instance, the following World articles: “Make Your Guess!” December 1, 1889; “The Guessing Match,” December 3, 1889; “Nellie Bly’s Guessers,” December 5, 1889; “Guess and Guess Again!” December 6, 1889; “Many Thousand Guessers,” December 8, 1889.
2 business mail was delivered as many as four times a day: “The United States Postal Service: An American History, 1775–2006.” United States Postal Service, http://about.usps.com/publications/pub100.pdf, 21.
3 more than one hundred thousand guesses: “The Guessing Match,” The World, December 3, 1889.
4 “Nellie Bly’s trip around the world excites great interest”: “Nellie Bly’s Time,” The World, December 11, 1889.
5 “The entire press of the country is discussing the trip”: The Journalist, November 30, 1889, 2.
6 the longshore winds: Willis, 15.
7 “the island of jewels”: Ferguson, 120.
8 (“now made in all sorts of tweed-like patterns”): Willis, 246.
9 they never bit Europeans: Wilson (1989), 239.
10 stained their mouths a vampirish red: See Bisland (1891), 156.
11 cut on corundum wheels: Willis, 6.
12 “We can call ‘steward!’ ”: Bly (1890), 85.
13 “palpitation of the heart”: Ibid., 86.
14 “I had a shamed feeling”: Ibid., 95.
15 “drift out on dreams”: Ibid., 87.
16 “brutal and unkind”: Bly, Mystery of Central Park, 56.
17 “Have you any reason for feeling depressed”: “Nellie Bly’s Doctors,” The World, October 27, 1889.
18 twenty-five cents for eight words: Willis, unpaged.
19 “The gorgeous Buddhist temples of the Singhalean”: “Nellie Sails To-Day,” The World, December 13, 1889.
20 “little of interest”: Bly (1890), 96.
21 a fungus had blighted the fields: Willis, 40.
22 “is a very docile and obedient labourer”: Ibid., 54.
23 “Both men and women”: Ibid.
24 “To these Tamils Ceylon is a heaven upon earth”: Caine, 295.
25 “but far from what it is claimed to be”: Bly (1890), 98.
26 “When will we sail?”: Ibid., 100.
27 “a great relief to be again on the sweet, blue sea”: Ibid., 102.
CHAPTER TWELVE: THE OTHER WOMAN IS GOING TO WIN
1 “the languorous, voluptuous sleep of the tropics”: Bisland (1891), 111.
2 intelligent curiosity: See Bisland (1894), 371.
3 “I go to bed exhaustedly happy”: Bisland (1891), 111.
4 “If one refuses to adapt”: Bisland (1894), 381.
5 “a charming little old lady from Boston”: Bisland (1891), 111.
6 “Everything pleases, everything amuses me”: Ibid.
7 “fine creatures”: Ibid., 112.
8 “There is a sea rumor”: Elizabeth Bisland, “An American Woman’s First Season in London (I),” Harper’s Bazaar, July 19, 1890, 567.
9 “I never saw such splendid figures”: “Miss Bisland’s Trip: Her Story of Circling the World,” Daily Picayune, February 9, 1890, 12.
10 “Only those who travel to these Eastern ports”: Bisland (1891), 118.
11 “It must be regarded as proved beyond all doubt”: Adams, 5–6.
12 “air of superiority”: Ibid., 16.
13 “English travellers and writers”: Ibid., 17.
14 “In every emergency”: Ibid., 11.
15 “seed of civilization”: Lears, 107.
16 America’s own future of imperial expansion: “The very word England connoted imperial mastery, which American expansionists found attractive.” Painter, 142.
17 “The Briton and the American are too much alike”: Andrew Carnegie, “Do Americans Hate England? No!” Review of Reviews 2, no. 7 (July 1890), 34.
18 “prolific in enthusiasm”: “Britain’s Honored Queen,” New York Times, June 22, 1887.
19 “a memorial demonstration”: “They See No Cause for Joy,” New York Times, June 21, 1887.
20 Robert and Catherine Risher Cochran: Kroeger, 529.
21 a dry-goods merchant in Glasgow: Scarborough, 27; McGehee, 1.
22 “It fills my soul with a passion of pride”: Bisland (1891), 193.
23 an Episcopalian: See, for instance, Bisland’s entry in Who Was Who in America, vol. 1 (1897–1942) (Chicago: Marquis, 1968), 1325.
24 Lady Broome: Lady Broome (Mary Ann Barker) later invited Bisland to spend the 1890 season with
her as her guest, a season Bisland would write about in a series of articles for Harper’s Bazaar entitled “An American Woman’s First Season in London.” Verdery, 5771.
25 as she herself preferred, flavour: “She can discern a little the play of character, the flavour of the contrasts of existence.” Bisland (1910), 170.
26 an occasional sighting of a sea turtle: See the description in Ballou, 126.
27 nestled into the rocks and foliage: See the description in J. Thomson, The Straits of Malacca, Indo-China and China (London: Marston, Low & Searle, 1875), 3.
28 “The picturesque waterfall is nothing marvelous”: Bly (1890), 103.
29 “dire chattering, wringing of hands”: Ibid., 106.
30 “We all gathered to see the sight”: Ibid.
31 “The mail contract made it compulsory”: Ibid., 108.
32 the hills were composed primarily of laterite: Reith, 35.
33 fifteen acres of greensward: Reith, 47.
34 the newly opened Raffles Museum: Bly herself referred to it only as “a most interesting museum,” but given its location and prominence, it seems very likely to have been the Raffles Museum.
35 “That’s a funeral”: Bly (1890), 111.
36 donate him to the menagerie in Central Park: “Likes Globe-Trotting,” The World, January 27, 1890.
37 a price of three dollars: “Two Days to Spare,” Chicago Tribune, January 25, 1890.
38 “as strong as a man”: Ibid.
39 numerous accounts portraying him: For example: “Before leaving she picked up a monkey that sat on her shoulder at subsequent press appearances, for she was now interviewed at every stop.” Ross (1965), 199.
40 (“It is a savage little fellow”): “Beating Her Time,” Milwaukee Sentinel, January 25, 1890.
41 Solaris, Tajmahal, and Jocko: See “The Arrival and Start,” The World, January 22, 1890; “Nellie Bly,” San Francisco Daily Bulletin, January 21, 1890; “Two Days to Spare,” Chicago Tribune, January 25, 1890.
42 a name suggested to her by a reporter: “Beating Her Time,” Milwaukee Sentinel, January 25, 1890.
43 given to her by a rajah in Singapore: See, for example, “Snowshoe Jennings,” Pittsburg Press, January 25, 1890.
44 “quite attentive to me”: Bly (1890), 116.
45 “Do you think life is worth living?”: This scene is described in ibid., 116–17.
46 “dirty fellows”: Bly (1890), 125.
47 “Will you tell me the date”: This and the succeeding quotations are from ibid., 126–29.
48 “Yes, the other woman”: It is not clear exactly when Bly learned Elizabeth Bisland’s name. She does not record having been told it in Harmon’s office. Presumably Fuhrmann, as purser of the Oceanic (the steamship on which Bisland had crossed the Pacific), knew Bisland’s name and told it to Bly during the time they spent together in Hong Kong. In any case, Bly knew the name by the time she arrived in San Francisco. See, for example, “Nellie Bly,” San Francisco Daily Bulletin, January 21, 1890.
49 “She left here three days ago”: In Bly’s account, Harmon told her that Elizabeth Bisland had left Hong Kong three days earlier. In fact Bisland had left five days earlier, on December 18.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN: THE TEMPLE OF THE DEAD
1 “creeping chills”: Bisland used this phrase in “Miss Bisland’s Trip: Her Story of Circling the World,” Daily Picayune, February 9, 1890, 12.
2 “an elaborate apology”: Bisland (1891), 119.
3 like brides or debutantes: Ibid., 123.
4 the mothers and wives of conquerors: Ibid., 145.
5 “the sappy red of English beef”: Ibid., 123.
6 “He has no enthusiasms”: Ibid., 124.
7 something moving inside the room: This scene is described in ibid., pp. 125–26.
8 one Chinaman per day: See, for example, Charles Burton Buckley, An Anecdotal History of Old Times in Singapore (Singapore: Fraser & Neave, 1902), II:565; Hugh Craig, ed., The Animal Kingdom, vol. 1 (New York: Johnson & Bailey, 1897), 190. It should be noted that Elizabeth Bisland herself amended this to “carry off on average one person a day.” Bisland (1891), 125.
9 rats were tossed into pits: Sante, 107.
10 “He has learned in his score of years”: Bisland (1891), 127.
11 “Massa, massa, massa!”: See the description in “With Opium to Hong-Kong,” Every Saturday 2, no. 27 (July 7, 1866), 11.
12 “If I feed them”: Charles Mayer, “Long Chances in the Animal Dealer’s Game,” Asia 21 (February 1921), 157.
13 “calm and dominant”: Bisland (1891), 131.
14 wore an expression of stolid despair: Ibid., 132.
15 forty-year-old Canadian: “Capt. W. M. Smith Is Dead in Hoboken,” New York Times, December 10, 1932.
16 “to see all of them I could while in their land”: Bly (1890), 137.
17 the nearby city of Canton: Bly described her experiences in Canton in ibid., 140–51.
18 Captain Goggin: Nellie Bly identified him as “Captain Grogan,” but his actual name was S. W. Goggin. The Chronicle and Directory for China, Corea, Japan, the Philippines … (Hong Kong, 1892), 446, 535.
19 “I have always said to critics”: Bly (1890), 138.
20 “These ships carry, each trip”: Jackson (1899), 26.
21 Several years earlier, a band of Chinese pirates: A book published in 1882 described the incident as having occurred “not long before.” John Miller Strachan, From East to West (London: Wells Gardner, Darton & Co., 1882), 42.
22 an iron gate guarded by an armed sentry: “China and the Chinese—Canton,” Cook’s Excursionist (January 1892), 14.
23 “To sit on a quiet deck”: Bly (1890), 138.
24 “princes and statesmen”: Jackson (1899), 29.
25 educated in an American mission: “Her Last Chapter,” The World, February 23, 1890.
26 “I made such an effort to sit straight”: Bly (1890), 143.
27 Longevity Street: Gray, 17.
28 “the foreigner lies down to sleep”: Rounsevelle Wildman, China’s Open Door: A Sketch of Chinese Life and History (Boston: Lothrop, 1900), 238.
29 “Having it entirely under their own control”: John MacGowan, Pictures of Southern China (London: Religious Tract Society, 1897), 496.
30 “That is the most beautiful flag in the world”: Bly (1890), 141.
31 one of them had to step into a doorway: “Medical Impressions of the Far East,” Boston Medical and Surgical Journal 148, no. 17 (April 23, 1903), 457.
32 Horses were unknown: Ballou, 93.
33 European women pinched their waists: See “China and the Chinese—Canton,” Cook’s Excursionist (January 1892), 14.
34 “It’s blood”: Bly (1890), 144.
35 discernible from half a mile away: Gray, 473.
36 ling-chi: See, for instance, Walter Beverley Crane, “The Hip Shing Tong of Chinatown and Chinese Secret Societies,” Broadway Magazine 13, no. 12 (March 1905), 15; Charles Denby, China and Her People (Boston: L. C. Page, 1905), I:88.
37 “Would you like to see some heads?”: Bly (1890), 144.
38 the company’s early expansion into the Far East: See Harcourt, 6.
39 “the best food in the world, rice”: Fay, 53.
40 the new mechanized looms of Lancashire: Ibid.
41 the number of opium smokers in China to be four million: Beeching, 66.
42 “so wicked as to be a national sin”: Brian Inglis, The Opium War (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1976), title page.
43 three 74-gun warships: Beeching, 112.
44 unemployed tea porters: Ibid., 99.
45 “forced the accursed drug upon the Chinese”: Fogg, 30.
46 (“all male”): Bly (1890), 148.
47 “an inward feeling of emptiness”: Ibid., 150.
48 “will be pleasantly spent in Hong Kong”: “Nellie’s Christmas,” The World, December 25, 1889.
49 suspended between two heavens: See Bly (1890), 136.
; 50 Success to your novel enterprise: “Two Days to Spare,” Chicago Tribune, January 25, 1890.
51 packs of chewing gum for sale: Ibid.
52 “We have met”: Bly (1890), 153.
53 “The most rigid discipline”: Oldham, 34.
54 the White Star chartered the Oceanic: In so doing, the Oceanic’s route was moved from the North Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean.
55 “You were so different”: Bly (1890), 132.
56 “familiar negro melodies”: Ibid., 154.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN: THE MYSTERIOUS TRAVEL AGENT
1 one of the P&O’s “Jubilee” steamships: Howarth, 111.
2 two funnels and four masts: Divine, 148.
3 “like Hong Kong, Singapore”: Ibid., 167.
4 “with the persistent industry of coral insects”: “Thomas Stevens in Aden,” The World, 1889.
5 a long black paling: Walter B. Harris, A Journey Through the Yemen (Edinburgh: William Blackwood and Sons, 1893), 123.
6 the dust and bones of a dead land: Bisland (1891), 167.
7 lines to Suez, Bombay, and Durban: A. E. B., “Aden,” Electrical Journal 6 (March 26, 1881), 228.
8 lime-washed to the whiteness of snow: Bisland (1891), 168.
9 Soon the Tanks came into view: Bisland’s visit to the Tanks is described in ibid., 169–72.
10 enormous thirsty mouths: Ibid., 169.
11 no evening mistiness of vision: Ibid.
12 At one stride comes the dark: Ibid., 170.
13 white as a pearl: Ibid., 172.
14 unsolvable riddles of existence: Ibid., 171.
15 Lord of the senses five: Ibid., 174.
16 the light of night and day: Ibid.
17 to have thus once really lived: Ibid., 175.
18 For Nellie Bly: Bly (1890), 168. In an article Bly wrote for The World, the lines were reversed as “We’ll Win or Die / For Nellie Bly” and no date was included. “Her Last Chapter,” The World, February 23, 1890.
19 110 miles ahead of the pace: “From Jersey Back to Jersey,” The World, January 25, 1890.
20 “Typhoon Bill”: “Capt. W. M. Smith Is Dead in Hoboken,” New York Times, December 10, 1932.
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