Citizen of a Wider Commonwealth by Campbell Edwina S.;

Author:Campbell, Edwina S.; [Campbell, Edwina S.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Southern Illinois University Press

Throughout the Far East, the need for translation also contributed to an atmosphere that brought out the best in the former president. Young described “the slow deliberate way” in which Grant’s speech was translated, the interpreter “standing in front of the Regent and intoning it almost as though it were a lesson from the morning service.”45 In a part of the world where westerners were known for pompous bluster, Grant’s willingness to listen, rather than to talk, and to converse at the pace of his hosts, was a buster of stereotypes that worked in his favor.

By mid-April, Grant’s party found the heat of the tropics enervating, and Grant feared not having enough time in China and Japan to “do up” the two countries properly. He was also concerned about Adolph Borie’s health. His friend had been persuaded to join Grant in Paris with the assurance of comfortable accommodations aboard Richmond from France to Yokohama. Instead, the sixty-nine-year-old Borie had had an adventurous three months, sleeping on deck, dodging tropical rain storms, disembarking from steamers in pitching seas, in addition to the challenges of land travel through India. Borie had invited Dr. John Keating to accompany him, and his traveling companions were attentive to his needs, but the trip had necessarily been far more strenuous for all of them than it would have been aboard Richmond. Although Grant never expressed it in so many words, part of his anger at her delay had to be due to his well-founded fears that the trip had been too strenuous for Borie.46 Although Sickels had booked passage for Grant’s party on a steamer departing Bangkok directly for Hong Kong on Sunday, April 20, Grant chose instead to return to Singapore on Friday, April 18, aboard the steamer Bangkok, arranged for him by the Siamese government.47 He wanted to board the American warship as soon as possible.

The former president expected to find Richmond waiting for him in Singapore, but arriving late in the afternoon of Tuesday, April 22, was “very much disappointed and disgusted” to find that she was not. Approaching Hong Kong a week later aboard the steamer Irrawaddy, Grant wrote to his daughter, Nellie, that he had “confidantly [sic] expected the Richmond. But learning that she was at Ceylon and would not reach Singapore for a week I determined to leave by the first steamer going my way. Fortunately one was in port, bound for Hong-Kong, and to sail at seven the next morning. We took it—a very fine steamer of the Messajerie line—and are now here not expecting ever to see the vessel which was fitted out for us until we get to Yokohama, Japan, and then it will be too late to use her.” The tone of the letter was calm, but John Russell Young wrote in his diary on April 23 that Grant was “very angry” with the US Navy “at apparent trifling with him.” Grant’s party had had less than ten hours from their arrival in Singapore to transfer

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.