This was his only asset--his education--and as in his
own country it was impossible to dispose of it, for possible
purchasers he looked abroad.
At that time the Tong King war was on between France and China,
and he decided, before it grew rusty, to offer his knowledge to the
followers of the Yellow Dragon. In those days that was a hazard of
new fortunes that meant much more than it does now. To-day the
East is as near as San Francisco; the Japanese-Russian War, our
occupation of the Philippines, the part played by our troops in the
Boxer trouble, have made the affairs of China part of the daily
reading of every one. Now, one can step into a brass bed at
Forty-second Street and in four days at the Coast get into another
brass bed, and in twelve more be spinning down the Bund of
Yokohama in a rickshaw. People go to Japan for the winter months
as they used to go to Cairo.
But in 1885 it was no such light undertaking, certainly not for a
young man who had been brought up in the quiet atmosphere of an
inland town, where generations of his family and other families
had lived and intermarried, content with their surroundings.
With very few of his thousand dollars left him, McGiffin arrived in
February, 1885, in San Francisco. From there his letters to his
family give one the picture of a healthy, warm-hearted youth,
chiefly anxious lest his mother and sister should "worry.
Pages:
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120