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Artemisia annua
Prospects, Applications and
Therapeutic Uses
Artemisia annua
Prospects, Applications and
Therapeutic Uses
Edited by
Tariq Aftab
M. Naeem
M. Masroor A. Khan
CRC Press
Taylor & Francis Group
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Boca Raton, FL 33487-2742
© 2018 by Taylor & Francis Group, LLC

CRC Press is an imprint of Taylor & Francis Group, an Informa business
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Library of Congress Cataloging‑ in‑ Publication Data
Names: Aftab, Tariq, author.

Title: Artemisia annua : prospects, applications and therapeutic uses /
Tariq Aftab, M. Naeem, and M. Masroor A. Khan.
Description: Boca Raton : Taylor & Francis, 2018. | “A CRC title, part of the
Taylor & Francis imprint, a member of the Taylor & Francis Group, the
academic division of T&F Informa plc.” | Includes bibliographical
references.
Identifiers: LCCN 2017034216 | ISBN 9781138632103 (hardback : alk. paper)
Subjects: LCSH: Artemisinin--Therapeutic use. | Artemisia annua.
Classification: LCC RC159.A7 A38 2018 | DDC 616.9/362061--dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017034216
Visit the Taylor & Francis Web site at

http://www.taylorandfrancis.com
and the CRC Press Web site at

http://www.crcpress.com
Contents
Preface......................................................................................................................vii
About the Editors.......................................................................................................ix
Contributors...............................................................................................................xi
Chapter 1
Diverse Biologies and Experiential Continuities: A Physiognomic Reading of
the Many Faces of Malaria in the Chinese Materia Medica...................................... 1
Elisabeth Hsu
Chapter 2
Artemisia annua and Grassroots Responses to Health Crises in Rural Tanzania.... 17
Caroline Meier zu Biesen
Chapter 3
Use of Artemisia annua L. in the Treatment of Diseases—An Update................... 41
M. Naeem, Tariq Aftab, Asfia Shabbir, and M. Masroor A. Khan
Chapter 4
Current Perspectives and Future Prospects in the Use of Artemisia annua for
Pharmacological and Agricultural Purposes............................................................ 57
Ebiamadon Andi Brisibe
Chapter 5
Artemisia annua and Its Bioactive Compounds as Anti-Inflammatory Agents....... 83
Bianca Ivanescu and Andreia Corciova
Chapter 6
Biosynthetic Pathway of Artemisinin..................................................................... 115
Bushra Hafeez Kiani
Chapter 7
Cultivation of Artemisia annua—The Environmental Perspective........................ 131
Karina Knudsmark Sjøholm (nee Jessing), Bjarne W. Strobel,
and Nina Cedergreen
v
vi Contents
Chapter 8
Therapeutics of Artemisia annua: Current Trends................................................. 155
Shilpi Paul
Chapter 9
Various Applications of Artemisia Annua L. (Qinghao)........................................ 183
Himanshu Misra, Mauji Ram, Ashish Bharillya, Darshana Mehta,
Bhupendra Kumar Mehta, and Dharam Chand Jain
Chapter 10
Impact of Integrated Omics Technologies for Identification of Key Genes and
Enhanced Artemisinin Production in Artemisia annua L...................................... 221
Shashi Pandey-Rai, Neha Pandey, Anjana Kumari, Deepika Tripathi,
and Sanjay Kumar Rai
Chapter 11
Engineering the Plant Cell Factory for Artemisinin Production............................ 245
Mauji Ram, Himanshu Misra, Ashish Bharillya, and Dharam Chand Jain
Chapter 12
Use of Nanocarriers to Enhance Artemisinin Activity.......................................... 271
Anna Rita Bilia
Chapter 13
In Situ Cultivation of Artemisia annua................................................................... 295
Salisu Muhammad Tahir
Chapter 14
Mode of Action of Artemisinin: An Update........................................................... 323
Athar Ali, Abdul Qadir, Mather Ali Khan, Parul Saxena, and
Malik Zainul Abdin
Index....................................................................................................................... 335
Preface
Internationally, scientists are making unstinted efforts to improve the under-
standing of malarial biology and to develop more effective malaria treatments.
Malaria remained the major scourge of mankind until the Chinese introduced arte-
misinin to the world as a remedy. The antimalarial drug artemisinin was discovered
by Tu Youyou, a Chinese scientist, who was awarded half of the 2015 Nobel Prize
in Medicine for her discovery. Since the discovery of artemisinin, treatments con-
taining artemisinin derivatives (artemisinin combination therapies, or ACTs), have
been standardized for the treatment of Plasmodium falciparum malaria worldwide.
Artemisinin is certainly one of the most promising natural products investigated
in the past couple of decades. The plant has potent therapeutic potential beyond its
antimalarial activity, including anticancer, immunosuppressive, anti-inflammatory,
antihypertensive, antioxidative, antimicrobial, antiparasitic, and antiviral activities.
However, artemisinin-derived drugs are not available to millions of the world’s poor-
est people because of the low yield (0.1%–0.5% of dry weight) of artemisinin in
naturally grown Artemisia plants. The present demand for artemisinin far outstrips
supply; therefore, researchers around the world are working toward improving the
artemisinin content of the plant by various means.
The editors’ efforts, in the form of this comprehensive volume, detail recent
updates to the applications, current research, and future prospects of Artemisia
annua. Since the intact plant contains artemisinin in very low concentrations, its
commercial extraction requires huge amounts of plant biomass to be processed.
Massive demand and low yield of artemisinin from the plant has led to exploration
of alternative means of production, including the cultivation of A. annua on scien-
tific lines. Considering the significant benefits of various properties of the plant to
human health, we present this exclusive volume entitled Artemisia annua: Prospects,
Applications and Therapeutic Uses. As per the rationale, this volume focuses on
various scientific approaches, namely, agricultural, pharmacological, and pharma-
ceutical aspects, in vitro technology, and nutrient management strategies, as well as
omics technologies for the regulation of artemisinin biosynthesis in A. annua. The
book also contains a plethora of information about various scientific approaches to
the cultivation of this medicinal plant. Also, it includes information about the plant’s
survival under conditions of environmental stress.
The book comprises 14 chapters, most of them being reviewed articles written
by experts from around the globe. We are hopeful that this volume will meet the
needs of all researchers who are working or have interest in this particular field.
Undoubtedly, this book will be helpful to research students, teachers, ethnobotanists,
oncologists, pharmacologists, herbal growers, and anyone else with an interest in
this plant of paramount importance.
We are greatly thankful to the CRC Press, Taylor & Francis Group, USA, for their
expeditious acceptance and compilation of this scientific work. Sincere thanks are
expressed to the team members of the Taylor & Francis Group for their dedication,
sincerity, and friendly cooperation in producing this volume. With great pleasure, we
vii
viii Preface
extend our sincere thanks to all the contributors for their timely response, outstand-
ing and up-to-date research contributions, support, and consistent patience.
Lastly, thanks are also due to the well-wishers, research students, and authors’
family members for their moral support, blessings, and inspiration in the compila-
tion of this book.
Tariq Aftab
M. Naeem
M. Masroor A. Khan
Aligarh Muslim University, Aligarh, India
About the Editors
Tariq Aftab received his PhD from the Department of
Botany at Aligarh Muslim University, India, and is currently
an assistant professor there. He is the recipient of the pres-
tigious Leibniz-DAAD Fellowship from Germany, Raman
Fellowship from the Government of India, and Young Scientist
Awards from the State Government of Uttar Pradesh (India)
and Government of India. He has worked as a visiting sci-
entist at IPK, Gaterleben, Germany, and in the Department
of Plant Biology at Michigan State University, United States.
He is also a member of various scientific associations in India
and abroad. He has published research articles in several peer-reviewed national
and international journals and is the lead editor of the book Artemisia annua:
Pharmacology and Biotechnology. His research interests include physiological, pro-
teomic, and molecular studies on medicinal and aromatic plants.
M. Naeem is an assistant professor in the Department of

Botany at Aligarh Muslim University, India. For more than a
decade, he has devoted his research to improving the yield and
quality of commercially important medicinal and aromatic
plants (MAPs). His research focuses on escalating the produc-
tion of MAPs and their active principles using a novel and
safe technique involving radiation-processed polysaccharides
(RPPs) as well as the application of potent plant growth regu-
lators (PGRs). To date, he has successfully run three major
research projects as principal investigator, two of which were
sanctioned by the Department of Science & Technology, New Delhi, while another
was awarded by the Council of Science and Technology, Uttar Pradesh, Lucknow.
Dr. Naeem has published 7 books and more than 80 research papers in reputable
national and international journals. He has also participated in various national
and international conferences and acquired life memberships to various scientific
bodies in India and abroad. Based on his research contributions, Dr. Naeem has
been awarded a Research Associateship from the Council of Scientific & Industrial
Research, New Delhi; a Young Scientist Award (2011) from the State Government of
Uttar Pradesh; a Fast Track Young Scientist Award from the Department of Science
& Technology, India; a Young Scientist of the Year Award (2015) from the Scientific
and Environmental Research Institute, Kolkata; a Rashtriya Gaurav Award (2016)
from the International Friendship Society, New Delhi; and a Distinguished Young
Scientist of the Year Award (2016) from the International Foundation for Environment
and Ecology, Kolkata.
ix
x About the Editors
M. Masroor A. Khan is a professor in the Department of

Botany at Aligarh Muslim University, India. After completing
his PhD, he worked as a postdoctoral fellow at the Ohio State
University, USA (1987–1988). He then worked as pool scientist
for the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research and as a
research associate for the Council for Scientific and Industrial
Research and the University Grants Commission before he
joined Aligarh Muslim University as an assistant professor.
In his 30 years of teaching experience at university level, he
has guided 8 PhDs, 2 MPhils, and 30 MSc students. For the
convenience of his students, he has also developed study materials and launched
more than 100 class notes and PowerPoint presentations on his website. Professor
Khan has run 6 research projects sponsored by national and international funding
agencies and has published about 120 research papers in reputed journals and books.
Prof. Khan has presented his research work in various conferences held in Australia,
Canada, Egypt, Finland, Greece, New Zealand, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Turkey,
USA, etc. In his research, Professor Khan is working to promote the productivity and
active ingredients of medicinal and aromatic plants using different strategies such as
the application of mineral nutrition, PGRs, and nanoparticles. Professor Khan has
contributed greatly toward the establishment of RPPs as plant growth promoters. In
collaboration with the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre, Mumbai, he is researching
the appropriate doses of RPPs that would help farmers increase the productivity
of medicinal and aromatic plants and their active constituents. Another field of his
research is nanoparticles, some of which he has found can enhance the essential oil
production of some aromatic plants. He has also filed a patent in this regard.
Contributors
Malik Zainul Abdin Andreia Corciova

Centre for Transgenic Plant Development Department of Drug Analysis
Department of Biotechnology University of Medicine
Hamdard University and Pharmacy
New Delhi, India “Grigore T. Popa” Iasi Universitatii
Iasi, Romania
Tariq Aftab
Plant Physiology Section
Department of Botany Elisabeth Hsu
Aligarh Muslim University Institute of Social and Cultural
Aligarh, India Anthropology
University of Oxford
Athar Ali Oxford, United Kingdom
Centre for Transgenic Plant Development
Department of Biotechnology Bianca Ivanescu
Hamdard University Department of Pharmaceutical Botany
New Delhi, India University of Medicine and
Pharmacy
Anna Rita Bilia “Grigore T. Popa” Iasi
Department of Chemistry Iasi, Romania
University of Florence
Florence, Italy Dharam Chand Jain
Green Technology Department
Ashish Bharillya Ipca Laboratories Ltd.
Green Technology Department Sejavta, India
Ipca Laboratories Ltd.
Sejavta, India M. Masroor A. Khan
Plant Physiology Section
Ebiamadon Andi Brisibe Department of Botany
Bio-products Development and Aligarh Muslim University
Plant Cell and Tissue Culture Aligarh, India
Research Laboratory
Department of Genetics and Biotechnology Mather Ali Khan
University of Calabar Bond Life Sciences Center
Calabar, Nigeria University of Missouri-Columbia
Columbia, Missouri
Nina Cedergreen
Københavns Universitet Bushra Hafeez Kiani
Det Natur- og Biovidenskabelige Department of Bioinformatics and
Fakultet Biotechnology
Sektion for Miljøkemi og Fysik International Islamic University
Copenhagen, Denmark Islamabad, Pakistan
xi
xii Contributors
Anjana Kumari Neha Pandey

Laboratory of Morphogenesis Laboratory of Morphogenesis
Department of Botany Department of Botany
Banaras Hindu University Banaras Hindu University
Varanasi, India Varanasi, India
and
Bhupendra Kumar Mehta Central Institute of Medicinal and
Natural Products Research Laboratory Aromatic Plant Sciences (CIMAP)
School of Studies in Chemistry and Lucknow, India
Biochemistry
Vikram University Shilpi Paul
Ujjain, India G.B. Pant Institute of Himalayan
Environment and Development
Darshana Mehta Kosi Katarmal
Natural Products Research Laboratory Almora, India
School of Studies in Chemistry and
Biochemistry Abdul Qadir
Vikram University Quality Control, Hamdard
Ujjain, India Laboratories
New Dehli, India
Caroline Meier zu Biesen
Centre National de la Recherche Shashi Pandey-Rai
Scientifique (CNRS) Laboratory of Morphogenesis
Centre de recherche médecine, Department of Botany
sciences, santé, santé mentale, Banaras Hindu University
société (Cermes3) Varanasi, India
Paris, France
Sanjay Kumar Rai
Himanshu Misra Horticulture Department
Natural Products Research Laboratory Dr. Rajendra Prasad Central
School of Studies in Chemistry and Agricultural University
Biochemistry Pusa, India
Vikram University
Ujjain, India Mauji Ram
and Green Technology Department
Green Technology Department Ipca Laboratories Ltd.
Ipca Laboratories Ltd. Sejavta, India
Sejavta, India
Parul Saxena
M. Naeem Centre for Transgenic Plant
Plant Physiology Section Development
Department of Botany Department of Biotechnology
Aligarh Muslim University Hamdard University
Aligarh, India New Delhi, India
Contributors xiii
Asfia Shabbir Salisu Muhammad Tahir

Plant Physiology Section Department of Biological Sciences
Department of Botany Kaduna State University
Aligarh Muslim University Kaduna, Nigeria
Aligarh, India
Deepika Tripathi
Karina Knudsmark Sjøholm (nee Laboratory of Morphogenesis
Jessing) Department of Botany
Københavns Universitet Banaras Hindu University
Det Natur- og Biovidenskabelige Varanasi, India
Fakultet
Sektion for Miljøkemi og Fysik
Copenhagen, Denmark
Bjarne W. Strobel
Københavns Universitet
Det Natur- og Biovidenskabelige Fakultet
Sektion for Miljøkemi og Fysik
Copenhagen, Denmark
Chapter 1
Diverse Biologies and

Experiential Continuities
A Physiognomic Reading of the Many Faces
of Malaria in the Chinese Materia Medica
Elisabeth Hsu
CONTENTS
1.1 Introduction....................................................................................................... 1
1.2 Physiognomic Reading of a Recipe to Treat Intermittent Fevers
with Qing Hao...................................................................................................3
1.3 Physiognomy of Complaints for Which the Chinese Materia Medica
Literature Recommends the Application of Qing Hao...................................... 7
1.4 Summary......................................................................................................... 10
1.5 Outlook............................................................................................................ 11
References................................................................................................................. 12
Premodern Sources................................................................................................... 14
1.1 INTRODUCTION
This chapter explores whether, and how, the enormously rich and rewarding
biomedical research into the antimalarial efficacy of artemisinin, contained in
A. annua plant materials, might be useful for textual scholarship.* Admittedly,
such a project is fraught with problems, as social historians working with
pre-twentieth century medical texts are apprehensive of any attempt to iden-
tify the referential meanings of the terms translated. Malaria, for instance, is
a modern scientific nosological term for which there is no equivalent in the
* An earlier version of this article was published in Wallis (2009).
1
2 ARTEMISIA ANNUA: PROSPECTS, APPLICATIONS, AND THERAPEUTIC USES
premodern Chinese medical texts. Modern scientists have translated malaria

into the Chinese nüeji 瘧疾, which derives from a term that occurs in premodern
Chinese texts—just as malaria is derived from premodern terminology, mal’aria
([caused by] bad air). However, neither nüeji nor mal’aria referred to malaria as
a disease category in these texts. The premodern Chinese had notions of bing
病 (disorder), hou 候 (conditions, “syndromes”), zheng 證 (evidence, patterns;
patterned evidence), and the like, as perceived through the prisms of morality,
adhoc (magical) intervention, and legal practice, among others. The premodern
Chinese term nüeji was a bing or a hou and not a “disease” in the modern scien-
tific sense. Yet, today, it is used as the standard term into which the biomedical
disease category “malaria” is translated.
Furthermore, regarding plant identification, ethnobiologists have demonstrated
that the modern species-concept is just as historically evolved and socially con-
structed as modern biomedical terms of human pathology. However, since the
mid-20th century, ethnobiologists have attenuated their cultural relativist claims by
demonstrating that the plant world is cross-culturally considered to be marked by
discontinuities, some of which can be reproduced with great constancy; this is in
stark contrast to the worlds of sickness and disease (Hsu, 2010).
Textual scholars do not profess to have deep medical understanding, and they
often rely on their colleagues in medical schools, and commonsense biomedical
understandings of disease and the body. The Cartesian view of body and mind,
which provides the foundations for the biomedical understanding of the body, has
given rise to a prevailing assumption in textual scholarship that plots an under-
lying “nature,” which is real and of the body, against “culture,” which is con-
structed and of the mind. Currently, recipes in premodern materia medica texts
tend to be read either in an almost naïve realist way, where premodern terminol-
ogy is imbued with contemporary scientific meanings (nüeji means malaria), or
in a cultural constructivist way, where they are read as consisting of a some-
what random assemblage of information on how to treat rather arbitrary, cul-
turally constructed, states of misfortune and bodily dysfunction. More recently,
however, some medical anthropologists have been inspired by Merleau-Ponty’s
([1945]1962) Phenomenology of Perception to demonstrate that these culturally
specific terms need not be entirely arbitrary and incommensurable with others
in cross-cultural comparisons. The key concept that will be mobilized here is
Merleau-Ponty’s notion of physiognomy, which draws on and further develops the
Gestalt psychologists’ notion of Gestalt.
As argued here, it is particularly research applied to individual cases, with prac-
tical implications and easily perceived immediate effects that enable a textual scholar
to undertake critical comparisons across time and space. Recipes or formulas (fangji
方劑) and recipe texts are meant to have practical effects and can be tested on indi-
vidual patients, as can the application of materia medica（in the sense of “herbs” or
“medicinal drugs” 藥）and materia medica literature (ben cao 本草). Since these
texts often present therapeutic procedures with perceived immediate effects, they
qualify as a genre worth investigating here. Their practical significance makes it
possible for us to test a physiognomic reading.
Diverse Biologies and Experiential Continuities 3
1.2 PHYSIOGNOMIC READING OF A RECIPE TO TREAT

INTERMITTENT FEVERS WITH QING HAO
Let us start by reading the famous physician Ge Hong’s 葛洪 (284–363 CE) prescrip-
tion against “intermittent fevers” (nüe 瘧) in his Zhou hou bei ji fang 肘後備急方
(emergency prescriptions kept in one’s sleeve). Let us first ask whether he considered
these fevers malarial, which would make his prescription an herbal antimalarial, and
second, query what might make the reading of his formula (or recipe) physiognomic.
Another recipe: qing hao, one bunch, take two sheng [2 × 0.2 liters] of water for soak-
ing it, wring it out, take the juice, ingest it in its entirety (you fang: qing hao yi wo yi
shui er sheng zi, jiao qu zhi, jin fu zhi 又方青蒿一握以水二升漬絞取汁盡服之).
(Zhou hou bei ji fang, juan 3, “Zhi han re zhu nüe fang” 治寒熱諸瘧方16: 734–407)
If we ask whether he recognized the intermittent fevers as a sign or symptom

caused by what today is malaria, the answer has to be “no.” Although he used the
term qing hao, we cannot be certain that Ge Hong used what today is considered the
Chinese herb or drug, or more aptly, the Chinese materia medica, called qinghao;
that is, plant materials of the species A. annua L. As the practice of zhongyi 中醫,
Chinese medicine, is a living tradition, there is no guarantee that any term in use
today designates the same taxon as it did in Ge Hong’s time. From a biomedical
perspective, we also know that intermittent fevers are a symptom not only of malaria
but also of other diseases. We can be quite certain that intermittent fevers, read as a
symptom or sign of a biomedical disease category, occur in many more conditions
than those caused by malarial parasites.
Now, if we assume that qing hao in Ge Hong’s recipe and qinghao today are
constituted of plant materials of the same species,* A. annua, we may deduce that
Ge Hong and other premodern Chinese physicians sometimes got it right (when the
intermittent fevers were malarial), but not always (not all intermittent fevers are
malarial). In line with our progressivist view of humankind, the suggested read-
ing of the recipe reaffirms our conviction that the ancients engaged in science, but
that our modern scientific knowledge is more precise and accurate than premodern
knowledge.
However, did the Chinese physicians conceive of intermittent fevers as symptoms
or signs of a biomedical disease category? As established in the preceding paragraphs,
they did not. So how should a textual scholar relate to the term used for intermittent
fevers, nüe? Here, Merleau-Ponty’s (1945) insights become important on the theoreti-
cal and methodological levels, as this question can be reformulated: how might we
read premodern terms that refer to a lived experience of the body, such as that of fevers
that come and go intermittently? Merleau-Ponty posited that how we know the world
depends on how we project our body into the world. In contrast to the assumption that
the world and the self can be separated from one another, as posited by empiricist
* Writing convention in this chapter: the monosyllabic transcription refers to terms in premodern texts,
for example qing hao, but not in modern ones, where qinghao is used.
science grounded in a Cartesian view of mind and body, Merleau-Ponty insisted that
the body–self formed an inextricable part of the phenomenal field through which it
moved. Accordingly, the researcher’s body is part of the lived world he or she inhabits
and aims to research. While a natural scientist, as the subject who does the research,
is expected to investigate a research object in a detached manner (even if “objectiv-
ity” may be performed in different ways; Daston and Galison, 2007), Merleau-Ponty
stressed that the body has a spatiality that is part of the spatial field around it. It cannot
be disentangled from its surroundings, just like its parts cannot be considered a [ran-
dom] “assemblage of organs juxtaposed in space.” Rather, they form a whole, and are,
in not entirely arbitrary ways, “enveloped in each other” (Merleau-Ponty, 1962, p. 98).
Merleau-Ponty thereby provided a basis for critiquing objectivist disease categories.
Accordingly, intermittent fevers are not a symptom or sign caused by the disease of
malaria, because any biomedical disease category presupposes an objective descrip-
tion of the world, and its relation to the sign is grounded in cause–effect relations
established through objective scientific study.
Following Merleau-Ponty, I suggest instead to read “intermittent fevers” as a
physiognomy of the spatial field. As already said, Merleau-Ponty emphasizes that
the body has a spatial dimension inextricably entwined with the phenomenal field
of its surroundings. This spatial field has physiognomies that arise from a practical
engagement of the self with its surroundings. Merleau-Ponty’s philosophical con-
cept, physiognomy, makes “intermittent fevers” an aspect of the spatial field with
which the body–self is practically engaged. This practical engagement arises from
the body–self experiencing perceived demands from specific configurations in the
spatial field to “do” something. The demands affect the self on multiple levels and are
responsible for prompting the body–self into action. Intermittent fevers thus become
relevant for the patient and physician as physiognomies of a spatial field demanding
a practical intervention from the body–self.
Physiognomies are perceived wholes. Merleau-Ponty points out that to a person
for whom meanings are no longer embodied in the world, the world no longer has
any physiognomy (ibid, p. 132). Much like the Gestalt psychologists emphasized that
the whole is other than the sum of its parts (a saying that is often misquoted as “the
whole is greater than the sum of its parts”), Merleau-Ponty emphasized that percep-
tion relies on an organism’s ability to perceive wholes in a single instant. The Gestalt
psychologists and the philosopher Merleau-Ponty argued against the behaviorists
of the day, against the “empiricists,” “intellectualists,” and “sensationalists,” who
all posited that sensory perception is an additive process. Merleau-Ponty spoke of
knowing “without thinking” (ibid, p. 129), and underlined immediacy in the perceiv-
ing of a whole. His concept of physiognomy is important for us here as it refers to an
“immediate practical recognisability” (Morris, 2012, p. 25), where the practical is not
merely opposed to the intellectual, but directly appeals to our practical capabilities.
As the Gestalt psychologists emphasized, the perception of the practical significance
of objects, entities, and events lies not merely in their functional characteristics, but
also in so-called “demand characters” or “appeals,” “attractions,” “exigencies,” and
“solicitations” that arise from the perceiver’s unmediated, often affective relation to
them (Koffka and Gauillaume, cited in Morris, 2012, p. 40).
Focusing on a physiognomy of a malarial episode such as “intermittent fevers”

as a lived experience emphasizes that its perception and recognition is inextricably
related to the way in which it is enacted and acted upon. This appeal to practical
intervention is very important when interpreting prescriptions, recipes, and formu-
las that arguably include an antimalarial ingredient, qinghao. Rather than assessing
malaria as a disease in terms of objectively given structures and functions, we shall
ask what is gained if we read recipes including qing hao as providing a practical
response to the many different faces of malaria and their physiognomy.
This does not appear to circumvent the problem of reading a retrospective bio-
medical diagnosis into a premodern text, however. The skepticism of the self-critical
textual scholar cautions us. So, might we frame and conceive of the problem differ-
ently? Might we be able to explore modes of countering our skepticism by means of
an equally rigorous and critical way of thinking about, or rather of doing, science?
A physiognomy has practical significance, which asks for, or demands, a practical
intervention.
A natural scientifically minded realist will turn to experimentation. We know
beyond reasonable doubt that the chemical substance artemisinin is a highly effec-
tive antimalarial and that A. annua plant materials contain artemisinin. We also
know that today A. annua plant materials make up the Chinese medical materia
medica called qinghao. As already noted, the qing hao that Ge Hong used some
1500 years ago may not have consisted of the same plant materials, nor can we be
certain that they were identical in morphology and chemical composition.
The easiest way to practically assess the effects of Ge Hong’s procedures, surely,
is to re-enact them, much in the way current science historians have built and re-
enacted significant nineteenth-century machinery to understand how nineteenth-
century scientists arrived at their scientific concepts (e.g., Sibum, 1998). This is
exactly what an interdisciplinary team of researchers did from January to June 2006;
namely, a gardener, who with the permission of his patron grew a mini-plantation of
A. annua at Hayley House in Oxfordshire; a pharmacognosist and his research team
at the Department of Pharmacy of the University of Bradford; and a malariologist
and his team at the Swiss Tropical Institute, with a medical anthropologist as tenta-
tive initiator, project designer, and go-between (Wright et al., 2010). Our research
was written up as a project in which modern science was used to validate the effec-
tiveness of a premodern recipe. Yet in this chapter a proposal is made to “read” and
interpret the project differently.
Relevant for textual scholarship is the interpretation of the experiment as one
where the physiognomy of intermittent fevers prompted the enactment of body tech-
niques to make a qinghao juice that affected it instantly. In other words, our experi-
ment can be framed as one where we treated intermittent fevers in mice (induced
through the injection of P. berghei parasites into their bloodstream several days ear-
lier) as a specific physiognomic phenomenon of practical significance in so far as it
demanded a specific treatment, a qinghao juice. We produced this juice through a
practical intervention, namely the body techniques of either wringing out plant mate-
rials soaked overnight or pounding fresh plant materials on the same day. Our prac-
tical procedure had immediate effects, which were observed in individuals (three
mice in each cohort tested, and the juice of a certain concentration, injected twice
and thrice, respectively, at six-hour intervals into the gut of infected mice effected
95% and 96% recoveries, respectively, in each cohort (based on plasmodial density
in the blood a few days later).*
As noted elsewhere (Hsu, 2015), it was the juice obtained by pounding fresh
plant materials that contained concentrations that were highly effective in mice
infected with P. berghei and not the juice wrung out from plant materials that had
been soaked overnight, as recommended by Ge Hong. In other words, it was in fact
the virtuosity in textual interpretation of the Ming dynasty (1368–1644) physician Li
Shizhen (1518–93) that made Ge Hong’s recipe effective in our experiment:
Recipe from the Zhou hou fang: use one bunch of qing hao, two sheng [2 × 0.2 liters] of
water, pound with a pestle to a juice and ingest it (yong qing hao yi wo, shui er sheng,
dao zhi fu zhi 用青蒿一握, 水二升, 搗汁服之).
Naturally, given the brevity of these instructions, it is difficult to know whether

the techniques jiao 絞 and dao 搗 that the Chinese physicians Ge Hong and Li
Shizhen recommended were indeed re-instantiated in our experiment. Techniques
such as wringing out (jiao) or pounding (dao) are “body techniques” in the sense
that they have a bodily component. Marcel Mauss ([1935]1973) made an important
observation when, in his study on body techniques, he emphasized that they are
culturally learned, and arbitrary in a sense. Yet for Merleau-Ponty, their cultural
arbitrariness is not so much a problem as is the observation that there are intrinsic
limitations to the body as a spatial configuration: “bodily space and external space
form a practical system” (ibid, p. 102). Techniques enacted through the body are
part of a space imbued with practical significance, and hence cannot be entirely
arbitrary. Accordingly, even if a human being follows an instruction given over one
thousand years ago, and even if his or her body does not have the skillfulness of a
physician who did so daily, certain human movements that have specific practical
significance with immediate effects are not entirely arbitrary, as the anatomy and
physiology of the body limits the possibilities of how they can be enacted. This
enhances the likelihood of them being re-enacted in a similar mode, even 1500
years later.†
In this way, by doing science and by interpreting the administration of a qing-
hao juice as a practical response to the demand characteristics of the physiognomy
of intermittent fevers, the mice’s “malarial intermittent fevers” were perceived as
a situationally given, instantly recognizable spatial configuration with a practical
significance. Their existence was evidenced by them being radically affected by the
* Although sometimes characterized as such, ours was not actually an “ethno-archaeological” project
because our research was not concerned with the study of contemporary people to explain an archaeo-
logical record of the past.
† Techniques of wringing out plant materials (like a house wife wrings out washed clothes) continue to
be enacted today by healers in Africa (fieldwork observation, early 2000s) and in the Amazon (per-
sonal communication, F. Barbira-Freedman, late 2000s).
practical intervention of administering qinghao juice, such that they disappeared and
the mice recovered.
In summary, Ge Hong’s extraction technique of wringing out the whole plant,
which resulted in an emulsion of water, flavonoids, aromatic oils, and artemisinin as
contained in the leaves, in particular, is likely to have yielded artemisinin in larger
quantities than earlier techniques of preparation recorded in the Chinese materia
medica, and this is in all likelihood directly linked to the recommendation of using it
for treating acute fever episodes of intermittent fevers (Hsu, 2014). Not just artemis-
inin, but also several flavonoids, found in stems and leaves alike, have antimalarial
properties, and synergistic effects may or may not have played an additional role
(Willcox et al., 2004). Furthermore, resistance to the antimalarial, artemisinin, is
much less likely to occur in whole plant preparations (Elfawal et al., 2014).
1.3 PHYSIOGNOMY OF COMPLAINTS FOR WHICH

THE CHINESE MATERIA MEDICA LITERATURE
RECOMMENDS THE APPLICATION OF QING HAO
In the Chinese materia medica literature, wherein qing hao is mostly known as cao
hao 草蒿, it is recommended for a variety of complaints other than intermittent fevers
(for a chronically ordered, comprehensive translation of these recommendations, see
Hsu, 2010). Medical historians have been quick in dismissing those as biologically
unfounded “culture‑bound syndromes,” “illnesses,” or “sicknesses.” In what follows,
we discuss the treatment recommended in the Chinese materia medica from the
first century CE to 1596 for such culture-specific notions in light of the scientifi-
cally known biological variations of malaria. If the pathology of malaria in regions
where it is endemic need not always manifest as fever bouts, its cultural perceptions
may vary accordingly. In what follows, we explore what is gained by reading these
recommendations as a response with practical significance to the solicitations of the
physiognomy of the lived experience of malaria’s diverse biologies.
The Chinese materia medica literature is a genre that consists of long lists of
materia medica identified by name and synonyms; by flavor, quality, and other prop-
erties, such as whether the materia medica in question has potency/toxicity (you/wu
du 有／無毒); by main indications; and sometimes also by “pharmaceutical” infor-
mation on how to prepare and when to administer them. The first canonical materia
medica, which is no longer extant in its original form but has been reconstructed
from multiple citations in later works, is Shennong’s Canon of Materia Medica
(Shennong ben cao jing 神農本草經), presumably compiled in the first century CE.
It has an entry on cao hao, the “herbaceous hao.”
The herbaceous hao. Its flavor is bitter, cold. It treats jie itches, jia itches,* and ugly
wounds. It kills lice and lingering heat between bones and joints. It brightens the eyes.
* jie sao jia yang 疥瘙痂痒 is an itching that can affect toes and fingers. See, for instance, jie jia 疥痂
in Ling shu 靈樞10:307, or jie chuang 疥瘡 in Zhu bing yuan hou lun 諸病源候論 50:1411.
Another name is qing hao, another name is fang kui. It grows in river waste lands.*
(Shennong ben cao jing, juan 4: 341)
At a first glance, it appears as though the authors of this text were completely
unaware of the potential antimalarial use of cao hao. They primarily recommended
it for treating different kinds of itches, ugly wounds, and lice.† However, joint aches
are a common lived experience among patients in regions where malaria is endemic.
Likewise, the “lingering heat between bones and joints” in Shennong’s Canon of
Materia Medica may have alluded to this face of endemic malaria.
Shennong’s Canon of Materia Medica also recommends cao hao for “brighten-
ing the eyes” (ming mu 明目). Incidentally it is also mentioned in the Materia Medica
for Successful Dietary Therapy (Shi liao ben cao 食療本草) of 721–739 among a list
of terms indicating enhancement of one’s vitality:
They say qing hao is cold, enhances qi 氣, causes growth of head hair, can make the
body feel light, supplement the interior and prevent ageing, brighten the eyes, and halt
wind poison. (Zheng lei ben cao, juan 10:20b)
Chinese medical historians generally do not consider materia medica that can
“brighten the eyes” to be antimalarial. However, if we take into account that endemic
malaria causes anemia, which is experienced as lethargy and tiredness, we can see
why a materia medica with antimalarial effects might be considered vitality- and
longevity-enhancing.
The Materia Medica for Successful Dietary Therapy uses the raw plant, after
soaking it in urine and making it into a powder and pill. It also recommends qing
hao as a pickle, and Tao Hongjing (456–536) seems to have recommended it as an
unprocessed food supplement in his Notes to [Shennong’s] Canon of the Materia
Medica ([Shennong] Bencao jingji zhu [神農]本草經集注) around 500 CE.‡
It is everywhere, this one is today’s qing hao, people even take it mixed with fragrant
vegetables for eating it. ([Shen nong] Ben cao jing ji zhu, juan 5, p. 363)
Although a syntactic reading of the text is that the vegetables were “fragrant,”
there is little doubt that they were considered such due to the fragrance of qing hao,
which in other texts is called “fragrant hao” (xiang hao 香蒿) or even “stinking hao”
(chou hao 臭蒿). As food supplement, the presumably fresh and fragrant qing hao
may have been seen as a preventive health measure.
* ze 澤 is here rendered as “wasteland,” in accordance with Bodde ([1978]1981). This is the ecological
niche of Artemisa apiacea and Artemisia annua, rather than interpreting ze as meaning swamps and
wetlands.
† This is a recommendation much in line with the first extant text on the therapeutic use of qing hao in
a manuscript unearthed from a tomb closed in 168 BCE near Mawangdui (Harper, 1998: 272–273),
and it is one that prevailed in the materia medica literature for about one thousand years (Hsu, 2014:
table 1).
‡ Notably, these three passages do not recommend heating the plant extract, which is in line with the
modern scientific finding that heat changes the molecular structure of artemisinin to one without anti-
malarial effects (Hien and White, 1993).
Later materia medica texts recommend cao hao (a synonym of qing hao) for
treating “bone steaming” (gu zheng 骨蒸) and conditions of “exhaustion arising due
to heat/fevers” (re lao 熱). Although Chinese medical historians do not generally
consider these two terms to describe malarial conditions, with hindsight, know-
ing that qing hao can be used as antimalarial, it is possible that they sometimes
referred to malarial fevers. Furthermore, it is conceivable that the effective treat-
ment of malarial cases of gu zheng and re lao by cao hao may have led to this
recommendation.
For treating bone steaming, take one liang 兩 [41.3 g.] of urine to soak it overnight,
dry it, turn it into powder and make a pill. It entirely eliminates exhaustion arising due
to heat/fevers. (Shi liao ben cao 食療本草 of 721–739, as quoted in the Zheng lei ben
cao, juan 10:20b)
In this context, it is worth noting that a hao is also recommended for a wide
range of convulsive disorders including “daemonic qi,” “rigor mortis possession
disorder,”* and fu lian,† as in the Supplements to the Materia Medica (Ben cao shi yi
本草拾遺) of the eighth century, which recommended, in line with Ge Hong, wring-
ing out the juice from a presumably fresh plant:
Hao controls daemonic qi, rigor mortis possession disorders, fu lian, the blood qi of
women, fullness inside the abdomen and [perceptions of] intermittent cold and hot,
and chronic diarrhea. In autumn and winter, use the seeds, in spring and summer,
use the sprouts, together pound them with a pestle, wring out the juice, and ingest.
Alternatively, dry it in the sun and make it into a powder, and apply it in urine. (Zheng
lei ben cao, juan 10:20a)
Notably, cerebral malaria can also present as convulsions, but Chinese medical
historians do not associate “daemonic qi,” the “rigor mortis possession disorder,” and
fu lian with malaria. Rather, they tend to relegate these conditions into the domain of
culture-bound possession behavior or mental illness, and these have rather distinc-
tive physiognomies; for instance, when associated with pollution through contami-
nation with the dead (e.g., Li, 1999). In this case, it is possible but unlikely that qing
hao’s effectiveness against cerebral malaria motivated its recommendation. Rather,
another observation comes to mind: the component qing, in the name qing hao, has
a phonoaesthetic that alludes to lightness, transparency, and purity, and hence it may
have been used for treating conditions of pollution. Although the term qing is not
given in this quote, it likely was implied. In the highly medicalized formula litera-
ture, qing hao is the usual term, but not in the materia medica literature, where we
have cao hao in its stead.
* For zhu 注 “possession disorders,” see Chao Yuanfang 巢元方’s Zhu bing yuan hou lun諸病源候論
(Origins and Symptoms of Medical Disorders) of 610, juan 24: 690–715.
† For fu lian 伏連 lit. “to harbour and connect,” see Wang Tao’s王燾Wai tai mi yao 外台秘要 (Arcane
Essentials from the Imperial Library) of 752, juan 13: 358.

1.4 SUMMARY
We started with the modern bioscientific finding that qinghao, a Chinese herbal
materia medica that today is composed of A. annua whole plant materials, contains
the chemical substance artemisinin, a molecule with a peroxide bridge that has been
proven beyond reasonable doubt to be an effective antimalarial (WHO 2005, WHO
2006). Although skeptical textual scholars likely adhere to the cultural constructiv-
ist stance that renders this bioscientific finding irrelevant, we asked whether this
incisive bioscientific research might have any relevance for textual scholarship nev-
ertheless. Our aim was not to validate premodern texts through modern scientific
research, but rather to work out a method to make sense of materia medica texts and
propose a reading of them that is sound, theoretical, and rigorous.
It is hoped that this study has demonstrated that materia medica texts have rel-
evance if one accords the lived body a theoretical importance, not as an object of
study but as starting point for making sense of the world, as did Merleau-Ponty. To
overcome some obstacles causing the current impasse between naïve realism and
cultural constructivism, we proposed to work with Merleau-Ponty’s notion of “physi-
ognomy”: a physiognomic reading accords the text a practical significance and in
this way, reduces its culturally constructed arbitrariness (which can obstruct mean-
ingful cross-cultural comparison).
We still do not know how to read texts containing premodern scientific knowl-
edge. So, what is gained by reading some select materia medica excerpts in a physiog-
nomic way; that is, in a way that according to Merleau-Ponty attended their practical
significance? A physiognomic reading of the selected materia medica passages made
it possible to relate to them not merely as poetry about culturally constructed dis-
orders for which there is no biological basis, but as recommendations that have a
practical significance to individual cases. To be sure, the proposed physiognomic
reading was not applied to all passages (some passages clearly recommended qing
hao because of its wound-healing properties; others, likely, alluded to its general
purificatory powers). Rather, we asked what is learned from specific felicitous text
passages if qing hao is read as having a practical significance due to its antimalarial
properties? A physiognomic reading offers advantages on the theoretical and meth-
odological levels. It makes it possible to grant premodern physicians and scientists
the capacity to accurately assess specific physiognomies of the lived experience of
the diverse biologies of acute, recurrent, and endemic malaria, and of cerebral falci-
parum malaria, and it imbues the responses to them with equally accurate practical
significance.
The preparation methods presented here varied from using fresh qing hao as a
food supplement (to enhance vitality and longevity) to wringing out the whole plant
after soaking it in water or pounding it when fresh (for treating acute fever bouts).
The experiment with plants grown in Oxfordshire (Wright et al., 2010) was just as
much a scientific legitimation project for validating the efficaciousness of a specific
premodern recipe as it has become an explorative project here for better understand-
ing the problems that textual scholarship is confronted with.
1.5 OUTLOOK
Many retrospective biomedical diagnoses are grounded in the assumption that bio-
logical processes give rise to “diseases” that are universally the same, while “ill-
ness” is culturally specific. The prime example of such a concept of disease and
illness is what scientists eventually identified as Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease, which
the Fore people of Papua New Guinea considered a phenomenon of kuru sorcery
(Lindenbaum, 1979). In this particular case, both the Fore and the scientists referred
to people suffering from the very same morbid condition, which was very distinctive
and could not be confused with others. However, in general, local and biomedi-
cal terms rarely refer to exactly the same phenomena. Sometimes, they are entirely
unrelated, but often they overlap in respect of certain easily identifiable phenomena.
Paul Unschuld (2002) has argued that malaria has a biological reality, which
cross-culturally can be recognized in the local terminology of intermittent fevers;
that is, han re (寒熱; intermittent coldness and heat) and nüe (瘧; intermittent fevers)
in Chinese medicine. Some intermittent fevers are malarial, others not. In full aware-
ness that other culture-specific terms cannot be mapped onto “empirical reality” as
straightforwardly, Unschuld argued against an extremist cultural relativist interpre-
tation of different illness categories.
Unschuld was following the lead of medical anthropologists who adhere to the
notion that a biological substratum of disease is universal, even if the culture-specific
way in which it is expressed differs in degrees. For instance, the use of the term
somatization in psychiatry and applied medical anthropology made it possible to
conceive of depression as a universal condition, experienced in primarily somatic
ways in cultures other than those of Europe and North America (Kleinman, 1980).
However, the usefulness of the disease/illness dichotomy has been abandoned since
(also by Arthur Kleinman himself), and the concept of disease as a universal biologi-
cal substratum onto which are grafted culturally specific illnesses has proven unten-
able. Margaret Lock’s (1993) concept of “local biologies,” in particular, underlined
that women during menopause who suffered from hot flashes were not merely com-
plaining about a cultural construct (affecting their minds), but possessed locality-
specific physiologies that were bio-scientifically validated yet not universal, that is
not identical cross-culturally.
Thomas Csordas (1994), by combining Merleau-Ponty (1945) and Bourdieu
([1977]1980), took the discussion in a direction that is even more applicable to this
study. In The Sacred Self, Csordas underlined in a similar vein the complex interplay
of physiology, bodily posture, psychology, faith, rhetoric, and the socio-cultural, but
he gave the bodily processes primacy when he claimed that the body is the founda-
tion of one’s existence, even if one’s experience of it is never pre-cultural. Following
in his footsteps, I argue here that it is not only “mental” conditions, but also biologies
that can be very diverse, as in the case of what is often conceived as the “physical”
condition par excellence, the very real, and often deadly, disease malaria.
Although malaria tends to be used as a prime example of a disease with a biologi-
cally universal pathology (Unschuld, 2002), its biology can be locally specific. It can
be expressed very distinctively in different populations, depending on the genetics of

both the parasites and the human beings.* As bioscientific research has now estab-
lished, malaria presents many different faces, and non-biomedical terms, like the
Chinese medical ones, may well be based on the experience of practically engaging
with these manifestations and their physiognomy.
In areas of Africa where malaria is endemic, it is rarely perceived as a life-
threatening sickness, whereas missionaries, soldiers, tourists, and other foreign visi-
tors experienced malaria as a horrendous, if not deadly, disease. Locals, due to their
acquired immunity, complained of pain in the joints, headaches, flu-like fevers, a
general unease, and “low energy” (Marsland, 2005). This is not a matter of over-
diagnosing malaria in patients suffering from other conditions such as, for instance,
depression.† Nor is it a matter of mind and culture only, but rather it is intrinsic to
the biology of malaria and its frequent co-morbidities (e.g., Kelly, 2014). The percep-
tion of this lived experience, as a holistically comprehended physiognomy, is dealt
with in practical interventions that are often much more to the point than a cultural
relativist reading tends to give them.
Malaria may also present yet another face, that of convulsions. P. falciparum
can cause the, often lethal, cerebral malaria. Considering the peculiar manifestation
of this condition, it is not surprising that locals relate to its physiognomy differently,
and consider it a distinctive disorder, not homa ya malaria (e.g., Winch et al., 1996).
In Tanzania, convulsions in infants and toddlers that P. falciparum may induce are
attributed to dege dege.‡ In Swahili, dege dege means bird, which in such cases pre-
sumably indicated preeminent death and the ensuing flight of the soul.
Finally, and perhaps most importantly for this study, the physiognomic read-
ing highlighted that diseases like malaria have different faces and physiognomies
reflecting lived experience, to which premodern texts attend with specific and prac-
tical therapeutic recommendations. So, rather than adhering to a simplified model
of a biomedically constructed “disease” and culturally constructed “illness,” more
attention should be paid to the Gestalt and physiognomy of peoples’ lived experience
of the diverse biological manifestations of a morbid condition. This approach will
sharpen the comparativist lens.
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CHAPTER IX
"THE GLORY OF THE STARS"
That evening, Jack, the astronomical weather-prophet (as he
laughingly called himself) took advantage of the magnificence of the
stars, undimmed by the moon, which was still below the horizon, to
bring out his big telescope.
Eight bells had gone and the starboard watch were below until
midnight. The greater number of them, preferring the fresh night air
to that of the stuffy foc's'le, had brought their blankets up on to the
foc's'le head. Here they lay about in attitudes peculiar to sailors, and
in which only sailors could sleep.
Only one man lay at full length, flat on his back, his pipe between his
lips, as he puffed steadily, a vacant look in his open eyes as he
rested his brain as well as his body. This was Red Bill. Near him lay
the cockney, curled up like a dog and snoring tunefully, his pipe on
the deck by his cheek, where it had fallen from his mouth. A sailor
always lights his pipe to go to sleep with, and generally falls asleep
smoking. A habit which is supposed to be very dangerous to
landlubbers, but which, so far as I have heard, never caused an
accident at sea.
Paddy sat jammed between two bollards, his chin sunk upon his
chest, in a position which looked the reverse of comfortable, and yet
he was sleeping peacefully.
Up in the bows reclined Jack, with the cowboy and Curly. These last
two were taking turns to peer through the telescope, whilst Jack
discoursed upon the wonders of the heavens.
"Now, just you look at that fellow there, Broncho," said the rover,
pointing along the cowboy's line of sight. "That's the planet Saturn."
"You don't say!"
"Yes, have you got him? Now, do you see his rings?"
"Which I do for shore. Whatever be them rings, Jack, an' why does
this here Saturn trail round with 'em. I notes he's the on'y star with
them appendages."
"They're supposed to be rings of gas or vapour. It's been said that
our world once had rings like that, and that they burst and all fell
upon the earth at once, which produced the flood."
"Say, but that's kinder strange. However scientific sports onravels
them mysteries an' rounds up them facts shore has me bogged.
Mebbe Providence devastates this here Saturn with floods right now.
If them rings is rain-clouds they're bulky a whole lot, an' liable to
swamp this Saturn planet if they plays a steady game; an' if I were
an inhabitant thar I'd be hittin' quite a gait for the high spots, or
pawin' in my war-bags for the price of a birch-bark."
"Of course, you know the signs of the zodiac, Curly," went on the
amateur astronomer.
"No, not all. Spout 'em out, Jack, and show 'em to us."
"Why, don't you remember the rhyme:
The Ram, the Bull, the Heavenly Twins,
And next the Crab, the Lion shines;
The Virgin and the Scales,
The Scorpion, Archer, and He-Goat,
The Man that holds the water-pot,
And Fish with glittering tails."
"Whar's the Bull you mentions?" exclaimed the cowpuncher eagerly.
"I jest itches to throw a rope over him."
"Well, do you see that V with a big red star?"
"Red star—why, shore, I savvys that V since I were a kiddy."
"That's the head of the Bull, and that rose-red star is Aldebaran, the
eye of the Bull. That's a star you'll find useful some day, Curly, when
you're captain of a ship and want to take night sights."
"Why ever do they call him 'Aldebaran'?" asked Broncho.
"It's Arabic, meaning 'the follower,' because it follows the Pleiades."
"I know the Pleiades," said Curly, pointing aloft proudly.
"Many a night I saw the Pleiads,
Rising through the mellow shade,
Glitter like a swarm of fire-flies
Tangled in a silver braid,"
quoted Jack.
"The Pleiades," he went on, "were the seven daughters of Atlas, and
are in some mysterious way connected with the flood. The ancient
Egyptians celebrated a festival in November at the culmination of the
Pleiades, which they directly connected with the flood.
"The same thing seems to have occurred amongst the Hindoos, the
Persians, the Druids, and in the South Seas. The Japanese Feast of
Lanterns is also supposed to commemorate this event, whilst the
ancient inhabitants of Mexico had a tradition that the world had been
destroyed at the midnight culmination of the Pleiades. This is all
mysteriously borne out by the fact that Taurus, the Bull, whom you
have just looked at, shows only his head and shoulders; he is
supposed to be swimming."
"That's shore interesting as an idee," commented Broncho. "But do
you-alls regyard this here flood superstition you recounts as a likely
play?"
"It's only a theory, Broncho, with maybe nothing in it."
"Theeries is theeries, an' facts is facts. I meets a gent once way
down to Tombstone, who allows he's the bigges' full-blooded wolf in
Arizona. He's shore a tough citizen a whole lot, carries a six-gun with
the stock full o' notches an' the trigger tied back. Wall, this here
Tombstone sport, which his name is P'ison Dick (an' he's shore
p'isonous as a t'rantler) cherishes the theery, an' gives it out
premiscuous as a hoss-back opinion, that a 45-calibre bullet ain't
able to worry him none; if he accoomilates one he allows he
assimilates it into his system, an' don't take no more account tharof.
That's his theery, an' as mebbe you-alls shrewdly surmises, it bogs
down in the dust before facts—an' it's this way; he's been a-loafin'
around Tombstone mebbe hard on the hocks of a year, an' the
camp's shore full to bustin' with his goin's on; and I ain't wonderin',
for there ain't a moon goes by without Tombstone's shy a citizen an'
mebbe a greaser or two, all corpses o' this P'ison Dick's layin' out.
"Wall, it's 'bout sundown, one day in the early fall, when a stranger
comes lopin' into camp on a played-out pinto pony, which he halts up
before the 'Gold Nugget,' old Konkey Bell's saloon, an' proceeds to
dismount tharfrom like as if he's some wearied an' bone-tired. I notes
this through the door, from where I'm buckin' a faro game, an'
likewise takes in a pair o' big black eyes an' a smooth face. 'It's a
boy,' I remyarks casual to myself as I coppers my bet, an' the next
minit I sees this here black-eyed foreigner up agen the bar, a-
swallowin' a drink 'longside o' P'ison Dick. It ain't manners none to
take a drink alone that-away, an' is liable to make a gent too
conspicuous to be healthy; but seein' he's a stranger and without
many rings on his horns, it passes. P'ison Dick scowls, but says
nothin'; then poco tiempo tells the bar-keep to set 'em up again.
"The bar-keep slams down a glass before the stranger, who pushes
it away some careless, an' allows he's done finished lubricatin'.
"P'ison Dick's eyes kinder narrowed like a snake's.
"'I'm askin' you to hev' a drink, stranger,' he says, colder'n ice in hell.
"You-alls may surmise the rest of us is some taciturn, not to say
mute a whole lot, an' some foxy longhorns is already takin' cover.
"The stranger smiles kinder queer at Dick—jest a mouth twist, his
eyes lookin' a heap grim; an' he stands thar for mebbe the length of
a drink o' whisky, then snaps out in a sorter shaky screech, 'To hell
with yer drink!' an' before you can turn a kyard over, he ups an' has
the glass bruck on P'ison Dick's crimson beak.
"By this move he has Dick some disgruntled an' gains more time to
draw; then, bang! go the gatlin's a'most together, an' Dick's theery
cuts adrift from him without strainin' itself none. He's dead meat that
sudden, he don't even have time to emit a groan.
"The stranger's hit too, plumb through the lung, an' pretty soon
cashes in likewise; but, where the game comes queer is this way.
That 'ere black-eyed party whom I allowed was a boy is a woman,
an' a mighty pretty one at that, though her sperit peters out 'fore we
is able to corral any reasons for the game she plays; an' as I pulls
my freight next sun-up I never does accoomilate no knowledge
tharof. Anyway, P'ison Dick gets his medicine an' lights out that
sudden for the heavenly pastures I reckons the angels, or more likely
it's them fork-tailed miscreant collectors, is some surprised to see
him bulgin' in an' defilin' the scenery o' their sperit-ranche."
"Well," observed Jack slowly, "astronomy's a science which gives a
wide fling to the imagination, and without those theories you despise
is liable to lose a great deal of interest. But let's look at Orion, the
finest constellation in the heavens. He's the greatest hunter the
world has ever known—Nimrod, who, with his dogs, has been placed
up in the heavens to hunt the Bull.
"D'you see that reddish star? That's Betelgeuse—Arabic beyt al
agoos, 'the old man's house.' Betelgeuse is a sun like our own, but a
cooling one, and represents the left shoulder of Orion, Bellatrix,
supposed to be a lucky star for women, being the right shoulder.
Those three bright stars in a line are the hunter's belt, whilst below is
Rigel—Arabic rigl, 'a foot'—being Orion's left foot.
"That big star of a delicate green is Sirius, the blazing dog-star,
Orion's great hunting dog."
"So!" drawled Broncho with a slow smile. "Smell-dawg or tree-
dawg?"[1]
"Sirius," went on Jack, taking no notice of Broncho's facetiousness,
"is the brightest star in the heavens, though not the biggest.
Canopus, though only half as bright, is immeasurably bigger; but if it
were as near to us as Sirius I expect it would shine in the sky with as
great a brilliance as our sun.
"Now, at the least computation, Sirius is fifty billion miles off, or five
hundred and thirty-seven thousand times as far from the earth as the
sun; and since light diminishes as the square of the distance
increases, the sun, if as far off as Sirius, would give us two hundred
and eighty-eight thousand million times less light than it does now.
"The character of Sirius' spectrum shows that, surface for surface, its
brightness is far greater than the sun's, and as Sirius is some twenty
times the size of the sun, Sirius is reckoned to shine some seventy
times as bright as the sun. This is putting the calculation at its
smallest. Good authorities put Sirius at twice that distance off, and
calculate the star's brilliancy as two hundred and eighty-eight times
greater than the sun's.[7] Now, when you come to contemplate
Canopus——"
"Hold on, son! Hold your horses there!" burst out Broncho, drawing a
long breath. "Sirius is a size too large for this child. My brain's dizzy
an' wobblin' with them Sirius calc'lations o' yours, an' if you turns
your wolf loose on this Canopus star, compared to which you allows
Sirius is merely a puny picaninny, you'll shore have me that locoed
an' brain-strained, tryin' to size up them measurements o' yours, I'd
be liable to dislocate my mental tissues an' stampede away into a
lunatic complete."
"Well, you needn't worry; astronomers are beaten by Canopus."
"If you-alls aims to surprise me by that statement, you don't succeed.
I bet a stack o' blues them astronomy sharps goes locoed or beds
down in their coffins 'fore they has time to round up the tally o'
Canopus," declared the cowpuncher.
"He's so far off," continued Jack impressively, "that if they used up all
the oughts in the world, they couldn't get his distance down on
paper."
"Tell us some more about Sirius," said Curly, his eyes bulging with
Jack's stupendous statements.
"Well, there is another queer thing about Sirius. He's got a big
companion-star fussing round him, which gives such a dim light it
can only be seen by the very biggest of astronomical telescopes.
There is no reason why there should not be many invisible as well as
visible stars in the firmament. As Bessel said, 'No reason exists for
considering luminosity an essential property of stars.'
"Just imagine, then, that it is quite possible that the heavens are not
only full of those bright globes we see night after night, but besides
them a multitude of dim, ghostlike stars, unseen by us, but there all
the same, are pacing along their allotted paths like the rest."
"Are these invisible, unlighted stars allowed by scientists, Jack?"
asked Curly, in a subdued voice of awe.
"Hinted at, hinted at," returned the rover carelessly. "But I'll tell you
something more wonderful to think of than that—the systems of
double, treble, and quadruple suns. Now, our solar system is at the
bottom rung of the social ladder in the heavenly world. We just have
a plain white sun, which we revolve round with regular seasons and
fixed day and night; but take a system that revolves round a double
star, and thus has two suns, and say these suns differ in colour,—as
is often the case, for every star has a colour of its own—Sirius is a
pale green, Aldebaran rose-red, Betelgeuse orange-red, Rigel a
blue-white, Capella a pearly white, and so on.
"Suppose, then, one of these suns is red and the other blue.
Imagine, if you can, the combinations of colour that ensue, not to
mention the variations in day and night and in the seasons.
"At one time both suns will be high in the heavens at once, one
shedding rays of red, the other rays of blue; and as they set in
different corners of the horizon, two gorgeously coloured sunsets
simply overwhelm the sky with beautiful colour-effects.
"At another time, perhaps, one sun will be above the horizon for half
the round of the clock, the other taking the other half—no night
during that period, simply so many hours of red and so many hours
of blue light, and perhaps the sunrise of the one coincides with the
sunset of the other. Ye gods! What a prospect! But how much further
does a quadruple system carry us—four suns glaring down upon
one; no nights at all now (the people in those systems no doubt have
reached a stage in the evolution of the body—if, indeed, they have
bodies at all—when sleep is no longer required), just days of every
hue, of every grade of colour—pale blue days, brilliant red days,
gorgeous yellow days, violet days, green days——"
"Good night, Jack," broke in the cowpuncher softly. "I guess I'll quit.
You're one too many for me; you have me beat to a stan'still. My
head'll burst if I accoomilates any more astronomy. It takes up too
much space in my brain-cells an' don' settle down none, but jest
rampages 'round stampedin' my intellec's out into the cold, till I
wonders, has I a headpiece at all or has it blowed off like a rawcket?"
This broke up the astronomy party, and the three rolled into their
blankets; but Curly, when he was turned out at one bell, complained
of a dream in which the devil, with a face of variegated colours, had
been grinning at him through Saturn's rings, whilst the grim shades
of ghost stars pranced before him in all manner of fantastic shapes,
headed by the monstrous fiery apparition of Sirius, whose flames,
spread out in great tentacles—a twisty, creepy, crawly mass of claw-
ended arms—sought to drag the terrified dreamer out of his
blankets.
FOOTNOTES:
[7] It is now known that these figures re Sirius are much
overstated.
CHAPTER X
"STUDPOKER BOB'S MALADY"
Like most wooden ships, the Higgins had to be pumped out twice a
day, once in the morning watch and once in the second dog-watch.
A ship's pumps are worked by handle-bars on heavy flywheels, and
it is probably the finest exercise in the world for your back muscles,
especially if you have a bucko like Black Davis to watch over you
and keep you doing sixty revolutions to the minute for half an hour
without a spell.
The bosun was not such a keen muscle-developer, and in
consequence the starboard watch only averaged thirty-five to forty
revolutions a minute, and also had a spell-ho after fifteen minutes.
Notwithstanding this, Studpoker Bob, who had a horror of any sort of
form of muscle-developing, used to let his arms go round with the
brakes, and so managed that, instead of his arms pulling the brakes,
the brakes pulled his arms.
This man was fast beginning to show up in his true colours.
As Broncho observed to Jack:
"That ere kyard-sharp don't surge back on a rope suffeecient to
throw a calf. He's shore regyardful of his health that-away; yet he's
a-distributin' views in the foc's'le like as if he's the most put-upon
gent in the ship, which same views is shore fomentin' trouble."
"The man's a real waster," replied the rover. "I watched him dealing a
brace game last night against Hank, Ben, and those two tenderfoots,
Jimmy Green and Pinto. I believe he's got notes for most of the
men's paydays already, and now, as you say, he's trying in a sneaky,
underhand way to rake up trouble; but sailors always will walk blindly
into the ditch, and won't be warned."
"Which his mood is shore ornery an' he's plumb wolf by nacher; but
as you-alls sagely remyarks, them misguided shorthorns won't
believe it none, an' listens to his howlin' like he's the President of the
United States. It has me plumb wearied," and Broncho sniffed
disdainfully as he slowly filled his favourite corncob.
But matters were rapidly coming to a head. The Higgins had lost the
south-east trades, and was plunging into a heavy head sea under
topgallant-s'ls, whilst a succession of sprays turned the forward part
of the ship into a shower-bath, and ever and anon a green sea
tumbled aboard and roared aft.
The wind, a dead muzzler, was slowly increasing in strength, with an
edge to it which was a good foretaste of the "Roaring Forties."
To windward the sky had a dirty look, and untidy, threadbare storm-
clouds swept across it, whilst in the west the sun sank into a
greenish, sickly sea through a variegated mess of yellow tints.
The watch no longer went about bare-foot in thin dungarees; instead,
oilskins and sea-boots were the order of the day.
At four bells, 6 p.m., the port watch went below, and as they came
forward some of them presented a very curious appearance. Sam,
the coloured man, had supplemented his rags with odd bits of
dungaree and canvas, tied on to his body with numerous pieces of
ropeyarn; whilst Jim, the boy, swaggered along in an old blanket coat
of Jack's, which made him a good-sized overcoat.
The cockney went aft to relieve the wheel, a somewhat comical
figure in some Piccadilly masher's discarded town coat, with velvet
collar and cuffs, whilst the rest of the watch were turned out to man
the pumps.
They started briskly to work at a cry of "Shake her up, boys," from
the bosun.
Studpoker Bob, in his usual style, took special care lest he should
inadvertently put some weight on to the brakes, and was
succeeding, he thought, very well.
Jack, of course, was not the man to let the opportunity go by without
a chanty, and started off with:
"Were you never down in Mobile bay?"
The whole watch thundered in the chorus with the exception of the
gambler, who kept all his breath for his mutinous talk in the foc's'le.
As they swung the bars, deep came the note:
"John, come tell us as we haul away."
(Jack) "A-screwing cotton all the day."
(Chorus) "John, come tell us as we haul away.
Aye, aye, haul, aye!
John, come tell us as we haul away."
Then Jack went on:
"What did I see in Mobile Bay?"
(Chorus) "John, come tell us as we haul away."
(Jack) "Were the girls all fair and free and gay?"
(Chorus) "John, come tell us as we haul away.
John, come tell us as we haul away."
(Jack) "Oh! This I saw in Mobile Bay."
(Chorus) "So he tells us as we haul away."
(Jack) "A pretty girl a-making hay."
(Chorus) "So he tells us as we haul away.
So he tells us as we haul away."
So the chanty ran on gaily verse after verse, the chorus raised high
above the moaning of the wind and the groaning of the ship.
"Give us another!" was the general cry as the last verse finished, and
away went Jack again with "A-roving":
(Jack) "In Amsterdam there lives a maid—

Mark you well what I say—
In Amsterdam there lives a maid,
And she is mistress of her trade.
I'll go no more a-roving from you, fair maid!"
(Chorus) "A-roving, a-roving, since roving's been my ruin,

I'll go no more a-roving from you, fair maid!"
This also ran its course, then Curly struck up "One more day for
Johnnie":
(Curly) "Only one more day for Johnnie."
(Chorus) "One more day!"
(Curly) "Oh! rock and roll me over!"
(Chorus) "One more——"
Then the bosun most rudely interrupted the music.
Biff! Bang! Thud! "You d——d sodgering hound!" Whack! "I've
watched you loafin' long enough!" Thump! and Studpoker Bob, lifted
clean off his feet by a sudden muscular grasp upon his collar, was
held at arm's length and fairly battered by the bosun's brawny fist.
Crash! an eye closed up.
"Mercy! mercy! you're killin' me!" whined the miserable wretch.
Bish! his nose began to bleed.
"Had enough yet, you d——d Yankee tough?" growled the bosun.
"Yes, yes; lemme——"
Crack! and his two front teeth were loosened.
"By gum! that were a sockdologer!" commented Bedrock Ben.
The men had stopped working and watched the gambler getting his
gruel with appreciative eyes.
"Now, then, put your back into it and no more sodgerin'!" said the
bosun, as he released his iron grip.
"I'll get even with you, you durned Britisher," snarled the card-
sharper, as soon as he was released, his anger overcoming his
caution.
"Give me lip, will ye?" roared the bosun. "Threaten me, would ye?"
Again he seized upon Studpoker Bob, and this time did not desist
from his chastening until the man dropped to the deck, beaten to a
jelly and hardly able to move.
At the wheel the cockney hopped up and down with excitement,
straining his neck in his eagerness to see the gambler get his
hammering, and a grim smile of amusement came into Old Man
Riley's keen visage, as he watched the performance with the eye of
an expert from the poop rail.
Letting his victim lie where he dropped, the bosun turned to the
pumps and called out, "Tune her up again, boys!" and presently
came the welcome cry, "That'll do the pumps!" and the watch
trooped forward.
Studpoker Bob, who had lain all this time groaning on the deck,
made shift now to get to his legs, and made tracks for the foc's'le.
But the bosun was on to him again.
"Here, you there," he called, "go up an' overhaul them fore an' main
t'gallant buntlines."
And up the man had to go.
It was now two bells, and Red Bill trudged slowly aft to relieve the
cockney, as he owed him a wheel, and the second dog-watch being
considered one of the worst wheels, the cockney had gladly
consented to take an hour of that instead of the whole trick at any
other time.
Diving through a curtain of spray, the rest of the watch reached the
foc's'le.
Hanging up their oilskins, they proceeded to make themselves
comfortable. Some crawled into their bunks for a short spell; others,
with pipes alight, sat round on the chests, then yarns and chaff
began to fly round.
Without it was cold and wet, nearly dark and with every prospect of a
dirty night.
The wind could be heard moaning and crying, whistling and
screaming through the rigging.
The ship groaned and creaked beneath the sledge-hammer blows of
the heavy head sea.
The sprays rattled outside, and all was dismal and comfortless. What
wonder if the watch below is one of the comforts of a sailor's life.
"Golly, byes!" burst out the cockney, as he dashed in dripping. "Poor
ole Bob, didn't 'e get it socked to 'im. 'E weren't 'ollerin' for more
when the bosun got through with 'im, were 'e? Sykes alive! but it
were a h'awful lickin'!"
"Begob! but it takes the divil an' all to tackle that big hefty brute of a
bosun; an' now he has the poor varmint overhaulin' buntlines. Be me
sowl, but Bob's fair up agin' it!" said Paddy.
"And serve him right. The amount of work he does wouldn't bother a
child," remarked Jack scornfully.
"Oh, Bob's orl right. 'Is trouble is weakness. 'Ow can 'e work? That
bloke ain't got more strength than a 'edge-sparrer; 'is 'ealth is give
h'out."
"Who told you that?" asked Jack.
"'E did 'imself, 'bout two days back."
"And whatever is the malady of this here weak-kneed kyard-sharp?"
inquired Broncho, in his slow, polite way.
"'E sez as 'ow h'it's consumption which 'as 'im in its gruesome
clutches."
"I ain't heard him kaufin' none," remarked the cowboy suspiciously. "I
cuts the trail one time of a gent who cashes in from that cawpse-
makin' complaint, an' he shore coughs a heap plentyful, an' that loud
an' wideflung you couldn't bed-down in the same teepee with him an'
make any sort o' success o' slumber. His kaufin' that-away shore
puts a bull-moose to shame."
"Now, see 'ere, ducky, I ain't er-sayin' as 'ow that ain't the general
racket; but Bob, 'e sez to me, sezzee, 'I'm past the korfin' styge; h'I
just spits up my lungs in chunks; h'I ain't the strength to korf,'"
returned the cockney doggedly.
"I ain't in line for no sech flapdoodle as that," drawled Broncho. "He
ain't goin' to fool this old he-coon none that-away. Why, consumption
can no more make a play without kaufin' than smallpox can without
spots."
"'Ave it 'ow you loike—h'I just tells you what 'e sez, that's h'all,"
retorted the cockney angrily.
"Thet's right, pard; but I reckons Broncho calls the deal correct when
he says that consumption ain't no more than a low-grade malady
without kaufin'. It's kaufin' that makes it the clean-sweep disease that
it is," joined in old Bedrock Ben.
"Bedad thin," commented Pat, "Bob's sick with consumption, but the
disaise ain't after makin' him ill at all."
"The man's as strong and well as you or I," exclaimed Curly hotly,
poking his head out of his bunk.
"I ain't sayin' but that if Studpoker Bob's got consumption prowlin'
around him, it ain't been an' staked out its claim an' started in to work
diggin' out his innards by now, after the energy the bosun displays
on him," went on Ben.
"And that ain't no bluff, neither. The bosun shore puts a heap o' zest
into the game, an' after bein' upheaved an' jumped on that-away, I
reckons Bob don't get so much bliss as he did," agreed Broncho.
At this moment, Jim, who had just been to strike one bell, dived in
glistening with wet.
"It's blowin' up hard; it'll be 'All hands to the crojjick' at eight bells, the
bosun says," he announced.
"What's that, sonny? All hands at eight bells? An' it's our first watch
below! Hell take the sea, anyhow," growled old Ben.
"We're in for a night of it. Listen to the wind," observed Curly.
There was a general rush for oilskins and rubbers.
"You'll want lashings on your oilskins to-night, Broncho," remarked
Jack, as he knotted a deep-sea lashing round his waist.
"An' what's the aim in life o' these here lashin's?"
"Ter keep the bloomin' water out, er course," jerked out the cockney,
as he struggled with a sea-boot.
"Where's that 'ere sufferin', consumption-stricken gent, Studpoker
Bob, all this time?" asked old Ben, looking round the foc's'le.
"He's warmin' an' repa'rin' himself in the galley, and havin' a chin-
chin with Lung," returned Jim.
"And he calls himself an American citizen," grunted Ben, in great
disgust. "I'd sooner exchange views with a pra'rie-dog or a gopher
than one o' them heathens from the Orient. They're all right to wash
clothes or toss flapjacks or sech-like plays, but to shake dice with
'em—no, sirree, that's what I calls plumb degradin'."
As he spoke the thundering voice of the bosun was heard.
"A-l-l h-a-n-d-s s-h-o-r-t-e-n s-a-i-l!"
Sure enough it was about time, for the wind was shrieking through
the rigging with more strength every minute, and at every plunge the
heavily pressed vessel sent the sprays right over her. The lee-
scuppers were full, and a succession of dollops poured over the
weather rail.
CHAPTER XI
"THE STORMFIEND"
"Crojjick buntlines and clew-garnets!" roared Black Davis.
The men stumbled clumsily round the fife-rail and groped about in
the darkness for the right ropes; then, like sundry tug-of-war teams,
stood waiting for the word.
"Ready with your tack there, bosun?" called the mate.
"Aye, aye, sir!"
"Haul away!" came the order.
"Hoo-oop, come in with her! Ho-yah, an' she must!" sang Jack,
giving time to the hauling.
"Hand over hand, hand over hand!" yelled the bosun.
"Yo-ho-yo-ho-oh-yo-har!"
Swish! and a green sea tumbled aboard, washing the men at the
clew-garnet off their legs.
"Bedad, an' it's could!" gasped Pat.
"Thet'll do, y'r weather buntlines; haul away to leeward!" called the
mate.
"Hy-ei-ei-ei-ei-ei!" came the swelling chorus, the note rising at each
pull.
"Now, then, what ye crowdin' up like that for? Spread out! How can
you haul if you ain't got room?" holloaed the bosun. "Up with her,
boys, lively now, lively!" he cried sharply. "Oh ho! Two-block her!"
Suddenly from aft came the old man's voice, rising above the roar of
the gathering gale.
"Belay all that! Git them t'gallant-s'ls in, Mr. Davis, quick!"
"Aye, aye, sir!"
There was no time to lose. A nasty-looking heavy black cloud with
torn, ragged edges was racing up to windward.
"There's dirt in that," said the bosun to Jack, as they manned the
t'gallant clew-lines.
"Haul, yew mutton-faced haymakers, haul!" bellowed the mate.
The ship resounded with the cries of the men and the thunder of the
flogging canvas.
As the Higgins lay over, it was almost impossible to stand on her
gleaming wet decks, and to leeward the men on the spilling-lines
were up to their waists in broken water.
"Sweat her up, my barnacle-backs!" yelled the bosun encouragingly,
standing out a very tower of strength in the midst of the panting,
struggling men.
"There's snow coming," jerked out the rover to Broncho, as he
sniffed to windward.
First the mizzen topgallant-sail was clewed up and four light men
were sent aloft to make it fast; but it was touch and go whether the
fore and main topgallant-sails would be clewed up before the
approaching squall was upon them, and the men had only just got
out on to the footropes and started to fist the sails when it swooped
down upon the ship with a furious roar, accompanied by a mixture of
snow, hail, and sleet.
The driving snow thickened the darkness into the density of black
mud. The sleet spattered and hissed and the hail rattled, pounding
on the wet decks like dancing pebbles and beating with blood-
drawing force upon the grim, weather-worn faces.
Upon the yards, headed by the bosun, the men fought furiously with
the maddened canvas. Crooked fingers scratched despairingly at the
rigid curves, bleeding knuckles struck ragingly at the stubborn, iron-
like folds. Wildly-shouted commands, cut off by the hooting wind,
flew to leeward unheard.
The face of the bosun at the bunt of the main topgallant-sail grew
twisted and distorted with grimaces in his vain attempts to make the
men understand, unseen in the smothering darkness of the squall
even by the man next him; vainly he waved and gesticulated; again
and again his mouth shaped the words:
"All together! All together!"
The footropes swung violently as the savage sail jerked them, in a
vain attempt to dislodge the struggling men.
The Higgins lay over and over and yet over under the strength of the
blast; the covering-board disappeared, then the dead-eyes and the
topgallant rail; the sheerpoles were dipped, the fair-leads smothered,
and a hissing cauldron of seething white water boiled up to and over
the hatch tarpaulins.
Minutes passed and she lay steady, her lower yardarms spiking the
whirling smother to leeward, right over, pressed down and
overwhelmed by the fearful strength of the screeching tempest.
Then there came a lull. The gallant vessel gave a desperate quiver
as she struggled to rise, then slowly she brought her spars to
windward and shook herself free, the water pouring off the maindeck
and dragging the gear off the pins in a hideous tangle.
"Now! now! now!" screeched the bosun, his voice strained to
cracking point, and ten sets of hooked claws from ten burly fists
fastened upon the swelling breast of the main topgallant-sail.
A few inches were gained and stuffed between the groaning yard
and the straining, perspiring bodies. Again the aching finger-tips
caught hold; a foot came in this time, then another, and the men at
the yardarms fumbled for the gaskets.
"Catch a turn! catch a turn!" bellowed the bosun.
The cockney to windward, his sou'wester gone, his long hair
streaming in the wind, and his thin, comical face working furiously
with his efforts, managed to get the yardarm gasket passed.
One more heave and the sail was muzzled, and the worn-out men
clambered slowly down from aloft.
Meanwhile, Jack, Broncho, Hank, and the gambler were having the
time of their lives on the fore.
Jack, at the bunt, with a grim smile on his streaming face and eyes
gleaming with a kind of strenuous joy, leant far over and watched like
a prize-fighter for an opening.
Broncho and Hank, on each side of him, plucked furiously at the
tightly stretched canvas without success.
Like the bosun, Jack saw his chance in the short lull and grabbed a
fold, but it was too strong for him and tore itself free; again he dived
at it, but the sail, which had not been properly clewed up, behaved
like a fiend.
It bellied up in front of him and above him in raging protest, and
battered him mercilessly against the mast, whilst it nearly sent
Broncho and Hank headlong overboard.
The cowpuncher made a wild clutch at the man-rope as he was
hurled backward, and hung there, his muscles strained and cracking
as the canvas beat its weight upon him.
Hank, with both arms embracing the bunt-line, swung on the
footrope with head and shoulders buried in the shaking folds.
Unsuccessful in its murderous attempt, the sail dropped back and
the battle began anew.
Fiercely, enraged by the dastardly behaviour of the vicious sail, the
three deep-sea musketeers leant forward to the attack again.
Again and again the sail broke away from the clawing hands,
staining itself red with the blood from torn finger-nails and skinned
knuckles, until at last they got a firm hold.
Up it came, inch by inch; their arms groaned under the strain, their
curved fingers throbbed with fiery pains—still with gritted teeth, they
hung on.

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Applications and Therapeutic Uses 1st

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