All the twins' energies were now devoted to readying themselves for their return to Great Britain.
They had been anticipating this excursion with peculiar interest [Judge Graves wrote]. Eng's oldest daughter, Miss Kate M. Bunker, a young lady of brilliant and well cultivated mind had been for some time growing more and more delicate in health; and it was greatly feared by her family and acquaintances that she was beginning to fall prey to a fatal malady. It was hoped that perhaps a voyage across the salt sea might prove beneficial or that some prescription of some of the learned and eminent physicians of London or Edinburgh might be advantageous. With such hopes it was determined that she should accompany her father. She was anxious to go, possibly sharing the hope of restoration, but certainly desirous to see the high civilization of England and Scotland, with many of whose scenes she was already familiar, at least with those renowned in English classics.
Chang's anticipations were not of the same character. His oldest born Josephine with all her loveliness was gone. His next daughter Nannie A. was now a young woman of even greater beauty, and as highly gifted as her cousin; and hitherto she had, from over sensitiveness, been unwilling to travel and go before the public but now she had become willing to accompany her father. And perhaps, it was her kindness of heart which prompted her to go with her father and her uncle and her invalid cousin to visit those countries whose historical associations will always waken fullness of interest in the mind of every intelligent American man or woman. Her father was very anxious for her to go for he knew how much she would improve by the journey and its circumstances. And she was willing to sacrifice a great deal in order to visit those countries of which she had read and heard so much. Her father and her uncle were great admirers of almost everything English—government, literature and institutions. Their favorite authors, Pope, Shakespeare, Kirkwhite, Montgomery had lived and written there and they had read these and others of known character to their families until they had awakened in the minds of their children and especially of the daughters a very great admiration for all that was associated with the fame of the great authors.
On November 28, 1868, a week before their sailing date, Eng and his daughter Katherine, aged twenty-four, and Chang and his daughter Nannie, aged twenty-one, left Mount Airy on a frosty morning headed toward New York and, as Nannie wrote, "bound for Brittain." Two days later they were in Raleigh, where they visited Chang's deaf children, Louise and Jesse, who were attending the Institute for the Deaf and Dumb and Blind. From there they went on to Baltimore, caught a boat, then a train for New York. On the train, Nannie was wide-eyed, noting, "I sat at the window (as I presume all greenhorns do) & gazed at the cities we passed. When we crossed the ferry at Jersey City many people flocked around us crying here are the `Siamese Twins and their Wives.' We arrived in New York & everything looked very grande to me for I had never seen a city lighted up by night before."
According to Bunker family tradition, Chang and Eng did not remain in New York waiting for their ship. Instead, they made a brief overnight trip to Washington, D.C., to call on President Andrew Johnson, who three years and eight months before had inherited his office from Lincoln and who had been acquitted of impeachment charges little more than a half year earlier. In 1975, Eng's grandson Joffre Bunker remembered that the President "sent a message to the queen of England with the twins. It may have been in relation to a pending war ..."
Just before noon of December 5, the twins and their daughters, along with their manager, Judge H. P. Ingalls, now representing Barnum, ascended the gangplank of the steamer Iowa, in New York harbor. They sailed at noon, their destination Liverpool. Both of the Bunker daughters were to keep written records of the trip. Katherine would write a full-length book—"a very detailed and interesting account of all that she saw and felt," said Judge Graves—and submit it to a London publisher. "What he did with the manuscript is unknown," added Judge Graves, "but it is supposed to be in his papers. Still whatever the merits of the composition it would scarcely be expected that the observations on England and Scotland of an American girl without reputation should be published." The fate of the book remains unknown, and its contents have been lost to posterity. On the other hand, Nannie's diary of the sea crossing and her father's and uncle's exhibitions, as well as her own, in Scotland, has survived. Nannie's diary begins with an account of the group's departure from New York in that wintry early December:
On the 5th inst. we—Papa & my Uncle, my cousin and myself sailed from New York in the good ship Iowa for Europe. It was a very cold snowy day. When we got on board we found that a great many people had already arrived, some to see & bid their friends farewell perhaps for the last time & others for curiosity. At 12 o'clock we bade our friends goodbye & launched out on the broad ocean. I felt no alarm as I watched the land receding as it were from sight. I felt no apprehension at all about sea sickness, but in less than half an hour my head began to feel quite dizzy and I went on deck. Thinking I would get better but instead of getting better I became worse and went down to my room.
At 2 o'clock we were called to dinner. We all sat down to dinner, but I had scarcely tasted my soup before I was compelled to retire to my room. I was soon followed by my friend, Mrs. Hughs, and very soon there were but one or two at the table.
We had some 22 sick passengers & several steerage. The ship was also very heavy laden with this cargo. The Captain, Mr. Henderwick & the other officers were very kind to us treating us as though we were their own country people. I have read a great deal about the kindness of the Scotch to other sections and I think they deserve all the honors in that respect which they receive.
Meanwhile, on shipboard, moving farther and farther away from home, as Judge Graves later reported, "the country girls grew sad." Katherine, worried about her illness, felt "that possibly she might never return to their home." Nannie, who had never been on exhibit before, "felt a great repugnance to going before the public, arising partly from her pride, partly from an undefined and undefinable feeling which she did not, perhaps could not express." But almost overnight, "these somber thoughts and gloomy feelings were soon dispelled by pleasant associations . . . new acquaintances and the kind attentions from new found friends made their sad hearts feel almost glad as they hastened on the way . . ."
Chang and Eng, of course, had no such concerns. As old seafarers, they enjoyed the voyage from the start. "The twins," wrote Judge Graves, "almost as much at home as at their hotel in the city, passed their time in playing chess, draughts, backgammon and such games, smoking and conversation. And in conversation they could make, and did make themselves very agreeable and entertaining. Blessed with remarkable rememberance of places, dates, and scenes, their extensive travel had enabled them to gather a great deal of very accurate information of the many places which they had visited and their appreciation of the ludicrous had induced them to keep in mind many laughable incidents which, in their humorous manner, they told very laughably. Probably the rather broken English in which they told their jokes, narratives, their adventures and described occurrences added to the interest of their social intercourse with their fellow passengers."
Nannie, unlike her father, Chang, was unable to find her sea legs. Her saga of woe, confided to her diary, worsened as the pitching and rolling ship got caught in an overnight storm:
On Sunday the 6th December I was still very sick, being totally unable to sit up. The rest of our party were sick with the exception of Papa & Uncle who enjoyed good health during the whole voyage. It was a very nice day for those who were well but then but one other gentlemen besides, Papa & Uncle & the sailors, that were able to go the table, but after this they gradually appeared until nearly all got well before we landed at Liverpool. I did not go on deck today at all but lay in my bunk so very sick. I wished I was on land, but was quite willing to suffer for a few days if I could be landed safely on Britannias shore.
Monday 7th
A very gloomy looking day snowing & raining & very cold. I felt very lonely as everybody seemed to be getting better but myself. Mr. Bixby and Ingalls are still sick but Kate is able to go to the table, on deck or anywhere she likes. Tuesday seemed speedingly long but at night we had a fearful gale. The vessel rocking and pitching so that many of the passengers thought she would certainly go down. One boy of 16 or 17 said "Father, Father, hadn't we be going? I see the Captain going with his carpet bag." I was not at all frightened at first for I knew in whose hands I was & that he could dispose of me as he pleased, but after a time the vessel rocked so badly I could scarcely be in my berth & the lights were extinguished, when all at once there was a mighty crash. I thought the ship had broken in two, but it was only the crockery & glasses dashed from the frames & broken. It was very dark and some were calling for lights. The steward says "What do you want?" I want to see the sea. Go to bed and never mind. The sea, the sea is doing very well, replied the steward.
In a very short time I heard a sucking of water down the stairs. Mr. Ingalls & Bixby room being at the foot of the stairs. The water running down went right on. In a short time was four or six inches deep. The next thing I heard was Mr. Ingalls asking, in a tone of great anxiety, for a light & where the water coming from not receiving any answer he says to Mr. Bixby, "I am going on deck and down below. If the water is so deep here how do you suppose it is down there."
Hearing him talking so anxious I began to get quite anxious too. However, as Papa and Uncle were sleeping quietly I regained my courage & went to sleep. The ship laid to for the night so came through quite safely. Since we came on shore we heard that same gale wrecked the ship Hiberia. I feel very thankful indeed that we did not meet the same fate.
Although the storm had passed and the sky cleared, the ocean was anything but calm, and the rocking steamer continued to be too much for Nannie. As she wrote in her diary:
Kate & all of our family are able to go to the table while I must lie in bed. I do not grumble however.
It is very amusing to hear the passengers grumbling because they cannot stand still & walk about at ease as though they were still on land. . . . Sunday came & there being a parson on board we had divine services. I was not able to go but I could hear all that passed while I lay in my berth. . . . He was not a very able minister, but it was a very solemn thing indeed to witness the sea lashing her proud waves mountain high, our ship pitching to & fro & a few members of God's creation gathered in a circle to worship & adore his great name.
Monday the 14th was a rough day.... Time wor on till one day a vessel came in sight. What a sensation it produced among our passengers.... They said she appeared like an old friend. After a few days we saw two others. From this time till we landed we could see them every day or two.
On Friday night they sighted land & there were many glad hearts. I still continued very sick but I went on deck to see again my mother earth. Friday we passed many vessels gliding majestically over the sea. In the afternoon we came to Waterloo [a town on Liverpool Bay]. It looked very beautiful indeed.
It was dark when we neared Liverpool. It was quite a sublime scene to gaze upon the harbors all brilliantly illuminated.
Our good ship anchored a short distance from shore & we remained on board some time after before we could go ashore. Our boat came & we prepared to go, but soon found that we could not go. We were very much disappointed & went down to get ready for tea. We all got in the boat, after bidding our friends goodbye & in a short time were on land!
They had finally arrived in England on the evening of December 18, 1868, after fourteen days at sea. The winter weather was anything but hospitable, but the English customs officers more than made up for it, as Nannie would later recount when she recollected the first moments ashore:
It was very cold indeed. The officers at the Custom House were very kind & carried us to a room where we could warm ourselves. They complimented Papa & us very much, not searching in our trunks at all as they did the others.
Half past 7 o'clock we arrived at the hotel & were informed that we could get supplies in to & a half hours. Imagine our feelings when we found that we could not get it sooner & had to leave on the one o'clock train.
In due time we got supper & all retired to our rooms to get a hasty nap, but none of us could sleep but Papa and uncle. At one o'clock we were called to dress & get ready for the train.
At one we got on the train & left Liverpool for Edinburg. Liverpool is a very nice place. At the hotel it is very unlike America. You cannot get your meals until sometime after you order it & then again you must sit an hour or two waiting for it however hasty you wish to be.
Also you [are served] in a private room which I prefer to the public saloons of America. The cars also are quite different, being divided into separate apartments containing room for 8 only...
Sunday Dec. 20th 1868
We left Liverpool at one o'clock. We were all very tired and sleepy & were soon in the arms of Morpheus whirling on our way to Edinburg.
It was quite eight o'clock before it became light enough for us to distinguish one object from another.
We looked around on the hills of Scotland with wonder and admiration. The solitary peaks rising out of a vast plain without any chain of hills or mountains as is the case in America. Scotland is a beautiful country indeed, quite romantic in appearance.
At precisely io o'clock we arrived in Edinburg. We were all very cold, sleepy and hungry.
We were very soon met by the agent Mr. Cassidy, and conveyed to the hotel where we received every kindness we could wish.
Mr. Cassidy is a very portly man very kind and obliging.
We had breakfast & all went to bed & were soon in the land of forgetfulness.
It had been a strenuous time for the four of them since leaving Mount Airy. It was especially trying for Chang's Nannie. After two weeks of unremitting seasickness on the Atlantic Ocean and the tiring train trip to Edinburgh, she was now filled with apprehension over having to make her debut as a public exhibit. For, the very next morning, Chang and Eng and their daughters were scheduled to open their show.
Nannie recorded the experience in her diary entry of December 21: "Was a very disagreeable rainy day. For the first time in my life I was compelled to go before the public. I felt quite embarrassed when the hour came. It was not as I had imagined. We have very few visitors in the forenoon but the number increased quite rapidly during the afternoon & evening receptions."
Certainly uppermost in the twins' minds, besides their scheduled exhibits, was the other major reason they had come to Edinburgh. They had come to see several of the best physicians in the world, having written in advance for appointments. They were more determined than ever to be separated, and hoped that the latest advances in surgery might finally make this possible. And they were equally determined to learn the nature of the ailment Katherine had been suffering.
Katherine's welfare came first, and between shows she was taken to see the physicians on the staff of the Edinburgh Medical College. Judge Graves recorded the results of Katherine's examination:
". . . her symptoms were immediately submitted to them and some of the most distinguished diagnosticians made a personal examination to ascertain the nature and condition of her disease. After examination of their patient they announced that her disease was pneumonary consumption, and that it was so far advanced that, in all human probability their skill would be unavailing and that the only aid which they could hope to render would be simply mitigate the suffering of the invalid. This announcement, which had been anticipated, was received with utmost composure; but surely in one so young it could not have been without regret."
Helpless to do anything further about Katherine, the twins now prepared to learn what could be done about themselves.
They had arranged to meet with Sir James Young Simpson, the renowned Scottish physician who was professor of medicine at Edinburgh University. Simpson, fifty-seven years old, a month younger than Chang and Eng, burly, shaggy-haired, bewhiskered, was the queen's physician when she was in Scotland. He had been the first physician to use ether in obstetrics, had discovered chloroform as an anesthetic (and used it in delivering children despite opposition from the clergy), had invented a forceps named after him, and had written authoritatively about such diverse subjects as leprosy and archaeology.
Now, on the twins' third day in Edinburgh, Sir James Simpson did not wait for Chang and Eng to call on him. He came calling on them at their exhibition hall. Nannie noted the occasion in her diary on Tuesday, December 22:
Was also a rainy disagreeable day, but we had a great many visitors. We have the honor of a visit from Sir James Simpson at our evening levee.
He is quite a venerable man far advanced in the downward course of life. Very kind & mild in appearance.
He invited Papa & Uncle to attend his lecture rooms the next day. They also made an engagement to visit Professor [Sogine] in order to consult his opinion as regards the propriety of a surgical operation.
The following day, before attending Sir James Simpson's lecture, Chang and Eng went to Professor Sogine's office for a preliminary examination. Nannie faithfully recorded it:
At ten we called & was quickly ushered into the presence of that eminent surgeon. He examined them & advised that they should remain as they are. We then returned to the Waterloo place (our house) Papa and Uncle & Mr. Ingalls going to Sir James' lecture hall to hear him lecture.
The rest of us remained at home. Professor Sogine is an old man of a mild countenance & is said to be exceedingly cautious in advising & operating as a surgeon. He advised them to re-main as they were & also stated that they would find no surgeon in Paris bold enough to undertake the operation.
Sir James Simpson is quite an aged man of a mild heavenly aspect. He honored them with an invitation to breakfast at his house Christmas morning.
Most likely, it was in this week that Sir James Simpson had Chang and Eng to his consulting room and gave them a thorough examination. When he was done, he offered them his opinion on the feasibility of severing their connecting ligament.
Seven weeks later, on February 13, 1869, Simpson made his opinion public by publishing "A Lecture on the Siamese and Other Viable United Twins" in the British Medical Journal. His essay began with some remarks regarding united twins in general, and then proceeded to give a standard history of Chang and Eng's lives. He made a few comments about their appearance at present: "Dressed, as they are, in the ordinary American fashion, with the hair cut short, and talking English, as they do, with the American accent, they retain little or nothing of the appearance of Eastern subjects; except their black hair and their features . . ."
At the end of his lengthy paper, Dr. Simpson addressed the "Question of the Surgical Separation of the Siamese Twins":
Chang and Eng have themselves no desire to be surgically divided from each other. But some of their relatives have be-come anxious that they should be separated, if it were possible to do so, for latterly their two families have been living apart; and they have sojourned for a few days alternately in the two separated homesteads. The operation is certainly possible, and would be attended probably with little, or indeed no difficulty; but it would be so perilous in its character that the twins could not, in my opinion, be justified in submitting to it, nor any surgeon justified in performing it.
The cutaneous, cartilaginous, vascular, and other tissues com-posing the walls and mass of the band, offer in themselves no special obstruction to its surgical division. The interior of the band, however, contains, I believe, a canal or diverticulum of peritoneum, which passes from the abdominal cavity of the one brother to the abdominal cavity of the other. In modern surgery, we are by no means so afraid of dividing and opening into the peritoneum, as medical men were ten or twenty years ago. In witness of this, we appeal, for example, to the marvelous success attending the now frequent operation of ovariotomy. Still the danger of cutting through a diverticulum of peritoneum is too great to be ever done without very grave and urgent reasons; and none such exist in this case. With them it is not a question of life or death; but a question merely of seemliness and convenience, and perhaps of pleasure and gratification to their relatives. Besides, if it were attempted in the Siamese twins it would be difficult perhaps to close up the exposed peritoneal cavity in each after the division. For, in the lower and inferior portion of the band, or in their umbilical region, the coats are very thin and distended, and this condition runs onwards to the middle of the band.
Simpson went on to describe an unusual experiment he had undertaken to see whether he could learn what the twins' connecting band was composed of:
You are well aware that various attempts have been made of late years, by electric and other strong lights, to make portions of the body more or less translucent. By placing a powerful light behind the connecting band in Eng and Chang, I tried to make its thinner portions transparent, with a view of possibly tracing its contents better than by touch; but I failed entirely in getting any advantage from this mode of examination.
Once again, Chang and Eng were deeply disappointed. Sir James Simpson's medical opinion had proved merely a more sophisticated echo of what they had heard all their lives. The physician's statement that the twins had really not wished to be di-vided, that it was relatives who had been "anxious that they should be separated," surely could not have represented Chang and Eng's true feelings. Most probably, they had given this version of their situation to Simpson in order to keep their own conflicts private. Chang and Eng may have reflected on Simpson's remark that separating them surgically was not a necessity, was "not a question of life or death," bitterly realizing that neither the doctor nor any normal person could really imagine or understand the anguish of being bound to another for a lifetime. But as ever Chang and Eng appeared to take the bad news stoically and to continue their business of exhibiting as usual.
Christmas Day of 1868 had come to Edinburgh. In her diary, Nannie reported the events of the day, as well as of the days that immediately followed:
Friday 25th December 1868
Papa & Uncl & Mr. Ingalls all came very early this morning as they breakfast at 8 with Sir James Simpson. They anticipat a very nice time indeed.
Mrs. Hughs, Kate & I go to the photographer's a distance of three miles from Waterloo place. It is the 2nd time I have went . . . & I think every thing looks so very nice. We did not expect to remain long but when we arrived at Thomas Douglas's the photographer's that nobleman was still in bed, it being after ten o'clock. We waited some time & at last he came in to see us. Mrs. Hughs was very disappointed at his not having a lot of pictures for her.
As we returned I saw a very touching sight indeed, a horse lieing in the road dead all in harness & to a cart. I thought it exceedingly cruel of the driver to drive a poor animal till it died but I suppose some have no thought of the service this noble animal renders them after it is old and worn out. I saw more of this place this day than I ever have before. It is indeed a very picturesque city being built on seven hills & you may stand on the heights & look down several hundred feet below & see people, houses, roads and such seemingly in a deep ravine. We were rather late in getting home & were compelled to dress quite hastily. We did not have so many visitors as we expected [on] Christmas. I thought it very dull, but on speaking to some of the ladies about it they said the Scotch are a very quiet people not having Christmas but New Years's day as the great day.
Saturday, Dec. 26th 1868
We had some very nice people to see us this morning. One lady far advanced in age & somewhat childish in manner, but an agreeable conversationalist lectured me on the subject of religion [and] on the welfare of my soul's salvation & of eternity.
All day we were housed up receiving visitors, a thing exceedingly irksome to me when I think of the many beautiful things of antiquity I could see if I could go out. I never felt so indignant in all my life as I did this afternoon. One man I will not say gentleman—asked me if my grandmother or grandfather was a negro. I was so angry I could scarcely speak but was compeled to say nothing.
Sunday Dec. 27th
Mr. Ingalls & I went to walk. We went out on one of the heights where we could get a view of the city. We walked up a steep ascent and looked down hundreds of feet below on the houses & also we could look & see houses, fields & the most romantic landscape I ever saw. We also visited the National Monument erected in the time of George IV a large mass of stone with elegantly carved columns surrounded by a yard of the most verdant beauty. Also we visited another monument where we saw cannons captured at the Battle of Sebastopole. Standing on this eminence we could see Holyrood Palace, Queen's Drive, States Prison, Public College, and many other buildings & views of note. After this we visited the monument of Robt. Burns, the celebrated poet & beautiful structures surrounded by a small enclosure of fine evergreens. It turned very cold & the wind was blowing very hard, so we concluded to return home and it was very near suppertime. We got home & found we were just in time for our dinner. We all ate very hearty & it takes us two hours eating & telling anecdotes is the way we all spend my leisure time.
I think it quite a strange way to spend the Sabbath but can't help myself. . . .
Tuesday, Dec. 29th 1868
At one o'clock we left the hall & got in a carriage to go to the Castle. . . . We visited Queen Mary's bedroom in which James the 6th was born, an exceedingly small room in which she was imprisoned and compelled to live. I looked out of the window from which she let him down to be carried to Stirling to be baptized into the Catholic faith a distance of 25o feet, over rocks and crags & if he had struck one of them would have been instantly dashed in pieces.
After two weeks in Edinburgh, the troupe moved on to Glasgow, which they reached on January 3, 1869. They spent two successful weeks in Glasgow before taking to the road again. Once more Nannie took up her pen to record their activities:
Monday Jan 18th, 1869
Breakfast at Glasgow & at half past ten we left for Dumbarton where we arrived at 12 o'clock. Dined at one & went to the hall had very few visitors during the first exhibition but at night we had quite a good house. It was very cold, raining all the time. At ten minutes past 9 o'clock we left the hall and came back to the hotel. (Called the Elephant). We got supper & made ready to start in the morning for Stirling. I have a very bad cold & felt quite lonely all evening. I hope I will be better in a few days.
Papa and uncle are quite bad off with colds & coughs.
Kate seems quite gay & in good spirits. Zobeide [another Barnum freak on the tour] is not quite so jovial as is her wont. I don't think it will last very long for she is a lively hearted creature.
Dumbarton, Scotland. Tuesday Jan 19th 1869
We all arose quite early & made ready to leave for Stirling at 8 o'clock. We ate a hurried breakfast & then bid goodbye to Dumbarton. . . .
We all got on the train & were soon gliding rapidly on our way to Stirling. . . .
We saw several farm houses with poultry in the yard, the first we had seen since we left home. A short distance from Balloch the sky became somewhat clearer & we could see the sun for the first time in three weeks. It seemed like an old friend coming to welcome us once more. We landed at Stirling & in a short time dined & made ready to go to the hall. . . .
After we had been there some time Sir James Simpson of Edinburgh called to see us. He did not stay long & promised to see us at the hotel in a short time. When we arrived at the hotel he was there & presented Kate & myself a beautiful book apiece (a poem by Sir Walter Scott he is very kind). After giving us his best wishes he bade us goodbye.
Dundee, Scotland. Thursday, Jan. 21st 1869. 12 o'clock
We left at io Monday for Aberdeen. . . . We had a very pleasant ride indeed. Some of our party were grave others gay. As for myself I am always inclined to be gay when traveling. We arrived at Aberdeen at 12 o'clock & were met by a large crowd at the depot. On getting out of the train they formed a road for us & the crowd gave back on either side so that we could [walk].
The final entry in the diary is a short paragraph about Holyrood House, which she had visited earlier. With that, Nannie's diary comes to a close. But the traveling and exhibitions through Scotland continued from Aberdeen to Arbroath, Montrose, Berwick, Dumfries. On February 7, 1869, the troupe left Scotland and began an extensive tour of England. This part of the trip lasted almost six months. While they spent three days exhibiting in Leicester, four days in Nottingham, two weeks in Manchester, two weeks in Liverpool, one week in Birmingham, and had a stay in London, over half of the tour consisted of one-night stands.
P. T. Barnum's publicity that the twins might be surgically separated in England continued to encourage speculation all along the route. On February 13, 1869, one newspaper, The Chronicle, discussed their situation:
"The very question about their separation of itself declares their perfect separateness.... Most probably, however, the idea will not be carried into execution.... The connexion between their respective blood vessels is such that they must necessarily have any blood disease in common; and it is probable that the last illness of one, from physical as well as from moral causes, would be the last illness also of the other. The separation would present no surgical difficulty, and might be accomplished at any time the accidental illness or death of one brother should require it. But, putting accident aside and dealing with constitutional causes, it is most probable that the brothers, loving in their lives, in death will not be divided."
The article concluded with a mention of the twins' financial problems: "They were slaveholders, enthusiastic Southerners, and lost largely by the collapse of the South. We trust their visit to Europe may in some degree repair their shattered fortunes and may afford them the means of returning in tranquility to their former mode of life."
In most of the cities of England that they visited, Nannie and Katherine, sometimes with their fathers, more often alone, found time between exhibitions to go sightseeing. "Besides visiting those places for the profit of the employee," wrote Judge Graves, "many places of peculiar interest on account of classic or other associations, were visited expressly for the pleasure of the invalid and her appreciative cousin. Their admiration for the rural scenes of England was much greater than their appreciation of the cities. They were particularly impressed with the beauty of the lordly mansions, the beautiful parks, and surroundings of the nobility. And with the charming flower gardens, and the nicely cultivated farms looking more like gardens than anything else."
Meanwhile, along the way, Chang and Eng had been approached by a reputable English impresario named Wallace, who suggested they quit their current tour and undertake a new, more profitable one under his booking. In fact, Wallace had many plans for them, much to Judge Ingalls' dismay. On the last day of their two-week stay in Manchester, May 30, Nannie sat in the Cathedral Hotel and reported on the matter in a letter to her brother Christopher in Mount Airy:
We have concluded to come home in August and not go with the Wallaces for two or three reasons, first because Ingalls wants Papa to go with him and might if we went with anyone else circulate a report that Papa and uncle were not as good as their word and could not stand to their word if they were offered higher wages. & Secondly this Wallace wants to come to America and make an engagement for 12 or 6 months (Papa & uncle want two boys along) so I think in all probability they will get home to remain until next March or April & take you & come over for a continental tour of twelve months. Mr. Wallace has acted like a gentleman in every respect toward us all & Judge Ingalls is very angry because he made a proposition at all. Papa & uncle were once on the verge of closing in & making an engagement with Mr. Wallace, but then they concluded to come home. Papa has just had you two velvet jackets made in black silk and one black with green spots. They cost about $io.00 gold (both). I would have brought them home not made but it would have cost so much duty. The show is doing very big business and has been quite a success. The Chinese Giant Chang [seven feet four inches tall] has been here all the week but I did not get to see him. Mrs. Chang came to see us a few mornings ago. She is a very nice looking person & our folks paid me the compliment of being very much like her. We go away on Monday to Liverpool so I shall not get to see Chang. I shall be glad when we leave here it is so dirty and smoky & they say Liverpool is no better. In these manufacturing places it is so smoky and black one must change collars every day even if they sit in the house ... 8 weeks from today we start home. I rather dread the voyage but I guess it will be all the better for me to be seasick. Just out of our window is an orphan school for boys & they are the merriest little fellows I ever saw & so smart. They are up early every morning making a great fuss at play. They are not bigger than Albert & have a band & drums and practiced out in the grounds under our windows & march like soldiers. They can surpass the Mount Airy band a long way ..
The next day Chang and Eng were in Liverpool, and the day after that, June 1, 1869, two of the local newspapers reviewed their act. The first of these, the Liverpool, wrote:
In the twins, Chang and Eng, we have the living proof of two human beings having been by each other's side every moment without interruption for the long period of 6o years. The twins visited this town some thirty years ago, and those who saw them will scarcely be prepared to find that they have undergone comparatively little change. . . . The twins were loudly applauded at each of their receptions yesterday, and the only feeling that could have pervaded the minds of the different audiences was one of pure regret—that at any moment one of two beings gifted with a more than ordinary share of intelligence should be "left free to a loneliness he has never even imagined aright from the first consciousness of infancy." The daughters are full-grown, lady-like, and well educated persons, and they evidently share the pleasure which their parents enjoy at witnessing the unmistakeable demonstrations of applause they received from the audiences .. .
The second review, in the Liverpool Mercury, also made mention of the twins' attempts to be separated:
It is said that they . . . came to this country to obtain the best surgical advice which could be procured as to the severance of the singular bond which unites them, but the opinion of scientific men is opposed to such an experiment being attempted. . . . Chang and Eng . . . are intelligent men, and converse freely with any ladies or gentlemen who will talk with them; but it is impossible to regard them with any feelings other than of commiseration and pity, for a feeling of pain is awakened in the mind by the very circumstances in which these extraordinary men are placed, and from which their escape is impossible.
While the Liverpool reporter had stated that Chang and Eng had "undergone comparatively little change" since their original visit to England, a London newspaper ran a moving account of the twins written by an old friend that gave a different reaction. This article was signed simply "M.F.A.P." It read:
RECOLLECTIONS OF THE SIAMESE TWINS
In 1830 I lived for some weeks under the same roof as these gentle creatures, and in daily intercourse with them. There was then nothing painful in the contemplation of their misfortune. Gay and cheerful in temper, they were ever ready in their best English, to mimic for the amusement of their friends the odd inquiries made of them in public; lithe, supple, graceful and erect, they were capable of exercising and enjoying much freedom and variety of movement.
One of the brothers (we used to call him the laziest) would, if his shoe wanted tying, put his foot on a chair, saying, in a voice of mock authority, "Eng, tie my shoe!" and Eng would hasten to obey.
I remember well one evening when they and I supped with a merry party of half-a-dozen, and something was said of a "hill" in the neighborhood. The bright black eyes of the "boys" sparkled at the word, but not daring to speak their thoughts, they only said, "Is it a mile to the hill?" It was enough; it was resolved to sally forth into the streets under cover of the doubtful moon-light, and by an unfrequented road to reach the hill, stony and rugged on the side we all meant to climb, but which presented a grassy slope of considerable length and steepness on the other. Up we all clambered, the boys as actively as any of us; on the top we all joined hands (our Siamese friends in the centre), and started off, full speed, over the smooth but steep descent; unexpectedly we came upon a hurdle fence, some four or five feet high, before which all the party except the twins suddenly stopped; they, by a uniform impulse, and with the agility of young deer, leapt over it.
At this time their skin was soft and smooth, their complexion a dark rich olive, their hair black and shining, cut short over the forehead, but left long behind, plaited, wound round the head just above the brows, and tied with a long silk tassel which fell over the shoulder.
With this image in my mind I went the other day to the Egyptian Hall, Piccadilly, and was pained to tears by the contrast the reality presented: the features wholly changed, the hair grey, the complexion faded, and an expression of deep melancholy on both faces.
The lecturer, indeed, said they were happy and contented, but I could not believe him. Eng is now an inch or two taller than Chang, and the constant leaning on one another has brought about a deviation in the spine of each—slight in the case of Eng, the taller and stronger, very obvious in the shorter and more delicate-looking of the two.
The ligament that unites them has evidently grown more rigid with time; so much so, indeed, that though they can still stand face to face with ease, they can no longer, as in former years, bring their outer shoulders together, and face a contrary direction to that in which they habitually look. I went away sad and sorry, without making myself known as I had intended to do; butI have seen them often since in their quiet home, and under another and brighter aspect, affectionate, cheerful, and happy, retaining even the Christian names of me and mine after nearly forty years of absence, and careful to relate every little circum-stance that might show me how well and kindly we had all been remembered. The old love of joking, too, appeared. For in-stance, on my saying, in reply to a question, that Eng was taller and looked stronger than his brother, Chang took me up with "Yes, but don't you think I am the best-looking?"
Each twin has brought one of his daughters to England; both are unaffected, modest, well brought up young women. They have evidently inherited the gentle nature of their twin parents, and an atmosphere of peace and content seems to hang over them and their surroundings.
Though Chang and Eng are very intelligent, and certainly well up in American politics, their constant residence in a re-mote part of the States, nearly 200 miles from a town, has apparently kept them unspoiled by the world and the world's ways; and to me they seem to have lost none of the sweetness of the "Siamese Youths" I knew and loved so many years ago.
During this same visit to London, Chang and Eng formed a friendship with Francis Buckland, the renowned English natural-ist, author, and eccentric. An authority on fish, supervisor of his own Museum of Economic Fish Culture, Buckland shared his bedroom at various times with a bear, a vulture, an African mon-goose, a badger, a monkey. At the age of four, Buckland recalled, when Chang and Eng had first arrived in England, he had been so impressed by them that he had tied two kittens together and called them his Siamese Twins. Now, learning Chang and Eng were once more in London, Buckland sent them a gift of a pair of joined twin salmon born in his museum. With this gesture, the friendship between Buckland and the twins began and ripened. On one occasion, when Buckland had the twins to his house as dinner guests, he also invited Anna H. Swan, the seven-foot-five-and-a-half-inch Nova Scotia giantess (who years earlier had been rescued from a Barnum Museum fire by use of a tackle and der-rick, and who later married Captain Martin Van Buren Bates, the seven-foot-two-and-a-half-inch Kentucky giant).
The crowning moment of Chang and Eng's visit to London was an audience with Queen Victoria, who had already served thirty-two years of her sixty-three-year reign as ruler of Great Britain. The reception in Buckingham Palace may have been arranged by P. T. Barnum, who, years before, had brought Tom Thumb before the queen. As one of Eng's grandsons recalled, "The Queen had invited them to call on her. She gave each of them a gold watch and chain, engraved with fine lettering. These I have seen many times. In fact they are still in the family."
On July 20, 1869, Chang and Eng, their daughters, and their manager left England, taking an overnight boat from Hollyhead to Dublin, Ireland. On July 26, they went on to Cork, but at this point they decided to cut their Irish trip short. According to Judge Graves:
"The failing health of Kate began to admonish her father that perhaps it would be best for her to return home, and she too began to be anxious to get back again to her mother and the endearing ties of the home circle. The time of the engagement was mostly out. They had travelled through Scotland during the bleak winter and remained in the cities of England during the spring and in time they had travelled through the delightful country scenes, and during July they travelled over the green fields of the 'Emerald Isle' and having accomplished their undertaking as far as possible now they determined to return home."
The twins made their way to Queenstown, and on July 3o, 1869, they boarded the steamer City of Antwerp. They reached New York City the second week in August, and by August 15 were safely back in Mount Airy.
The reunion was enlivened by the gifts the travelers had brought home. Chang and Eng always returned from their tours with lavish presents for their wives and children. On an earlier occasion, after a successful tour, the twins had spent $500 in New York for jewelry and other presents for their families and "every slave and servant." This time Nannie was the principal gift-bearer. For her mother, her aunt, her sisters and brothers, her cousins—and for herself—she carried home at least a hundred purchases made in Great Britain. These included candy, gloves, and a pin for her fourteen-year-old sister Louise, and for the others a variety of items such as a jewelry set, several lockets, twelve yards of silk, skirt hoops, a Bible, scissors, nine yards of calico, two skirts, a knife, a lace shawl.
Chang and Eng had a little more than five months' time in the United States before embarking on what Wallace, the promoter they had met in England, planned as the most ambitious tour of their lives. This tour was intended to take them to countries they had never visited before—like Germany, Russia, Italy, Spain—as well as to France for a second visit. In these five months, while devoting some of their time to getting their home affairs in order, the twins encouraged Judge Ingalls to book them for appearances at various annual agricultural fairs in the Western and Northwestern states. They performed at the fairs from early fall into the winter. Then, after a short respite, they set out for New York accompanied by two of their sons, Eng's twenty-one-year-old James Montgomery and Chang's twelve-year-old Albert.
In New York, Chang and Eng joined their new manager, Wallace, and on February 1, 1870, the party of five boarded the steamer Allemagne and were soon on their way across the Atlantic to the first destination of their grand tour, Germany. The crossing was uneventful, and on February 19, after eighteen days at sea, they reached Gliickstadt, which was the port for Hamburg.
Once on German soil, the party was transported from Gliickstadt to Hamburg. There they climbed on a Prussian train and settled back for the relatively short journey to Berlin.
In Berlin, porters took their trunks and pushed ahead of them down wooden stairs to the front of the station, where order was being kept by policemen in spiked helmets. The party found a horse-drawn droshky, perhaps two, and soon was on its way to the boardinghouse.
If the twins' quarters were typical of the rooming houses occupied by other travelers to the Prussian capital, they found themselves in a chilly sitting room with an unlighted fire in the fireplace, the room furnished with a small sofa, a desk, a bureau, several rush-bottomed chairs. In their bedroom there was one bed, a looking glass, and a washstand.
Wallace had booked Chang and Eng for a three-week stand at the Circus Renz. Never in their lives, in America or elsewhere, had the twins performed in a circus. This was to be the.first and last such experience.
The dominant figures in Berlin at that time were the seventy-three-year-old Kaiser Wilhelm I, beginning the tenth year of his autocratic rule over an ever-expanding Prussia, and his Iron Chancellor, Prince Otto von Bismarck. Under this pair, who had recently crushed Denmark and Austria, resurgent Germany had become the second most powerful nation on the European continent. France was the first. But that would not continue for long.
Germany was also one of the most austere, conservative, industrious countries in Europe. As the Prussian crown princess wrote to her mother, Queen Victoria, "Our poverty, our dull towns, our plodding, hardworking serious life, has made us strong and determined; is wholesome for us. I should grieve were we to imitate Paris and be so taken up with pleasure that no time was left for self-examination and serious thought!"
The twins and their sons visited Unter den Linden, the main shopping street and promenade of the city. The mile-long paved street, bordered by linden, maple, and chestnut trees, was lined with fruit stands and drink shops, stucco houses, large hotels, huge monuments depicting Victory and Frederick the Great mounted on a charger. The sidewalks were crowded with uniformed and decorated soldiers, women carrying baskets of goods, nursemaids and their young charges, businessmen, and street urchins. Nearby, the twins visited the Tiergarten, the huge city park with its paths, shrubbery, trees, and water basin, surrounded by beer gardens and dance halls. Yet, for all that the twins saw—the Raczinsky Palace with its art gallery, Kroll's with its dining saloons and theater, the Brandenburg Gate (Berlin's triumphal arch), the kaiser's palace with its sculptured eagles—they must have found a stolid monotony in the city.
But the monotony mattered little to Chang and Eng. They had not come the long distance to Berlin seeking pleasure. They had come to Berlin for two earnest reasons. One was to fulfill their engagement with the Circus Renz and make money. The other, at the urging of their wives and children, was to see one of the greatest physicians in the world, the renowned pathologist Dr. Rudolf Virchow, who practiced in Berlin and whom they hoped would undertake their separation.
However, before preparing to meet Dr. Virchow, Chang and Eng readied themselves to meet the Berlin public. The Vossische Zeitung on Tuesday, February 22, 187o, ran two advertisements concerning the twins. The first announced their Berlin debut with the Circus Renz; the second announced that a book about their lives was available for purchase.
Available at Ernst Litfass, printer at court, Adlerstrasse 6
LIFE STORY OF THE SIAMESE TWIN BROTHERS
CHANG AND ENG
WITH ILLUSTRATIONS
Cost: 21/2 sgr.
Contents:
Are the twins different men? Could they be separated?
Climate, navigation, religion of Siam.
Women of Siam.
Travel to America and Europe. Life in Siam.
Wedding and private life of the twins.
Two families and their children.
The American Civil War.
On February 26, the Vossische Zeitung ran a review of Chang and Eng's opening appearance in Berlin: "As men with gray heads they have become mellow in gait and actions. First they appear on a quickly improvised podium which runs all around the area, then, turning this way and that, sometimes taking a bow, they wander through the aisle which is located between the boxes and the stands."
On the following Sunday, Chang and Eng submitted to a physical examination requested by a Berlin physician, Dr. Berend, who brought along three colleagues named Dr. Friedrichs, Dr. Reichert, and Dr. Hartmann. According to a report issued nine days later:
"They all came to the conclusion that the membranous connective part that unites the twins has two cords, which contain remainders of the former navel vessels, and that liver and heart of each of the twins are drawn toward this connective part. Important organs could not be detected in the latter. In spite of this all doctors present advised against a separation of this connective part since it could possibly cause the opening of the abdomen and endanger their lives."
By now, Chang and Eng were the talk of Berlin. Interest in their abnormality was so great that another physician, Dr. Stryck, delivered a public lecture on them. Whether Dr. Stryck himself had examined the twins, or whether he had relied for his material on the findings of Dr. Berend and his colleagues, was not made clear. In his talk on March 4, Dr. Stryck identified the twins' connecting ligament as being "in the heart region," and stated that because of it "the twins face each other at a 3o degree angle, lateral." He went on to reveal that while the twins were in Edinburgh in 1868 an effort was made by doctors "to induce a gradual dying of the cord through the application of screws, but without success." He pointed out that Chang's pulse had "6 to 8 beats more than Eng's, by the same token Chang breathes faster," that "the eyes and extremities of both which are located at the inside are weaker and less developed than those on the outside," that he believed "a separation possible even if the peritonium should happen to go through the cord, since one perforates the peritonium, regretfully not without danger, during Caesarian birth or ovarian dropsy." He said that "the twins Chang and Eng have been desiring a separation for the past five years, and the hopes of fulfilling that wish is said to be part of the reason for their being here." He concluded with a bit of gossip: that while Chang and Eng's exhibits caused "little excitement" in the United States, in England "they received great attention" and had "made their fortune."
When Chang and Eng read about the lecture, they were indignant. They felt that Dr. Stryck's lecture contained "several falsehoods." In a statement to the press, the twins denied that an attempt had been made to separate them using screws, although "a suggestion of this nature has been made by the London surgeon Startin." They also denied that they themselves had been desiring separation for the past five years. It was "their wives and children" who wanted the separation made, "insisting on having the husband [or] respectively the father, to themselves."
Meanwhile, as they continued their daily circus performances, the twins awaited their crucial appointment with Dr. Rudolf Virchow.
They had been briefed on Dr. Virchow's importance, and beyond him, they knew, there was no hope. Dr. Virchow was forty-nine years old the year he saw the twins. He had a remarkable career behind him, and an even more remarkable one ahead of him. The first surgeon to describe leukemia, he was also the founder of cellular pathology. He had been a professor of pathological anatomy at the University of Wurzburg. His sympathy for revolutionaries who were threatening the stability of the Prussian government cost him this post, but in 1856 he became the director of the Pathological Institute in Berlin. He denigrated Pasteur's germ theory of disease, and he rejected Darwin's theory of evolution. Nine years before meeting the twins, Dr. Virchow had entered politics, been elected to the Prussian Diet, and started the Progressive party, constantly speaking out against Bismarck (who once challenged him to a duel that never came off). Dr. Virchow introduced anthropology into Germany. He was also interested in archaeology, and in 1874 he became friends with Heinrich Schliemann, the merchant prince and master of thirteen languages who unearthed the walls of ancient Troy and King Priam's palace. In 1879, Dr. Virchow accompanied Schliemann to the site of Troy.
This was the incredible man Chang and Eng were waiting to meet.
However, Dr. Virchow took it upon himself to see the twins before they could see him. Impatient to have a look at the joined brothers prior to examining them, curious to see how they presented themselves to the public, Dr. Virchow made his way to the Circus Renz on Friedrichstrasse one evening, bought himself a ticket, and went inside.
Kay Hunter, in Duet for a Lifetime, described what transpired. Awaiting the climactic act of the show, the appearance of Chang and Eng, Dr. Virchow had to endure the high-wire act, the clowns, the bareback riders, the brassy circus band. He found it all disagreeable. At last, a fanfare brought Chang and Eng into the limelight. The two aging men trotted out on the podium, cavorted and bowed, and instead of being greeted with applause they were met with laughter. Dr. Virchow tried to understand the audience's reaction, and then he understood. The two seam-faced, sixty-year-old men, stiffly, awkwardly moving about, seemed ridiculous in this carnival atmosphere. Dr. Virchow's heart went out to them. It was pathetic that they had to perform in this undignified manner and in this place. What might have been charming and amusing when they were younger now appeared infinitely sad. Dismayed, Dr. Virchow quickly left the Circus Renz.
A few days later, Chang and Eng arrived for their critical appointment with Dr. Virchow, an appointment which their wives had looked forward to with so much optimism. Dr. Virchow was the soul of hospitality. He was thoughtful and kind, and tried to allay their anxiety. He had read medical papers about them, and he was well acquainted with their histories. To acquire firsthand information, and to put them at their ease, he chatted with them at length.
Finally, the moment came for the physical examination. Dr. Virchow asked them to undress. Reluctantly, they did so. Now the German physician began his work.
The examination was long and exhaustive, lasting over an hour. The twins were wearied and irritated by the procedure, in particular Chang, who protested fiercely when Virchow pricked his side of the connecting ligament with a needle. Dr. Virehow would later write: "The Siamese allow all examinations of the cord which unites them with the greatest resistance only. Obviously, it is not only sensitivity, but mistrust and fear that the cord might be injured in some way."
When Dr. Virchow inquired politely whether they had fathered any twins of their own, both Chang and Eng looked shocked and upset, and one of them replied curtly that they had had no problems whatsoever with their children. To add to the tension of the meeting, the twins had been offered drinks upon their arrival, and Chang had taken a drink and then had continued to indulge him-self freely.
At last, the ordeal was over. The twins awaited the great physician's opinion. He would not give them an immediate answer. He said that he preferred to make out his report and he would show it to them in writing.
Shortly after, while still in Berlin, Chang and Eng received Dr. Virchow's written report. The doctor concluded that, despite the mysterious connecting ligament, their bodies functioned independently. Considering their years, there was little that was wrong with them. The harmony between them was remarkable, but this harmony had "lately been disturbed . . . by the fact that both of them are beginning to go deaf, one more rapidly than the other." Chang was becoming hard of hearing in both ears, but Eng's growing deafness was in only his left ear, the one closer to Chang.
Now Dr. Virchow came to the essential matter, the connecting ligament and its separation. While Dr. Virchow deduced that there was no intestinal link between the twins, he was not sure about the livers, fearing that they might be communal, if only due to the connection of small blood vessels. He would, he wrote, advise against separation. He would not be willing to risk the shock to their systems.
Chang and Eng's last verdict was in. Rudolf Virchow had represented the final dream of freedom for Chang and Eng. With his report, their resources and their hopes were depleted. They would consult no more physicians abroad. They were resigned to living out their days in the same bondage they had known all their lives.
However, Dr. Virchow had one more opinion, and this he made public in an address to the Medical Society of Berlin. There was a single circumstance in which he would advocate risking separation: "It must here be considered, that in case of the death of one, the operation would have to be performed near the body of this one in order to prevent endangering the life of the other brother."
With this last disappointment, there was nothing to do but lose themselves in their work, and Chang and Eng dutifully went on with their performances.
They completed their tour of Germany, and sometime in June 1870 their manager, Wallace, started the twins and their sons for Russia. The party traveled to the German port of Stettin, and there took a steamer for St. Petersburg. The voyage on the Baltic Sea was smooth, and at last they entered the Oder River. At dawn they passed the fortifications of the Russian naval base at Kronstadt, and soon, at the crook of the Neva River, they reached St. Petersburg, "a window opening upon Europe," as Pushkin called it.
Alexandre Dumas had been to St. Petersburg not many years before the twins arrived, and had vividly described the city:
"I watched St. Petersburg slowly rising above the water line at the far end of the gulf. Soon I began to notice other domes, lower than the first one, shining here and there, some gilded like the cupola of St. Isaac, others covered with bright stars. St. Peters-burg has a multitude of religious buildings—two cathedrals, forty-six parish churches, a hundred other places of public worship and forty-five private chapels, with 626 bells between them!—but the general effect is by no means picturesque, for the place is flat and low-lying."
From the quay, the twins and their party took a droshky, a one-horse carriage, into the city.
That first day in the imperial city, and in all the days to follow, the twins saw the magnificent sights—the main thoroughfare, Nevsky Prospekt, teeming with the very poor and the very rich and the gaudily uniformed officers of the czar; the Fortress of St. Peter and St. Paul; Troitsky Square; the Alexander Nevsky monastery; the czar's 1,000-room, green baroque Winter Palace, with its enormous square; the War Ministry; the Admiralty Build-ing. Carriages rumbled over the bumpy streets—"oval cobble-stones as large as the skull of a Patagonian giant," wrote Dumas—taking the nobility for pastries at Eliseyev's or dinner at Donon's.
The twins' first night in St. Petersburg must have been memorable, if it resembled the first night that Dumas enjoyed. As Dumas described it:
The vast expanse of the Neva—a river of silver—rolled at our feet; great boats, like swallows, swept noiselessly up and down with billowing sails, leaving a faint ripple in their wake. Not a single light gleamed from either bank, not one star kept watch in the sky. Suddenly a sphere of gold appeared far to our left, rising above a dark green wood, cleaving a mother-of-pearl sky while the waves of foliage were still strongly outlined against it. Slowly this great shining breastplate climbed the sky, but added nothing to the transparency of the night. Only, a long line of molten gold lay trembling on the water, giving a touch of flame to the boats that crossed it, for the brief moment of their passing. At last, majestically, proudly, serene as a goddess, the moon glided slowly down behind the domes of Smolny, which remained sharply outlined against her brilliance for the whole time it took her to sink from the cross crowning the pinnacle and submerge herself in the depths of the sea on the horizon.
Pushkin, that great Russian poet . . . tried to depict such a night in noble verses. But, fine as they are, they are only the poetry of Man; the nights of St. Petersburg are the poetry of God Himself.
This was the city in which Chang and Eng, so far from Mount Airy, North Carolina, performed. After St. Petersburg, the twins took the railroad (built at a cost of $4o million by a West Point professor, George Washington Whistler, whose wife Anna was the model for Whistler's Mother) to Moscow. In Moscow, as well as "the principal cities of the Russian Empire," reported Judge Graves, Chang and Eng also performed.
No record of their appearances or reception has survived, but undoubtedly they were well received, for evidence does exist that the twins met the czar and enjoyed his imperial patronage. The czar in that summer of 187o was fifty-two-year-old Alexander II, who had been on the throne fifteen years. From the start of his reign, he had been a reformer. Russia's defeat by Great Britain, France, and Turkey in the Crimean War had exposed the nation's backwardness, and Alexander determined to rectify that and modernize his country. Among his more notable achievements were granting the serfs freedom, improving local welfare and education, releasing Siberian exiles, abolishing medieval punishment, and expanding the nation's railroads from 600 miles of track to 14,000 miles. Four years before Chang and Eng met him, Alexander had taken a nineteen-year-old aristocrat, Catherine Dolgoruky, for his mistress. They met regularly in a secret basement room of the palace. Now, when the twins arrived in Moscow, the affair was at its height. Two years later, Catherine bore the czar the first of several illegitimate children and the scandal was in the open.
To illustrate the interest that Alexander took in Chang and Eng and their sons, descendants of the twins recall that the czar invited them to attend a theatrical performance in the palace. The twins and their sons sat with the royal family in the private box, and Chang's twelve-year-old Albert "held the hand of one of the Russian princesses throughout the entire performance." On another occasion, in Moscow, Albert was suffering from a carbuncle on his neck. When Czar Alexander heard of this, he immediately sent his personal physician to treat the boy.
Having finished their last engagement in Russia, Chang and Eng planned to perform in Vienna, Rome, Madrid, and Paris before returning home. But almost overnight their plans were interrupted by the sounds of war. Germany, united and strong, tried to place a relative of the kaiser's on the empty Spanish throne, since Bismarck calculated that this would incite Napoleon III to go to war. His plan succeeded. On July 19, 1870, France declared war on Prussia. The twins, who had canceled their bookings in Vienna, Rome, and Madrid, still had hopes of reaching Paris. But hostilities had already commenced, and these would culminate in a decisive Prussian victory within three months.
There was no safe place Chang and Eng could go, except home. Wasting no time, they traveled from Moscow back to Hamburg, and then took a transatlantic steamer at Gluckstadt bound for New York City. It was to be a tragic crossing.
The bad moment came during their seventh day at sea. Chang and Eng were relaxing, playing a leisurely game of chess. Sources differ as to their opponent. One source says they were playing against Dr. Roberts, the president of Liberia. Another source says they were playing against Frederick Douglass, the onetime Negro slave who had become a famous reformer, an adviser to President Lincoln, and the minister to Haiti. When the game ended and Chang and Eng started to rise, Eng tried to get to his feet but Chang was unable to move. He had suffered a gradual stroke, and his right arm, side, and leg were paralyzed. Medical aid was sought on the ship, but the paralysis remained. The immobilized Chang was confined to his berth, and the healthy and active Eng was forced to remain inert beside him.
As the ship neared New York, the future of the twins had never looked bleaker.