THAT NIGHTEE TEEM BEGIN CHOP CHOP

Jonathan Spence's The Chan's Great Continent: China in Western Minds explores different Western literary perspectives on China from Marco Polo to Italo Calvino. The initial chapters especially merit reading — those from the perspective of missionary wives provide a fascinating glimpse into isolated communities — but the latter half of the book strikes one as a rushed job. 

The final chapter (handicapped by the sheer number of possible sources in the 20th century?) almost seems to devolve into a "merely" literary consideration of Borges, Kafka and Calvino, which compares unfavorably to the examination of Western perspectives on China developed in earlier chapters. 

But none of that matters if one looks at page 133, in the middle of a discussion on U.S. perspectives/portrayals of nineteenth century Chinese immigration. Spence refers to an anonymous piece "published in Harper's in 1869" which deftly translates Longfellow's Excelsior into Pidgin English.

Longfellow's first hackneyed stanza:

The shades of night were falling fast,
As through an Alpine village passed
A youth, who bore, 'mid snow and ice,
A banner with the strange device
     Excelsior!

Then cf.:

That nightee teem he come chop-chop
One young man walkee, no can stop;
Colo maskee, icee maskee;
He got flag; chop b'long welly culio, see — 
     Topside Galah!

This improves on the original so much you can almost forgive Longfellow for penning the original which inspired it. The Harper's piece (in Volume 39) is up on the Internet Archive. Here's the piece, though (click to embiggen):