w 
 
 i i; |iM 
 
 'ill 
 
 ,ej T n 
 
 ill 
 
 mm 
 
 O^N THE ORIENl 
 
 iiiiit 
 
r) 
 
 ais^ ^ S SOI 
 
 Book ^l ^ 
 
 Copyright}!^ 
 
 COPYRIGHT DEPOSnV 
 
SIDE LIGHTS ON THE ORIENT. 
 
 (I) 
 
SIDE LIGHTS 
 ON THE ORIENT 
 
 BY 
 
 WALTER R. LAMBUTH 
 
 Nashville, Tenn.; Dallas, Tex. 
 
 Publishing House of the M. E. Church, South 
 
 Smith & Lamar, Agents 
 
 1 90S 
 

 LIBRARY of CONGRESS 
 Two CoDies Received 
 
 FEB 18 ia09 
 
 Copviijint tin' 
 
 CLASS 
 
 COPY 
 
 ;OPY B. J 
 
 ^^^\\>,^?«10 8 
 
 Copyright, 1908, 
 
 BY 
 
 Smith & Lamar, Agents. 
 
To the children in hundreds of Methodist 
 homes and parsonages who at the table and 
 around the fireside have been eager listeners 
 to the writer's stories of travel and adven- 
 ture, these notes from the Orient are affec- 
 tionately dedicated. 
 
FOREWORD. 
 
 These pen sketches were made during a flying 
 visit to the Far East. There has been no attempt 
 at a systematic description of the countries vis- 
 ited. The writer only intends to give the young 
 reader a more realistic idea of the lights and shad- 
 ows playing over some of the world's thorough- 
 fares and bypaths; something of human need 
 and God-given opportunity to meet that need. If 
 it has been possible to awaken and stimulate a de- 
 sire to know more about the interesting people 
 who live in the lands beyond the sea, and who are 
 being brought nearer to us every day, he will be 
 amply rewarded for the time spent in turning 
 these side lights upon the traveled way. 
 
 Maple Terrace, Nashville, Tenn. 
 
 (7) 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 Page. 
 
 I. Traveling on the Roof of the Contment 13 
 
 II. The Indian Bear Hunt 21 
 
 III. The Greyhound of the Pacific 28 
 
 IV. Honolulu 35 
 
 V. Hawaii of Other Days 42 
 
 VI. The Awakening of Hawaii 49 
 
 VII. The Land of the Rising Sun 56 
 
 VIII. Yokohama 63 
 
 IX. Benkei The Giant 69 
 
 X. Under the Mountains to Lake Biwa 76 
 
 XI. Arima, the Crater City 83 
 
 * XIL Outdoor Life in Korea 90 
 
 XIII. The Streets of Seoul 96 
 
 XIV. The Tiger Hunter 102 
 
 XV. Country Folks 108 
 
 XVI. The Rubber Qiurch 114 
 
 XVII. Canal Life in China 121 
 
 XVIII. The King of the Thieves 126 
 
 XIX. Begging a Business 130 
 
 XX. Straw and Bamboo 136 
 
 XXL The Straits of Malacca 142 
 
 XXII. Jugglers and Snake Charmers 148 
 
 XXIII. Buddha's Tooth i54 
 
 XXIV. Ocean Island i59 
 
 XXV. The Roof of Asia 165 
 
 (9) 
 
ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 OPP. PAGK 
 
 The Greyhound of the Pacific Frontispiece ^ 
 
 California Volunteers' Monument 24 •- 
 
 Coral Church 54 ^ 
 
 Lava In Crater, Kilauea 54 
 
 Fujiyama ^° *^ 
 
 Ironing Clothes ^ ^ 
 
 Bell of Miidera 72 / 
 
 Torijigoku, Arima ^7 ^ 
 
 Washing ^^ ^ 
 
 Ironing ^°° 
 
 Kim, the Tiger Hunter 104^ 
 
 Prince of Beggars ^30^ 
 
 Cormorant Fishing ^^o -^ 
 
 Fishing in Straw Houses on Bamboo Poles 138 
 
 Temple of Buddha's Tooth 158 - 
 
 Elephant at Work • ^58 
 
 Kin-chin- junga ^ ^ 
 
 (II) 
 
I. 
 
 TRAVELING ON THE ROOF OF THE 
 CONTINENT. 
 
 Here we are climbing up the roof of the Amer- 
 ican continent! Kick a barrel of flour eastward 
 from Denver, and it will roll into the Mississippi 
 River. This would seem to be a long roll, but 
 the incline down the eastern slope of the roof of 
 the continent is so continuous that such a feat 
 would almost be possible. It is a rare sensation 
 to be traveling on a train in midair, running 
 along at an altitude over thirty times higher than 
 the tallest church steeple. Pike's Peak, in the 
 Rocky Mountains, can be seen one hundred miles 
 to the west of us rising into cloudland 14,147 
 feet above sea level like a great sentinel of the 
 mountain range which divides the East from the 
 West. 
 
 As we rush along toward Cheyenne I am re- 
 minded of an incident which occurred when I 
 was a boy on the way from San Francisco to 
 New York. A great herd of buffalo came swing- 
 ing along the plain on the left of us with a big- 
 black bear trotting along behind, tongue lolling 
 
 (13) 
 
14 SIDE LIGHTS ON THE ORIENT. 
 
 out, and doing his level best to keep up. Chasing 
 hard after them all were two Indians riding bare- 
 back, rifle in hand, leaning forward in their eager 
 desire to secure some of this big game. 
 
 Hardly ten minutes elapsed before our con- 
 ductor lost his hat by thrusting his head too 
 swiftly out of the window. To the surprise and 
 amusement of the circle of onlookers, his pate 
 was bare and shining as if a single hair had 
 never dared to grow upon the spot. An expla- 
 nation and a story gave the passengers a clue to 
 the conductor's embarrassment, for he had lost 
 his wig as well as his hat. The year before while 
 the road was under construction he and another 
 railroad hand had ventured three hundred yards 
 out on the plain to a spring under a big rock to 
 quench their thirst. A number of Indians in am- 
 bush fell upon them, killed his companion, and 
 drove an arrow clear through his own body. 
 Falling upon his face, the enemy supposed he was 
 dead and skillfully relieved him of his back hair 
 with a sharp knife, carrying his scalp away with 
 them. In an hour or so our hero recovered con- 
 sciousness, pulled the arrow out of his breast, 
 and staggered back to the camp, where he soon 
 recovered, and was promoted by the company to 
 a safer and more responsible position. 
 
 Our giant locomotive has plowed through 
 
ON THE ROOF OF THE CONTINENT. I5 
 
 Echo Canyon on its way to the West. We have 
 reached Ogden, in the center of a beautiful Httle 
 valley, and realize that we are not far from Salt 
 Lake City. This center of Mormonism is a little 
 over fifty miles to the south and overlooks Salt 
 Lake. Whatever we have to say about their mor- 
 als and their religion (and we cannot indorse 
 either one), the Mormons have been industrious 
 and enterprising from the day they reached the 
 shore of this great body of briny water. Out of 
 nothing they have created a center of industry 
 and trade which is a distributing point for hun- 
 dreds of m.iles around. 
 
 The Union Pacific Railroad formerly ran 
 round the northern shore of the lake; but now 
 we find our train dashing over a trestle eighteen 
 miles long, built through the northern arm of the 
 lake, thus saving many miles of road. As we 
 stand on the rear platform and look upon this 
 body of water it is difficult to realize that it is 
 so dense that you can float on your back and read 
 a newspaper held up in your hands ; or that while 
 floating in this way an umbrella can be hoisted, 
 and one can actually sail through the vv^ater like 
 a boat if the breeze is strong enough. The water 
 is so salty that no fish can live in it. In this re- 
 spect it resembles the Dead Sea. Riding over 
 the beautiful expanse of blue below us, our eyes 
 
l6 SIDE LIGHTS OX THE ORIENT. 
 
 resting upon the snow-capped mountains clothed 
 by the setting sun in a Hght of heavenly purple, 
 it is hard to realize that on yonder receding shore 
 is that plague spot of sin which has eaten its way 
 into many a home and destroyed the happiness 
 of many a life. I am sorry to say that the Mor- 
 mons have sent their missionaries down into Ari- 
 zona, that they have a colony in ]\Iexico, and that 
 they are trying to extend their religion among the 
 Hawaiian Islanders. 
 
 On we go for a number of hours through the 
 sagebrush of Nevada, and then begin to climb 
 the Sierras, which form the eastern boundary of 
 California. Two locomotives wdth labored breath 
 are now pulling our heavy train, and as we rise 
 to a height of five thousand feet we begin to get 
 into the snow, which hangs from the branches of 
 the pine trees and is piled up twelve feet deep in 
 many places on both sides of the track. Once 
 more we find ourselves on the rear platform look- 
 ing backward through the long tunnels made by 
 the snowsheds, forty-two miles in length, and 
 which at great expense must be kept up in order 
 to save the road from being overwhelmed by 
 snowdrifts or avalanches that come sliding down 
 the mountain side. A gentleman and a lady are 
 sitting near us on camp stools. As the brown 
 smoke fills the snowshed a curious sensation 
 
ox THE ROOF OF THE CONTIXEXT. ly 
 
 comes over us. You see the outlines of the two 
 figures, then only their eyes, and then they 
 vanish altogether and we cannot see each other; 
 but as we look up the electric light just over our 
 heads seems like a far-off star in the midst of 
 smoke and cloud, appearing like an eye of fire 
 looking down upon us from some other world. 
 Five minutes more, and the smoke clears away as 
 we dash out of this snowshed among the snow 
 fields. But here v;e go into another, and so on, 
 up and up until the crest of the Sierra Nevada 
 ^lountains has been reached. At last we round 
 Cape Horn and look down through our car win- 
 dow on the left from our dizzy height into valleys 
 far below us, where the pine trees seem only an 
 inch high, and where a mountain stream has dwin- 
 dled to a mere silver thread as it winds about on 
 its journey to the Pacific Ocean. Down, down 
 we go, almost flying over the steel rails, imtil we 
 leave the dazzling snow far behind and find our- 
 selves in the midst of meadows and orchards, 
 where peach trees are in bloom and where cherrj^ 
 blossoms make the landscape so beautiful that it 
 seems as though we had passed from arctic re- 
 gions into Paradise. 
 
 Sacramento, the capital of California, is 
 reached; then we steam on toward Oakland on 
 the bay. reaching our destination a little after 
 
l8 SIDE LIGHTS ON THE ORIENT. 
 
 dark to find Dr. C. F. Reid, Superintendent of 
 our work among the Orientals on the coast, 
 awaiting us. He takes us to his home^ and we 
 are soon a part of the family circle gathered 
 about the fireside, after enjoying a real home din- 
 ner prepared by the hospitable hands of Mrs. Reid 
 and Sun, her Korean cook. 
 
 Dr. Reid went to China as a missionary in 1878 
 from the Kentucky Conference. For nearly twen- 
 ty years he was actively engaged in work in 
 Shanghai and Soochow, where he built mission- 
 ary residences and churches, and from which cen- 
 ters he carried on evangelistic work along the 
 canals and through the country. While associated 
 together we made a tour through the country, 
 when we preached from the bow of our boat and 
 on the canal banks wherever the people could be 
 gathered. As we returned home on the last day 
 of our trip, after having preached seven or eight 
 times since morning, night overtook us as we 
 crossed a great stone bridge which led to a Chi- 
 nese village. The villagers were out in front of 
 their houses eating their simple meal, with rice 
 bowl in one hand and chopsticks in the other. 
 
 The Doctor suggested that we sing a hymn 
 standing on the steps of the bridge, gather the 
 crowd, and preach once more. We were too 
 hoarse to try to sing, so we whistled ''J^sus, Lover 
 
ON THE ROOF OF THE CONTINENT. I9 
 
 of My Soul." As the Chinese do not know how 
 to whistle, it immediately attracted attention, and 
 in less time than it takes to tell it we had a con- 
 gregation of over one hundred people. We both 
 preached, telling the old, old story that we had 
 told so many times during the day, and went on 
 our way, thankful that we had one more opportu- 
 nity to point these simple-hearted people to the 
 Way that leads to God. 
 
 In 1898 Dr. Reid went to Korea with Bishop 
 E. R. Hendrix, and there they opened the Korea 
 Mission, of which the Doctor was made superin- 
 tendent, in which work he continued for a number 
 of years. He now has charge of the night schools 
 for Chinese, Japanese, and Koreans in Los An- 
 geles, Oakland, Alameda, and San Ffancisco, Cal., 
 under the Woman's Home Mission Society, which 
 is doing a noble work on the coast. In the schools 
 in Oakland and Alameda there are a number of 
 young Japanese who are working their way 
 through the State University at Berkeley. Some 
 of these came from our schools in Japan and some 
 were already members of our Churches around 
 the Inland Sea. To minister to these young men 
 is to guard them from temptation, to inspire in 
 them high ideals, and to send them back to their 
 native land better qualified for the great work 
 that lies before them. This is an enterprise worth 
 
20 SIDE LIGHTS OX THE ORIENT. 
 
 all of the time and mone}- expended upon it. and 
 I take pleasure in expressing my appreciation of 
 the sympathy of the good women of our Church 
 and their devotion to these needy young men — a 
 devotion which should inspire us all to do more 
 for the homeless and friendless immigrant who 
 comes to our shores. 
 
 Over forty have been received into our Church 
 through these schools during the last two years. 
 In the school in Los Angeles one of the members, 
 a Chinaman, in his zeal and desire to do something 
 for God and his own people, is undertaking the 
 support of a native missionary in China who can 
 work for Christ while he makes the money with 
 which to support him. 
 
 In the same city there is the Homer Toberman 
 Deaconess Home and Hospital. This is a memo- 
 rial by Major Toberman for his son, Homer. 
 With the gift of $6,000, to which he and his good 
 wife have added other sums, a home for our dea- 
 conesses has been built by Dr. Reid and a hospi- 
 tal ward added which, under the Misses Elliott 
 and the nurses, is doing a noble work. 
 
11. 
 
 THE INDIAN BEAR HUNT. 
 
 There stands in the grounds of the State Insti- 
 tute for the Deaf and Dumb in Berkeley, Cal., 
 facing the Golden Gate, out through which 
 the great steamers sail for Japan and China, a 
 bronze statue styled "The Indian Bear Hunt." 
 It is such a wonderful piece of work that I have 
 been to see it several times. A mortal combat is 
 in progress between two stalwart Indians and a 
 powerful grizzly bear. It is a life and death 
 struggle, and illustrates the fearful odds with 
 which primitive man contends when he meets 
 brute force on the same level and almost single- 
 handed. The group in bronze is also an illustra- 
 tion of the love of offspring, even among lower 
 animals, and of the fierceness with which the 
 mother will fight for her young. 
 
 The bear stands on her hind legs and grapples 
 with a tall, muscular Indian, who, with tomahawk 
 lifted high in air, is endeavoring to deliver a 
 crushing blow upon the bear's head. She has him 
 at a disadvantage In" that his arm is held like a 
 vice in her jaws until one can almost see the bi- 
 ceps muscle being torn in shreds from the bone, 
 
 (21) 
 
22 SIDE LIGHTS ON THE ORIENT. 
 
 and hear the crunching of the bone between her 
 teeth. Her right foreleg presses the Indian's side, 
 and with claws imbedded in his groin it is evi- 
 dent that in another minute, if he cannot extricate 
 himself, his very vitals will be torn from him. 
 
 Prostrate upon the ground is a second Indian, 
 less powerful than the first, who holds in his hand 
 the leash with which her two cubs are tied. It 
 was the cries of tliese captives, who were being 
 dragged away, that drew the mother to the spot 
 and enraged her to such a pitch that she savagely 
 attacked both her enemies, holding the second In- 
 dian down upon the ground with one hind foot 
 and threatening the first with instant death. 
 
 This wonderul piece of bronze is the work of 
 Douglas Tilden, who is deaf and dumb. He was 
 born in Chico, Cal., IMay I, i860. When five 
 years of age he had scarlet fever, which left 
 him unable to hear a sound. Entering the insti- 
 tution in front of which we have been standing, 
 he graduated in 1879, and for eight years was a 
 teacher in the University of California. He then 
 began his life work, having shown marked talent 
 in drawing, molding, and in design. He studied 
 in New York City in tlie National Academy of 
 Design, became a pupil of Chopin in Paris, and 
 later on Professor of Sculpture in ^lark Hopkins 
 Universitv, Baltimore. 
 
THE INDIAN BEAR HUNT. 2^ 
 
 Returning to California, the place of his birth, 
 he was appointed by Mayor Phelan an honorary 
 member of an Association for the Artistic Im- 
 provement of San Francisco. His reputation 
 grew into a national one, so that he was given a 
 place of responsibility at the Chicago Exposition, 
 and was m.ade a member of the First Internation- 
 al Congress of the Deaf at the World's Fair in 
 Paris. 
 
 Profoundly interested in so remarkable an art- 
 ist, I sought out his residence, near the corner of 
 Twenty-Second and Webster Streets, in Oakland, 
 on the morning of the sailing of our steamer 
 Mongolia for the Far East. Mr. Tilden's house 
 is a two-story frame in a large yard, well back 
 from the street. It faces the lovely slopes, now 
 covered with verdure, that belong to the range of 
 hills on the east of Oakland, with a lake within 
 a short distance and beyond the lake green mead- 
 ows, orchards here and there with plum and 
 peach trees in full bloom against the background 
 of the Coast Range. It was indeed an attractive 
 sight. 
 
 In the artist's yard itself was a great pepper 
 tree from Mexico. Geraniums as high as one's 
 shoulder covered the yard fence. Roses clam- 
 bered up the porches and peeped into the second- 
 story windows ; while the palm, the pomegranate, 
 
24 SIDE LIGHTS ON THE ORIENT. 
 
 and the sweet lemon tree were found here and 
 there, reminding one of the soft dimate of sub- 
 tropical America. 
 
 It took two rings of the bell before there came 
 a response. The visitor was ushered into a large 
 hall by the lady who came to the door. He be- 
 gan a rather extended explanation of his visit and 
 begged pardon for the intrusion. It was some 
 time before he discovered that his hostess, who 
 had shown him a seat in the parlor, made no 
 audible reply. Excusing herself, for she had 
 swiftly discerned with her quick wit that he was 
 utterly helpless, she returned in a moment with 
 a pad and pencil, which was an invitation to him 
 to explain his errand. His request to see Mr. 
 Tilden was so coupled with a few words of sin- 
 cere admiration for the artist's work that her 
 heart was touched at once, and off she went to 
 see if he could be found. 
 
 Within five minutes I was politely conducted 
 out of the residence by a side door to a building 
 which at first seemed to be a barn, neatly weather- 
 boarded and painted, but which turned out to be 
 the artist's studio in a quiet corner of the back 
 3^ard. He was not in ; but motioning me to a 
 seat, the proud wife of a gifted husband went in 
 quest of him with an eagerness and kindly spirit 
 which was very grateful to a stranger. 
 
CALIFORNIA VOLUNTEERS' MONUMENT. 
 
THE INDIAN BEAR HUNT. 2$ 
 
 The studio door opened gently, and I was face 
 to face with a man of average height and rather 
 slender build. The serious expression of his face 
 at first glance made one feel that he might not be 
 wanted, but the firm grasp of the hand and the 
 friendly glance of the eye insured a cordial wel- 
 come. Time enough had been given to take an 
 inventory of the studio: A long rattan reclining 
 chair, boxes of books and probably photographs, 
 a rifle on the wall^ and above it an Indian bow 
 and arrows; on the other side of the room a 
 long shelf with small figures in clay of various 
 sorts; above the shelf fastened to the wall an 
 arm of an athlete in plaster ; near by it a leg bent 
 at the knee, as though it were ready for a spring ; 
 and on the other side still a torso showing the 
 powerful muscles of a man's back — this also in 
 plaster cast. 
 
 For fifteen minutes with pencil and paper we 
 carried on a conversation, or rather correspond- 
 ence, during which I endeavored to express my 
 interest in his work and at the same time made 
 the request that he enable me, if possible, to se- 
 cure photographs of some of the groups which 
 had been shaped by his hand. 
 
 With the greatest cordiality Mr. Tilden took 
 nie into his inner studio, where models of every 
 sort were to be found, including one of the three 
 
20 SIDE LIGI-ITS OX THE ORIENT. 
 
 caravels in which Columbus made his voyage 
 across the Atlantic. The center of the room was 
 occupied by a statue of Senator White, of Cali- 
 fornia. This was in clay, unfinished, and most 
 interesting in that it gave one an idea of the 
 process of development from the little clay model 
 of the Senator, which stood on our right on a 
 box, up to this gigantic figure, nearly ten feet in 
 height, which the artist could reach only by stand- 
 ing on a platform of boards the ends of which 
 rested upon the rounds of a ladder on each side. 
 I noticed that a tub of water, which did not look 
 very clean, had a big brass syringe standing in 
 it, with which it was evident that the dignified 
 Senator got a shower bath every now and then 
 at the hands of the artist. It was not so much to 
 keep him clean as it was to make him soft and 
 pliable to the hand of the molder. 
 
 As we parted Mr. Douglas Tilden handed me 
 a photograph of a group in bronze which stands 
 in the Civic Circle of Golden Gate Park, San 
 Francisco, and is entitled ''California Volunteers 
 Monument." 
 
 This work is in memory of the volunteers who 
 at the peril of their lives sought to free the Island 
 of Cuba from the shackles of three centuries of 
 bondage under her Spanish conquerors, and is 
 one of his masterpieces. If Prescott, though 
 
THE INDIAN BEAR HUNT. 2^ 
 
 blind, could write 'The Conquest of Mexico;" 
 Francis Parkman, 'The French Occupation of 
 Canada/' in several volumes, though he could not 
 read for more than five minutes at a time for 
 twenty years; and Douglas Tilden, deaf and 
 dumb, place himself in the front rank of the 
 sculptors of our age — what might not others do 
 who are in full possession of health and every 
 faculty ? 
 
III. 
 
 THE GREYHOUND OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 All on board for Japan via Honolulu at noon ! 
 The great wharf was thronged with friends of the 
 many passengers who were soon to turn their 
 faces toward the Far East. 
 
 Good-bys were at last said, and the great 
 steamship Mongolia cast off from the wharf and 
 endeavored to push out into the bay. So deep 
 down does she reach in the water that she was 
 found to be stuck fast in the mud, and there we 
 waited until after midnight. In the early morn- 
 ing, as daylight began to break upon the city, we 
 were steaming toward the Golden Gate, and in a 
 few hours had left the receding shores of Cali- 
 fornia far behind us. 
 
 A description of this ^'Greyhound of the Pa- 
 cific" may be of interest, though words can hard- 
 ly describe this floating city. She is 615 feet long. 
 If stood on end by the side of the Flatiron 
 Building, that wonderful sky scraper in New 
 York City, the building would reach only about 
 midway of the vessel. If we were to put her by 
 the side of the Washington Monument in the 
 
 (28) 
 
THE GREYHOUND OF THE PACIFIC. 29 
 
 Capital of the United States, she would still reach 
 nearly sixty feet above that towering structure 
 of stone. Her breadth of beam is sixty-five feet, 
 and it would take a tapeline fifty-one feet long 
 to measure the distance from her deck to the bot- 
 tom of her hold. When we climbed down in her 
 engine room to look at the wonderful machinery 
 and see some of the eighty-three stokers, all 
 Chinamen, shoveling the coal into the great fur- 
 naces, we were twenty-five feet under the water. 
 The Mongolia can carry 18,000 tons of cargo. 
 One can hardly credit what Is stored away in the 
 capacious depths of this vessel. One of the offi- 
 cers told us that on a recent voyage from China 
 she had 1,200 tons of peanuts which were being 
 shipped to Virginia. We now have 4.700 tons 
 of cotton, ship measurement, most of which came 
 from Texas and is on its way to Kobe, Japan, to 
 be worked up into cotton cloth. This means that 
 there are 9,400 cotton bales under the deck on 
 which we walk, and that if these bales were 
 worked up into cotton cloth in the Japanese mills 
 and stretched out across land and sea it would 
 make a white path of cloth one foot wide which 
 would reach from Nashville to San Francisco, 
 from there to the Hawaiian Islands, from there 
 to Japan, from there to India, thence through 
 the Suez Canal to Gibraltar, on to New York 
 
30 SIDE LIGHTS ON THE ORIENT. 
 
 City, and from New York City to Nashville 
 again. In other words, we would have woven a 
 great white belt around the globe. 
 
 The anchor of this vessel weighs seven tons, 
 and each link in the chain 105 pounds. She car- 
 ries on this voyage 342 first-class passengers, 66 
 second-class, 724 third-class, or 1,132 in all, and 
 in addition to this number 270 sailors and other 
 employees, or a total of 1,402. When the most 
 of these passengers are Chinese, they cook for 
 them a ton of rice a day. There are four cooks 
 for the first-class passengers alone. The chief 
 cook is a Chinaman, and is paid more a year than 
 it takes to support a missionary in China. 
 
 The steamer was built in Camden, N. J., in 
 1904, at a cost of $2,000,000. She burns 150 tons 
 of coal a day, all of this being shoveled into the 
 furnaces by the 83 stokers we have mentioned. 
 Each day we are burning enough coal to fill 150 
 wagons, and by the time we reach Japan we will 
 have consumed over 2,000 tons, which would fill 
 a train of wagons five miles long. 
 
 This monster of the deep is propelled through 
 the water by two great screws, one on each side, 
 and she can travel nearly twenty miles an hour, 
 or almost as fast as the average speed of a rail- 
 road train. 
 
 By the courtesy of the engineer a party of us 
 
THE GREYHOUND OF THE PACIFIC. 3 1 
 
 were taken down into the engine room, where we 
 could look closely at the four great engines and 
 the tw^o enormous steel shafts which are run- 
 ning the vessel. We found a telephone board 
 away down in the depths of the ship connecting 
 with the captain's room near the bridge at the 
 highest portion of the deck. Another phone 
 goes from the captain's room to the crow's-nest, 
 which is a little platform up on the foremast, 
 where behind a low screen a sailor stands on the 
 lookout through the night. Then there are other 
 phones over which the captain can speak to his 
 officers in different directions, so that he has 
 complete command of the vessel and can send his 
 orders anywhere. The engineer showed us the 
 refrigerator where forty beeves are hanging. Out 
 of this we get for our breakfast and dinner the 
 steaks and roasts, in addition to the ducks, chick- 
 ens, turkeys, and quail, as well as fish, which are 
 also stored away in another part of this immense 
 ice chest. As we come back from the engine 
 room we pass the barber shop, the laundry, the 
 doctor's office, the pantry, the bakery, the kitchen 
 and storeroom, and then on once more into the 
 dining salon, where over two hundred passengers 
 get their meals three times a day. 
 
 Here is where some of the food comes from 
 that we have set before us : Olives from Califor- 
 
32 SIDE LIGHTS ON THE ORIENT. 
 
 nia, sugar from Cuba, pineapples from Hawaii, 
 oysters from Chesapeake Bay, ice cream from 
 San Francisco (frozen and carried along with 
 us through the entire voyage of sixteen days), 
 celery from Sacramento, oranges from Los An- 
 geles, jam from London, rice from China, curry 
 from India, coffee from Java, flour from Oregon, 
 spices from Ceylon, and molasses from Georgia. 
 Surely we have levied upon the entire globe for 
 the food supply of those who are being carried 
 across the Pacific Ocean. 
 
 After a few days we begin to get acquainted 
 with our passengers, finding a Japanese student 
 from Harvard ; a Russian going with his family 
 to Vladivostok ; a count from Belgium ; a gov- 
 ernment official in charge of the wild tribes of 
 the Philippine Islands just from Washington 
 City; Bishop and Mrs. Cranston, from the same 
 city, going to Japan ; a merchant from Louisville, 
 Ky. ; a surgeon from Bristol, Tenn. ; a physician 
 from Louisiana ; a Jewess from San Francisco ; 
 a Hawaiian Islander, who is the editor of a pa- 
 per, going to Japan ; a Hawaiian prince, a mem- 
 ber of Congress, on his way back to Honolulu ; 
 and missionaries of the Baptist, Presbyterian, 
 Methodist, and other Churches going out to Ja- 
 pan, China, Korea, India, and other parts of the 
 Eastern world. 
 
THE GREYHOUND OF THE PACIFIC. 33 
 
 Sunday comes, and we have preaching at 10:30 
 in the social hall, Sunday school in the afternoon 
 (led by Mrs. Wilbur F. Crafts, who has so often 
 been to Monteagle, Tenn.), and lectures on mis- 
 sions and mission fields morning and night by 
 some of the eminent men who have spent most 
 of their lives engaged in the work of bringing 
 the world to Christ. 
 
 I must not leave out the sports. In midocean 
 one afternoon the officers and all the passengers 
 assembled on the deck for recreation to be fol- 
 lowed that night by a concert. The first on the 
 programme in the sports was a thread and needle 
 race, in which several ladies stood in line while 
 an equal number of men with spools of thread 
 in their hands ran down the deck as fast as they 
 could and handed the spools to the ladies, who 
 already had needles. Each needle was to be 
 threaded, and then a race back to the starting 
 point to see who would get to his place first as 
 the winner of the race. This was followed by 
 an egg race and then a potato race, both for the 
 ladies, who were to take up an Qgg in a spoon and 
 run back to the starting point, or gather up the 
 potatoes that had been arranged on the deck in 
 rows. 
 
 The pillow fight was the funniest of all. A 
 round pole was placed waist-high from the deck, 
 
 3 
 
34 SIDE LIGHTS ON THE ORIENT. 
 
 and two passengers astride of it, facing each 
 other, pillow in hand, tried to knock each other 
 off. Mattresses had been placed on the deck un- 
 der the pole or spar to save a hard fall. This 
 was followed by the obstacle race, where two at 
 a time the competitors scrambled over poles, 
 crawded through life preservers, tumbled into a 
 net and then out again, and finally on their all 
 fours crept through a canvas wind-sail or funnel 
 which had been stretched on the deck and which 
 led to the goal. The successful competitor in this 
 case was the Japanese student from Harvard, 
 who seemed to be as active as a cat and enjoyed 
 the fun as much as any American in the crowd. 
 
IV. 
 
 HONOLULU. 
 
 Six days out from San Francisco, and we are 
 approaching the Hawaiian Islands. At daybreak 
 I looked out of the port of my stateroom and 
 saw in the dim light Diamond Head, which is a 
 promontory on the Island of Oahu. The gleam 
 of light from the lighthouse standing on the 
 mountain slope gave us our first welcome to Hon- 
 olulu on our right. Hastily getting on deck, 1 
 could just make out the Island of Molokai on 
 our left. To the right, on the starboard side, we 
 could easily see with the rising sun the royal 
 palm trees, the cocoanut groves, the houses 
 nestled back amidst the dense foliage, and the 
 white surf breaking on the shore. It was a beau- 
 tiful sight, and one to dwell upon with a sense of 
 joyous exhilaration. Far away on the other side, 
 in the somber shadow under great cliffs 3,000 feet 
 high, was the little settlement where 1,100 un- 
 fortunate creatures smitten with leprosy make 
 their home on Molokai. The scene was one of 
 entrancing light on the one hand and somber 
 shadow on the other. It was one that suggested 
 
 (35) 
 
36 SIDE LIGHTS ON THE ORIENT. 
 
 life and death. And yet I am glad to say that 
 everything possible is done to make comfortable 
 and happy the exiles who are compelled to re- 
 main in isolation — the most of them for life. 
 
 As we steam toward the harbor we pass Wai- 
 kiki with its beautiful beach and drives, on the 
 shore of which we are pointed out a splendid 
 hotel; and then the Aquarium, and then above 
 the town of Honolulu the Punch Bowl, the ex- 
 tinct crater of a volcano which once sent out its 
 lava and ashes^ but has slumbered quietly for 
 centuries. It is a blessed thing that it sleeps, be- 
 cause at the very foot of the Punch Bowl, which 
 has been so worn by the weather that it is only 
 500 feet above the level of the sea, lies the city 
 of Honolulu, unguarded and unsuspecting of any 
 danger that may lurk in the depths of that great 
 closed chimney, far down beneath which there 
 may yet be smoldering the fire and the fury that 
 may burst forth with destructive violence. 
 
 Before we are allowed to go alongside the 
 wharf the quarantine officer comes aboard. First 
 the sailors and the crew form In line up and down 
 the deck and hold up their hands as the officer 
 passes along to see whether or not they have any 
 symptom of fever or contagious disease. As it 
 was breakfast time, the passengers were allowed 
 to *go down into the saloon and sit at table while 
 
HONOLULU. 37 
 
 the health officer passed up and down the dining 
 hall. From their appetites one would hardly think 
 there was any possibility of any sickness in the 
 party or among the first-class passengers. The 
 steamer is given a clean bill of health and in a 
 few minutes she is alongside the wharf. 
 
 Looking down upon the throng from the deck 
 high above their heads, we see a familiar face. It 
 is good to meet a true and tried friend from far- 
 away America. We go down the gang plank, 
 grasp his hand, and then are conducted through 
 the crowd of Hawaiian Islanders, Japanese, Chi- 
 nese, Koreans, Portuguese, and Americans out 
 into the city, where many surprises await us. The 
 first thing we see is an automobile, and there are 
 many of them. This is followed by a surrey and 
 then a carriage, and along the main street electric 
 street cars, which travel back and forth through 
 the city with the same speed as in the home land. 
 
 We turn Into the market place, and are aston- 
 ished at the varieties of fish, there being some 350 
 in the waters about the Islands. Here are cocoa- 
 nuts fresh from the trees, bananas, every vege- 
 table that is to be found elsewhere, and in addi- 
 tion the breadfruit, the lotus, and the taro. The 
 breadfruit is about the size of a large pineapple 
 and nearly the same shape, but is smooth and 
 green on the outside. It is baked by the natives 
 
38 SIDE LIGHTS ON THE ORIENT. 
 
 and serves as a healthful food. In their primi- 
 tive style they cook it in a hole in the ground 
 between hot stones. So much of this fruit groves 
 on a single tree that it is said twenty-seven trees, 
 covering an acre of land, is sufficient to support 
 from ten to twelve persons eight months of the 
 year. 
 
 The taro is a root which looks something like 
 a beet, but is a little longer and darker. It is 
 crushed between two stones, baked, fermented, 
 and then it becomes a paste, and is called pot. So 
 nourishing is this and abundant that a strip of 
 land not larger than a good-sized dining room 
 table will support one man for a year, and one 
 square mile will support some 15,000 people. 
 The lotus has been brought from China, and 
 originally came from India. It is also a long, 
 tuberous root in sections. It grows deep down 
 in the mud in the lotus ponds of Japan and Chi- 
 na, and is eaten both raw and cooked by the na- 
 tives. 
 
 Passing into the middle of the town, whose 
 streets are beautiful and clean and houses well 
 built, we reach the government building, which 
 is in the center of ground covering ten acres. In 
 the right-hand corner, as we go in, is the former 
 palace of Queen Liliuokalani, who was deposed 
 during the revolution in Hawaii, after which the 
 
HONOLULU. 39 
 
 Islands became a republic and then were annexed 
 in 1898 to the United States. She lives near by 
 in a beautiful home, surrounded by flowering 
 trees and lovely plants, and is taken care of by 
 the United States government. Entering the 
 government building itself, we are ushered into 
 the House of Representatives. Here we find 
 thirty members of the House, the most of whom 
 are coffee-colored, though some are entirely 
 white, and all of whom, with one or two excep- 
 tions, speak English. They are discussing the 
 question of good roads and appropriations for 
 the betterment of conditions in the Island terri- 
 tory. The interpreter puts everything into the 
 Hawaiian language, so that the representatives 
 shall thoroughly understand the proceedings, and 
 also for the benefit of the visiting Islanders who 
 may not understand the English language. The 
 Speaker of the House occupies a platform which 
 was once the throne of the Queen. On the wall 
 back of him are portraits of Queen Emma and 
 the Queen Liho Liho, who died while on a visit 
 to London, together with the King, who also lost 
 his life from an attack of measles. The Island- 
 ers had never encountered this simple disease, and 
 when later on it broke out among them, having 
 been brought by sailors, in the midst of their 
 fever they would rush into the sea to get cooled 
 
40 SIDE LIGHTS ON THE ORIENT. 
 
 down or bury themselves in the sand on the sea- 
 shore. This checked the fever, drove in the erup- 
 tion, and was the cause of the death of hundreds. 
 Another portrait was that of Kamehameha I., 
 who was born in 1753, reigned for many years, 
 and did more for Hawaii than any other 
 chief or king. The picture represents him in a 
 scarlet robe over a white shirt, with a high collar 
 and black cravat. He has a strong face, with a 
 broad forehead, and was a man of energy, judg- 
 ment, and power. 
 
 We next visited the Aquarium, on the Waikiki 
 beach. The most beautiful fish we have ever seen 
 were found in the tanks along which we could 
 pass and see them swimming in their native ele- 
 ment. One had a blue body and fins of a canary 
 yellow ; another a black body and one single blue 
 spot on its side, the size of a quarter of a dollar ; 
 a third had two long streamers to the upper part 
 of his head, which floated behind him and which 
 seemed to guide his movements; a fourth was 
 possessed of a horn an inch and a half long, 
 which was set between his eyes; while another, 
 that looked like the sole we have in the United 
 States, had two hornlike projections on his back, 
 at the top of which were his eyes. One of these 
 had buried himself in the sand until nothing of 
 his bodv could be seen. Onlv the two little horns 
 
HAWAII OF OTHER DAYS. 4I 
 
 stood Up, and at the very tips his eyes winked 
 and bHnked while watching for his prey. It re- 
 minded one of a submarine with two conning 
 towers, in the top of which sailors were on the 
 lookout for their enemy. Surely the hand of 
 God has shaped and colored these wonderful 
 creatures with which to beautify the underworld 
 of water as much as he has those in the midst of 
 which we live. 
 
HAWAII OF OTHER DAYS. 
 
 The Hawaiian Islands have been called the 
 Crossroads of the Pacific. They lie near the 
 center of that great body of water 2,I00 miles 
 from San Francisco, 2,500 miles from Alaska, 
 3,400 miles from Yokohama, and over 1,000 miles 
 from several groups of islands in the South Pa- 
 cific. Steamers from the United States to Japan, 
 to China, to the Philippines, and to Australia call 
 at Honolulu on their way to and fro. The area 
 of the twenty islands, large and small, is a little 
 less than that of the State of New Jersey. 
 
 Hawaii was discovered in 1778 by Captain 
 Cook, who in his armed ships, the Resolution 
 and the Discovery, was trying to find a North- 
 west passage to Asia. Singularly enough, the 
 Islanders had a tradition that their God, Lono, 
 who had wandered away filled with grief after the 
 murder of his wife, would some day return *'on 
 an island bearing cocoanut trees, swine, and 
 dogs." When Captain Cook's vessels dropped 
 anchor, the tall masts looked to them like trees 
 on the floating island; and it is said that they at 
 once thought him to be Lono, and fell on their 
 (42) 
 
HAWAII OF OTHER DAYS. 43 
 
 faces, offering him gifts and sacrifices. When 
 the sailors from the vessels went ashore and light- 
 ed their cigars, the people thought them heaven- 
 ly beings because they were able to send such 
 strange fire and smoke out of their mouths, and 
 their wonder was increased at the pockets in 
 their coats from which they could take all man- 
 ner of things from a "hole in their sides when- 
 ever they wished." 
 
 Captain Cook went on his way north, but re- 
 turned in a few months, when the natives re- 
 joiced more than ever. It is said that 3,,cxD0 ca- 
 noes filled with Islanders went out to meet him, 
 and when he came ashore 15,000 people pros- 
 trated themselves on the ground and rendered 
 him homage. Among other things that were 
 presented to him were six beautiful feather 
 cloaks of almost priceless value. The feathers 
 were a delicate shade of yellow, plucked from a 
 little black bird which had only one feather of 
 this color on each side of his breast under the 
 wings. So many of these birds were killed to 
 make these cloaks, which could be worn only by 
 chiefs and kings, that the little creatures were 
 exterminated. Several of these cloaks can still 
 be seen in the Bishop Museum, in Honolulu. In 
 return for these costly gifts the king received a 
 white shirt and a cutlass. 
 
44 SIDE LIGHTS ON THE ORIENT. 
 
 Had Captain Cook told the people that he was 
 not a divine being, it might not have cost him 
 his life. He and his men treated the natives 
 roughly. The death of one of his sailors made 
 them realize that they were human beings like 
 themselves; and when he required supplies, and 
 finally demanded the king himself as a hostage, 
 a native chief slipped up behind the Captain and 
 stabbed him in the back. Miss Brain says in her 
 very interesting book, "The Transformation of 
 Hawaii :" ''The native account of the unfortu- 
 nate affair says that the chief had no intention 
 of killing the Captain, believing him to be im- 
 mortal. When he seized him, however, he called 
 for help and cried out in pain. Hearing this, the 
 chief exclaimed, 'He groans ! He is not a god !' 
 and at once took his life." 
 
 In those early days the natives were idolaters 
 of the grossest sort. In the museum referred to 
 there is a model of a heathen temple with hideous 
 images made of wood. Some of these idols were 
 kept in a straw hut in one corner and others were 
 set upon the wall as guardians of the place. The 
 head and neck of some of these are of wicker- 
 work covered with fine red feathers. "Their 
 eyes were of mother-of-pearl and their great 
 mouths adorned with three rows of shark's teeth 
 stretched from ear to ear, and to 'their heads 
 
HAWAII OF OTHER DAYS. 45 
 
 were fastened long tresses of human hair." 
 There were gods of the land and gods of the 
 sea. Even the shark was worshiped and kept 
 in inclosures made of coral at the seashore in 
 order that offerings might be thrown to him. 
 
 The people were not only superstitious but ab- 
 solutely lacking in modesty and in sense of 
 shame. They wore little or no clothing. When 
 the ship Thaddeus arrived with missionaries on 
 board, King Liho-Liho was invited to dine with 
 them. To the astonishment and confusion of the 
 ladies, the King arrived attired in a "narrow 
 waist girdle and green silk scarf thrown over his 
 shoulders, a necklace of large beads, and a crown 
 of scarlet feathers." When the missionaries were 
 settled in their own home on shore, he made 
 them another visit accompanied by his five wives. 
 It being hinted to him that he would be more 
 welcome in a different style of dress than that 
 which he wore, his Majesty came the next day 
 in an elaborate costume consisting of green silk 
 stockings and a silk hat. 
 
 Great reverence was felt for the chiefs. They 
 were not infrequently followed by as many as 
 twenty-five men and boys carrying umbrellas and 
 spittoons. The latter was on account of a super- 
 stition that if a chief or king were to spit on a 
 chip or stone his enemy could take it and use 
 
46 SIDE LIGHTS ON THE ORIENT. 
 
 it as a charm against him to bring on some 
 disease or the presence of an evil spirit. 
 
 The tab It was something practiced by the chiefs 
 in order to selfishly keep food, including fish and 
 fruit, for their own use, and also to give them 
 a stronger hold upon the people. To violate the 
 tabu was a crime punishable by death. Cocoanut 
 trees were marked with the tabu; so were banana 
 trees, and often so many things that it was diffi- 
 cult for the common people, and especially the 
 women, to get anything to eat. "During these 
 periods every fire and light on the island must be 
 extinguished, no canoe must be launched upon 
 the water, no person must bathe, no individual 
 must be seen out of doors, no dog must bark, no 
 pig must grunt, no cock must crow, or the fab it 
 would be broken and fail to accomplish the ob- 
 ject designated." Of course it was impossible to 
 keep such commands as these, and so the prop- 
 erty of the subjects who broke the tabu was 
 seized by the chiefs and used as their own. 
 
 The Hawaiians were very fond of dogs. They 
 regarded the flesh of the dog as sweeter than that 
 of the pig. One missionary wrote home that he 
 saw nearly two hundred dogs cooked at one time, 
 and reported a certain royal feast where twice 
 that number were baked and devoured. 
 
 In 18 10, immediatelv after the .death of King 
 
HAWAII OF OTHER DAYS. 47 
 
 Kamehameha L, whose bronze statue is seen in 
 front of the government building, the tabu was 
 broken all over the Islands and idolatry was dis- 
 continued. The people had grown tired of this 
 fearful bondage, and a priest himself led them 
 in the destruction of the idols. 
 
 These simple Islanders seem to have been pre- 
 pared for the gospel. While they were lacking 
 in a sense of shame and virtue, yet they were 
 willing to learn, kindly in disposition, and appre- 
 ciated what was done for them when they saw it 
 was done in a spirit of true friendship and a 
 desire to do them good. They were children of 
 nature, fond of sunshine and fair weather; they 
 could swim like ducks and ride the surf with 
 wonderful skill as they stood upon a board and 
 floated in upon the breakers which rolled over 
 and over upon the beach. 
 
 We had a splendid exhibition of their swim- 
 ming ability when ten or fifteen boys, with only 
 a loin cloth about them, appeared in the water 
 about the steamer, their black heads bobbing up 
 and down and their swarthy backs glistening in 
 the sunlight. Whenever a nickel or a dime was 
 tossed into the water by one of our passengers, 
 down they would go, three or four at a time, and 
 in less than a half minute one of them would 
 come bobbing up like a cork with the coin in his 
 
48 SIDE LIGHTS ON THE ORIENT. 
 
 outstretched hand, and then it would go into his 
 mouth and he would at once be on the lookout 
 tor another chance to add to his store. To our 
 astonishment some of these little fellows came 
 up on our steamer, got into the lifeboats swing- 
 ing: awav above our heads, and dived otT of them 
 fifty feet, headforemost, down into the sea. One 
 cannot help admiring such strength and activity 
 and courag'e, for it is said that at times in their 
 surf-bathing they have to defend themselves from 
 the shark with a stick, pointed and hardened at 
 each end. which they run into his mouth, and 
 thus by transfixing his jaws become masters even 
 of this dread monster of the sea. 
 
VI. 
 
 THE AWAKENING OF HAWAII. 
 
 Shortly after the death of Kamehameha I. 
 several missionaries of the American Board ar- 
 rived. This was in the year 1820. It is ahnost 
 impossible to describe the hardships they en- 
 dured and the difficulties they met with. The 
 people worshiped idols; there was no word for 
 virtue in their language ; there was no conception 
 of God ; when the Lord's Supper was commemo- 
 rated by the missionaries, the natives thought the 
 wine or the juice of the grape was the blood of 
 human victims; when they made cellars for their 
 houses, the Hawaiians thought the missionaries 
 were building forts; there was no written lan- 
 guage, and it was almost impossible to get the 
 natives to understand the ideas of goodness, grat- 
 itude, and purity which were so necessary for a 
 better life. Then the missionaries had to eat 
 stale food, because as yet they were unable to 
 raise the food which they needed for themselves 
 and children. Besides all this, there were many 
 runaway sailors and low white men who were 
 living a life of idleness and vice. These did a1- 
 4 (49) 
 
50 SIDE LIGHTS ON THE ORIENT. 
 
 most as much harm as the missionaries did good, 
 and the sad part of it was that they came from 
 Christian lands. As the result of months of 
 prayer and diligent effort, the wife of Kameha- 
 meha the Great, and the mother of two kings, 
 became the first baptized convert and the first 
 member of the native Hawaiian Church. King 
 Liho-Liho declared himself in favor of Chris- 
 tianity, and his wife became a devout Christian. 
 She not only urged her people to worship the 
 true God, but built the first Christian school in 
 Honolulu. Another convert of an adjoining 
 island was a queen who was converted at fifty 
 years of age. She had been proud and cruel, 
 but she became so patient and gentle and kind 
 that her subjects called her the "New Kaahumu." 
 She learned to read and write when she was over 
 fifty, and to set her people a good example took 
 her examination at the school just as they did. 
 When she died, in 1832, one of the missionaries 
 wrote of her as follows: "The mission has lost 
 in her a mother and judicious counselor and firm 
 supporter, but heaven has received a soul cleansed 
 by the blood of Christ from the foul stains of 
 heathenism, infanticide, and abominable pollu- 
 tion." 
 
 In 1835 R^v. Titus Coan and his wife arrived. 
 He became the pastor of a Httle Church of twen- 
 
THE AWAKENING OF HAWAII. 5I 
 
 ty-three members at HIlo, on the largest island. 
 Nothing daunted him. He would preach to his 
 people on Sunday, and then spend the week mak- 
 ing difficult and dangerous journeys across the 
 lava beds or along the mountain paths and into 
 the valleys, eating and sleeping with the people 
 and talking to them about Christ. Within two 
 years the "great awakening" began, when the 
 people were so stirred concerning their need of 
 Christ and a better life that they crowded Mr. 
 Coan's house, refusing to go away until after 
 midnight. By daylight they were there again. 
 This spread from village to village, and then 
 they came out from the villages to Hilo until ten 
 thousand people had gathered in the town for in- 
 struction. For two whole years these people re- 
 mained in this great camp meeting. The men 
 were put to work fishing along the shore and cul- 
 tivating gardens in which potatoes and taro were 
 planted for food, while the women were taught 
 by the missionaries' wives habits of cleanliness 
 and usefulness, such as sewing, cooking, dress- 
 making, and braiding straw hats. As the result 
 of this work on one single day in July, 1838, con- 
 verts to the number of 1705 were baptized and 
 received into the Church, and the good work 
 went on in the island until Titus Coan became 
 pastor of the largest Church in the world, 
 
52 SIDE LIGHTS OX THE ORIENT. 
 
 which at the end of five years had 7,557 mem- 
 bers. 
 
 On this same island of Hawaii is the volcano 
 of Kilauea, which is the largest on the globe. It 
 is 4,400 feet above the sea level, has a crater 
 eight miles around, and is over 1,000 feet deep. 
 At the bottom of this crater is a lake of lava, 
 boiling and smoking with fires that never die 
 out, and it is most appropriately called by the na- 
 tives Holemaumau, "the house of everlasting 
 burning." The goddess Pele was supposed to 
 live in this volcano, and the fire demons that threw 
 up the showers of fire and stones and brought out 
 the lava were her slaves. The Hawaiians were 
 dreadfully afraid of this cruel goddess, and often 
 threw white chickens, fish, fruit, and dogs into 
 the crater as an offering to appease her wrath. 
 
 The ruler of this part of the main island of 
 Hawaii was Kapaiolani, the daughter of a chief 
 and the most famous of all the converts. When 
 the missionaries first saw her, she was sitting on 
 a rock anointing herself with oil. She had sev- 
 eral husbands and was a hard drinker of intoxi- 
 cating liquors. When she became a Christian, 
 she gave up all her bad habits, dismissed all her 
 husbands except one, Naiho, who promised to 
 help her in her new religion. Finding that her 
 people were so enslaved by their fear of Pele, 
 
THE AWAKENING OF HAWAII. 53 
 
 she resolved single-handed to face the goddess 
 and break the spell. Her husband tried to dis- 
 suade her, and her people gathered round, pros- 
 trating themselves, and begged her not to go. 
 She turned a deaf ear to their entreaties and 
 traveled the entire distance, one hundred miles, 
 on foot across the lava beds, saying that her Heav- 
 enly Father would protect her. At last eighty 
 of her people determined to go with her. Over 
 and over again on the way they begged her to 
 return; but she kept on, and replied: 'If I am 
 destroyed, you may all believe in Pele; but if I 
 am not, then you must all turn to the true God." 
 
 Upon reaching the crater she climbed down al- 
 most to the very edge, where the ground trem- 
 bled under her feet, and steam and smoke issued 
 from the great cracks about her. Taking up a 
 stone in her hand, she hurled it into the abyss 
 below, and defied the goddess Pele to come out. 
 Her people were so terrified that they threw 
 themselves upon their faces. Turning to them, 
 this noble and courageous woman said : ''J^^o^'^^'^ 
 is my God. He kindled these fires. I fear no 
 Pele. The gods of Hawaii are vain. Great is 
 the goodness of Jehovah in sending the mission- 
 aries to turn us from these vanities to the living 
 God !" 
 
 Finding that Pele did not injure her, the na- 
 
54 ^^ir)K LuiiiTS ON thf: orient. 
 
 lives gathered around their princess and knek 
 with her in prayer, after which they sang a Chris- 
 tian hymn amid the roaring of the fires and the 
 crackhng of the flames. Then she returned to 
 Hilo w^ith feet bruised and sore, but rejoicing 
 that God had sustained her and given strength 
 and Hfe to be devoted to untiring efforts in w^in- 
 ning her nation to faith in the Hving God. 
 
 W^ith such devotion did these early Christians 
 take up the work that they began the building 
 of churches on all the islands. The Coral 
 Church in Honolulu is one of the most interest- 
 ing. When they determined to build, the men 
 went out in their canoes to where the surf beats 
 upon the reefs and, diving down into the sea, 
 with sharpened sticks prized off great blocks of 
 coral. They then returned to their boats above 
 them for a breathing spell, went down once more 
 with ropes, and made them fast to these blocks, 
 while others in the canoes hauled them up. On 
 reaching the shore the coral was carried by men, 
 and sometimes by women, to the foundation of 
 the church, others bringing sand and lime. Thus 
 block on block the church went up until it stands 
 there to-day a monument of their faith and self- 
 denying effort. 
 
 While many of the Islanders irt past years were 
 brought to Christ, a change has come in the 
 
CORAL CHURCH. 
 
 LAVA IN CRATER, KILAUEA. 
 
THR AWAKENING OF HAWAII. 55 
 
 population. Thousands of Portuguese, Roman 
 Catholics, and Chinese and Japanese Buddhists 
 have come in, and not a few white men, who have 
 opened saloons and subjected the simple Island- 
 ers to severe temptation with the result of draw- 
 ing not a few away from their early faith. The 
 Church in the United States needs to be wide 
 awake to this new need and great opportunity 
 to help strengthen the faith of those who have 
 already been reached, and to Christianize the 
 tens of thousands of Asiatics who have come to 
 work upon the sugar plantations. 
 
 With this closing line we give the beautiful 
 salutation of the Islanders, who, when they throw 
 flowers around your neck upon the wharf before 
 your steamer leaves, wave their hands and say: 
 ''Aloha ! Aloha !" (Love to you ! Love to you !) 
 
VII. 
 THE LAND OF THE RISING SUN. 
 
 Tex days out from Honolulu, and we are ap- 
 proaching the Japanese coast. Already there are 
 signs of land, for we have seen large masses of 
 seaweed floating by. Then a snow-white gull 
 has come out to meet us, and hovers gracefully 
 over our steamer — a beautiful white-winged mes- 
 senger. We have had it pretty rough, the sea 
 sometimes in great waves towering above the 
 bow and falling in tons of water upon the deck. 
 But now everything is calm, and we look forward 
 to our getting ashore in another day. 
 
 On Sunday afternoon we had an interesting 
 little service down between decks among the 
 steerage passengers. It was a curious company, 
 the congregation nearly all standing up, for there 
 were no seats. Rev. D. S. Spencer, of Tokyo, 
 addressed the Japanese in the congreg*ation, using 
 their language, and Rev. ^Ir. Thwing, of Hon- 
 olulu, the Chinese in their own tongue. While 
 they were speaking I noticed one Chinaman 
 crouched down in the corner on the end of a 
 is6) 
 
THE LAND OF THE RISING SUN, 57 
 
 plank with a long pipe in his mouth. Three of 
 the sailors behind us were smoking cigarettes. 
 Another Chinese sailor had a bucket of water in 
 each hand, and stood there a few minutes to 
 catch a part of the sermon. A great big Russian 
 formed a part of the background, and several of 
 the first-class passengers were with us to attend 
 this novel service, where the singing was in Chi- 
 nese, Japanese, and in English all at the same 
 time. A retired merchant from Louisville, Ky., 
 was so interested that he said it was worth travel- 
 ing across the Pacific Ocean to attend such a 
 meeting and to see how deeply interested some of 
 the Japanese were in what was being said. He 
 must have been interested himself because where 
 he sat on the hatchway I could see the water drip- 
 ping on his hat and once in a while a good big 
 drop rolling down his neck. 
 
 In that little group gathered around the speak- 
 ers was a Japanese commission merchant about 
 fifty years old, whose face had been badly pitted 
 with smallpox. His hair and mustache had be- 
 gun to turn gray, and he looked as if he had 
 worked very hard while on the Hawaiian Islands. 
 His earnestness and kindly spirit expressed them- 
 selves in both his face and his dark brown eyes. 
 The name of this Japanese gentleman is Mr. 
 Datte, and he is so closely connected with the 
 
58 SIDE LIGHTS OX THE ORIENT. 
 
 opening of our Methodist work in Japan that I 
 must tell his story as he told it to me. 
 
 Nearly thirty years ago INlr. Datte went from 
 Yokohama to San Francisco to see something of 
 America. When he landed he had no money and 
 was obliged to find work at once. Not having 
 any friends in the city who could help him, he 
 crossed the bay and visited Oakland. Unable to 
 get any work there, he wandered out into the 
 country, and finally came across a farmer who 
 gave him employment. After a few weeks he fell 
 sick, and having a high fever went out one morn- 
 ing with the farm hands, not to work, but to lie 
 down under a tree to die. As he did not return at 
 noon, the farmer's wife inquired of the hands 
 where the Japanese boy was. They did not know 
 and did not seem to care. The farmer and his 
 wife searched for him, bore him to the house in 
 an unconscious condition, and put him to bed. 
 He was sick for several weeks, but they nursed 
 him tenderly and he began to recover. 
 
 The farmer was from Switzerland and was an 
 earnest Christian. When young Datte was able to 
 talk and had strength enough to ask questions, he 
 inquired of the farmer where he had found him 
 and why it was that he should have taken so 
 much pains to care for a stranger. The farmer 
 replied that he was a Christian and that Jesus 
 
THE LAND OF THE RISING SUN. 59 
 
 Christ, whom he served, had taught him to care 
 for the sick and the stranger. The young Jap- 
 anese then said : "Tell me about your God." The 
 man did so in simple words that the boy could 
 understand. Datte listened very attentively, then 
 looked up at the farmer and said: "Your God 
 must be the true God. I came from Japan, and 
 had no friends ; my money was out, and you gave 
 me work; I became sick, and you took care of 
 me as you would your own son. My mother lives 
 in Japan far away ; she does not know that I am 
 sick, and could not come if she did. But your 
 wife has been a mother to me, and the God who 
 led you to do all this for a poor sick stranger 
 must be the true God." 
 
 When young Datte recovered he made a pro- 
 fession of religion, expressing his deep and abid- 
 ing faith in Jesus Christ, and joined the Metho- 
 dist Church. Returning to San Francisco, he 
 found employment there through friends who 
 had been raised up, and he soon did well. He 
 joined the Japanese Y. M. C. A., and was made 
 its first president, working actively in connection 
 with what is called the Gospel Society. The spe- 
 cial work of this society was to look after the 
 friendless Japanese landing on a strange shore. 
 
 One day while standing on the wharf just as a 
 steamer from Japan had come alongside he saw 
 
60 SIDE LIGHTS ON THE ORIENT. 
 
 a Japanese sailor who had come ashore and was 
 looking about aimlessly. Datte introduced him- 
 self, and, finding that the sailor did not know 
 where to go, took him to the Gospel Society. 
 There the sailor, whose name was T. Sunamoto, 
 found a good supper and a clean bed. What was 
 more important, it was.not long before he found 
 Christ as his Saviour through the influence of 
 our young friend, who was anxious to do some- 
 thing to help another as he had been helped him- 
 self. The sailor, who had been a pilot for a num- 
 ber of years on the Japanese coast, remained in 
 San Francisco, went to a night school, learned 
 to speak and read English, returned to Kobe, 
 Japan, after five years, and in 1886 helped us to 
 found the mission of the Methodist Episcopal 
 Church, South. With these facts it will not be 
 wondered at that during the little service between 
 the decks of the Mongolia my eyes were riveted 
 upon the scarred but kindly face of this Christian 
 Japanese who, led by the Spirit of God, was a 
 pioneer in opening the way through another man's 
 life to the hearts and homes of thousands of his 
 own people. 
 
 The last day of our voyage has come. We 
 find ourselves peering into the distance for the 
 first sight of land. Suddenly on our right, or over 
 the starboard bow, as the sailors say, we see a line 
 
THE LAND OF Tllh KlhlNG SUN. 6l 
 
 of hills with rugged cliffs here and there. Then 
 in an hour, when the clouds begin to break, there 
 rises Fujiyama, the peerless mountain of the 
 Land of the Rising Sun. Its summit, even now, 
 is sun-kissed and glorious as it glistens in the 
 light reflected from the snow along its beautiful 
 slopes. It is eighty miles away, but can be clearly 
 seen, rising as it does 12,365 feet above the level 
 of the sea. These figures can be remembered by 
 the twelve months and the number of days in 
 the year. 
 
 Here and there we now see a white sail. Some 
 daring fisherman has come far out from the land 
 to cast his net. On the horizon are two steamers, 
 one coming out from the bay and another steam- 
 ing in. To the west of us is Vries Island, an 
 active volcano, from which during the day smoke 
 can be seen issuing and sometimes at night the 
 glow of the volcanic fires thrown up against the 
 clouds. 
 
 Now we are entering Tokyo Bay, and can 
 easily see on the shore, on the starboard side, the 
 lighthouse which guards the rocky coast and 
 beyond it the beautiful monument erected three 
 years ago to the memory of Commodore Perry, 
 who steamed up the bay in 1854 and landed at 
 Uruwaga, near which place the monument now 
 stands. Without the firing of a gun the Mikado's 
 
62 SIDE LIGHTS ON THE ORIENT. 
 
 empire was opened to the outside world and to 
 a Christian civiHzation through the messenger of 
 peace who was sent from the United States of 
 America. Thus from the beginning there has 
 been a bond of friendship between these two 
 
VIII. 
 YOKOHAMA. 
 
 For the second time during our voyage from 
 San Francisco the MongoHa has dropped anchor. 
 We have come 3,400 miles from Honolulu, where 
 we made our first visit, and during all that dis- 
 tance, day and night, the fires have been burning 
 beneath our feet, fed by the stokers out of sight, 
 and the great engines have been at work in our 
 service. We are glad that the engineers and fire- 
 men are to have a rest for a couple of days. 
 
 Our steamer is literally surrounded with little 
 boats called "sampans." The word "sampan" 
 means three boards, and comes from China. Here 
 are the little Japs on every side waving their 
 hands, bowing and saluting in some cases, and 
 in others trying to get the Japanese passengers 
 to agree to take passage ashore and go to their 
 hotels. After medical inspection of the crew and 
 passengers, the ladder is let down by the side of 
 the ship, and up come the Japanese boatmen and 
 hotel runners as though racing for life. One 
 fellow falls backward into his boat, another near- 
 ly tumbles overboard and is pulled up by his col- 
 
 (63) 
 
64 SIDE LIGHTS ON THE ORIENT. 
 
 lar just ill time to save him from a ducking. A 
 third has a basket of greens which gets upset, 
 and he loses half of his vegetables in the sea. 
 There are Chinese tailors by the dozen, with sam- 
 ples in hand, soliciting the European passengers 
 to have a suit of clothes made. 
 
 After a while the hubbub ceases, order is re- 
 stored, good-bys are said, and we are all off for 
 the wharf, where our luggage is inspected, and 
 then we take jinrikishas for the station. How 
 queer it is for those who ride in these little two- 
 wheel pull-man cars or carriages, in the shafts of 
 which is a two-legged horse who eats rice and 
 fish instead of hay, goes at a fast trot and some- 
 times at a breakneck pace, and is always in a 
 good humor ! On our way to the station we are 
 impressed by the narrow streets, the heavy tile 
 roofs, the almost numberless shops, and the fre- 
 quency of paper doors and windows instead of 
 board or glass. Nearly every family seems to 
 make something for sale. In the front of one 
 house you see matches made of shavings, one 
 end of the shaving being dipped in sulphur; in 
 the next little sweet cakes they call ''sembe ;" then 
 there follows a stocking shop ; then the next is 
 one where you find beans, peas, rice, and various 
 kinds of grains, but not more than about a peck 
 of anv one kind ; and so on down the street. Some 
 
YOKOHAMA. 65 
 
 of the shop signs seem to be pieces of wood of 
 line grain but irregular shape, which have been 
 dipped in the sea until barnacles have grown all 
 over them. Other pieces I noticed with holes 
 bored through and through by the ants. It must 
 be the oddity that makes the rough sign attractive 
 to them. It certainly is curious to a foreigner. 
 
 Here is a shop where the sign is in English, 
 "The Hall of Milk;" and some one says there is 
 a barber shop over the door of which you will 
 find these words: ''Shavings and Hair Cuttings." 
 This reminds me of the bookstore in the city of 
 Hiroshima, when I- lived there years ago, which 
 had on it: ''Book Sellers and Students Shot 
 Here." A dangerous place ! The sign painter 
 had made a "t" instead of a "p" in the word 
 "shop;" but as the bookseller was himself no 
 wiser, it made no great difference at last. 
 
 We reached the station and found Mr. Datte's 
 wife and children there to meet him. It is a most 
 interesting family. She is a substantial-looking 
 lady with an intelligent face. She speaks Eng- 
 lish fairly well, and tells us that one of her chil- 
 dren was born in Canada and the others on the 
 Hawaiian Islands. While these Eastern people 
 do not express their joy as we do, yet it was easy 
 to see how glad they were to have the husband 
 and father v/ith them again after a long absence. 
 
 5 
 
66 SIOK LKUITS ON rUE ORIEN r. 
 
 The homes which such Christian famihes repre- 
 sent are the hope of Japan aiui of any land. It 
 was a dehght to us aU to meet this man's wife 
 and his pretty children after we had become ac- 
 quainted with the story of his life. 
 
 I fear that our party became thoroughly de- 
 moralized by getting ashore and seeing so many 
 strange things. \\'e had not been long at the 
 station before one of our passengers discovered 
 that he had lost his trunk. Then he and I had 
 a race in jinrikishas back to the wharf to find 
 it, calling out "Hyaku ! Hyaku !" as we went 
 along, which would be in English: ''Hurry up! 
 Hurry up!" We found the trunk and returned 
 to the station just in time for the train, when 
 I discovered that I had lost my grip. Then there 
 was another scene of confusion. At last it Avas 
 found in the baggage car, where it had been 
 checked by mistake. When we got to Tokyo, 
 eighteen miles away, 1 claimed my grip, check 
 or no check : but the baggage master politely re- 
 fused to let me have it. In despair at last we 
 went on to our hotel and to my surprise and 
 gratiiication in half an hour here came the grip, 
 which had fortunately been checked by a passen- 
 ger who came from the Mongolia and who read- 
 ily surrendered my property. A good laugh all 
 around and some bread and butter for supper. 
 
YOKOHAMA. 67 
 
 with a cup of tea, prepared us for cur first night 
 on shore. 
 
 Early after breakfast we are out on the 
 streets of Tokyo. The first thing we meet is a 
 countryman puUing a two-wheeled cart on which 
 is a heavy load. By his side is a shepherd dog 
 w^th a collar around his neck and a rope tied to 
 it, while the other end of the rope is fastened 
 to the cart, and here he is pulling for all he is 
 worth by the side of his master. No whip is 
 needed and no harsh word is heard — only a bit 
 of encouragement now and then. 
 
 We pass a vegetable shop in front of which is 
 a large bucket the size of a half barrel, full of 
 water and sweet potatoes. A boy with two sticks 
 higher than his head, and tied together with a 
 straw rope near the lower end of the sticks, is 
 washing the sweet potatoes by stirring them with 
 the sticks, which form something like a pair of 
 tongs, except that the lower ends cross each oth- 
 er. The method seemed to be quite effective, for 
 they went in very dirty and came out very clean. 
 
 Just beyond this was a lineman climbing up a 
 slick telegraph pole which reached up higher than 
 the houses. He had nothing on his feet but a 
 pair of blue cotton socks; they call them "tabi." 
 Between his teeth was one end of a rope. I 
 looked for a spike here and there, but there was 
 
68 SIDE LIGHTS ON THE ORIENT. 
 
 nothing but the sHck pole, up which that fellow 
 went like a cat. He did it by bracing- the soles 
 of his feet against the sides of the pole, reaching 
 high up with his hands, pulling his feet up, brac- 
 ing again, and repeating the operation until he 
 reached the top. All the Japanese appear to me 
 to be bow-legged. It is probably because they sit 
 on the floor with their feet crossed under them, 
 and I am sure that only a bow-legged fellow 
 could climb a pole in that style, especially one as 
 slick as that pole was. 
 
 Here is a woman drying and ironing clothes 
 on a board. The clothes have only been basted 
 together. She takes out the basting threads, 
 washes the cloth, leans the board against the 
 house in the. sun, stretches the cloth out on the 
 board, smoothing out the wrinkles with her hands, 
 and in this way dries and irons at the same time. 
 In the adjoining house we can hear the splash, 
 splash, splash of the bathers, who are having a 
 good time in the hot water, which the Japanese 
 so much enjoy. Everybody has a hot bath every 
 night if he can afford the time and money. In 
 many ways the Japanese are an example to the 
 world in the cleanliness of their person and of 
 their houses, though there is still room for im- 
 provement in some ways. 
 
IX. 
 
 BENKEI THE GIANT. 
 
 Almost as far back as the days of King Ar- 
 thur in England there lived in Japan two broth- 
 ers, Yoritomo and Yoshitsune.- For a while these 
 brothers, who were both brave men, fought side 
 by side; but at last Yoritomo became jealous of 
 his younger brother and sought to kill him. Yo- 
 shitsune bore with his elder brother long and 
 patiently. He wrote him a letter, which the Jap- 
 anese frequently refer to, in which he reminded 
 him of the toils and hardships which he had un- 
 dergone in his behalf, and with tender feeling 
 pleaded with Yoritomo to cease from distrusting 
 him. The message was a model of brotherly af- 
 fection and frankness ; but it was of no avail, and 
 he had to fly for his life. 
 
 Every boy in Japan knows something of Yo- 
 shitsune's history. He was so noble in charac- 
 ter that he was called 'The Knight without Fear 
 and without Reproach." His courage and his lof- 
 tiness of purpose were such that his name and 
 deeds became famous throughout the land. He 
 was held un as an example to the sons of the 
 
 (69) 
 
70 SIDE LIGHTS ON THE ORIENT. 
 
 Samurai, or soldiers of Japan, and to this day 
 his picture can be seen on the kites the Japanese 
 are so skillful in making. 
 
 One day as Yoshitsune was crossing a bridge 
 in the city of Kioto he met a man of gigantic 
 stature who was in the habit of robbing and kill- 
 ing those who passed by. He was the terror of 
 the neighborhood, and not a man was to be found 
 who dared to arrest him. The giant's name was 
 Benkei. As soon as the two met they grappled 
 with each other, wrestling and fighting until the 
 very bridge shook under their feet. Yoshitsune, 
 though not so strong, was more skillful, and, 
 throwing the giant down, pinned him to the floor 
 of the bridge. The dreaded highway robber sur- 
 rendered to his master, and became Yoshitsune's 
 devoted servant, serving him well in many a per- 
 ilous expedition. 
 
 The two, master and servant, were obliged in 
 their flight from Yoritomo to cross the Hakone 
 Pass not far from Mount Fuji. They disguised 
 themselves as wandering Buddhist priests who 
 were collecting money for the casting of a great 
 bell. Halted in the Pass by a soldier who was 
 on picket duty, it looked for a moment as though 
 they would be discovered and captured. Benkei, 
 who was very shrewd, guessing the soldier could 
 not read, drew from his girdle a roll of blank 
 
BENKEI THE GIANT. n\ 
 
 paper. Looking very solemn, he pressed it to his 
 forehead, making a profound bow at the same 
 time, as though in prayer, and then with the 
 choicest and most pious language he made up the 
 contents of a letter which he led the soldier to 
 suppose was written by the high priest of a tem- 
 ple in Kioto, authorizing them to make a pil- 
 grimage for the collection of money for the bell. 
 The soldier no sooner heard the name of the 
 priest, who was a very famous man, than he fell 
 upon his knees, and with his face to the earth 
 listened with awe to the contents of the letter. 
 When Benkei thought he had said enough, he 
 slyly concluded to put an end to all suspicion 
 by begging the sentinel *'to excuse the improper 
 behavior of his servant," who had meantime re- 
 mained standing, observing that he was still a 
 greenhorn and had no manners, for he had only 
 recently come out of the rice field. He then 
 turned to Yoshitsune, whacked him over the head, 
 told him to fall at once upon his marrowbones 
 and not stand there like a gawk in the presence 
 of a brave soldier. The trick worked like a 
 charm, and the sentinel let them go on their way 
 unmolested. 
 
 Many stories are told about Benkei's strength 
 and shrewdness. He had numberless hairbreadth 
 escapes while serving his master. So hot were 
 
y2 SIDE LIGHTS ON THE ORIENT. 
 
 their enemies in pnrsuit that for many months he 
 continnecl in the disguise of a priest and Hved in 
 the neighborhood of Lake Biwa, where stands the 
 temple of Miidera. In one of the buildings on 
 the right side of the temple court as we ap- 
 proached it from the lake is what is known as 
 *'Cenkei's Soup Kettle." It is made of iron and 
 so heav}' that six men could hardly lift it. It is 
 four feet deep, five feet across, and fifteen feet 
 nine inches in circumference. Enough soup could 
 be made in this kettle at one time for a hundred 
 priests. But the simple-minded country folk 
 who come to see it steadfastly believe that Yo- 
 shitsune's gigantic servant could swallow the en- 
 tire contents at one meal. 
 
 Not far from the temple of which we speak is 
 the "Well of Akai." The source of supply for 
 this well is said to be the holy water which comes 
 from a pond in India. It has many virtues, one 
 of which is to make the disposition harmless, and 
 another is to make the temper sweet. Three em- 
 perors were bathed with this holy water when 
 they were born, and so the name ''Miidera," or 
 "Sublime Temple," was given to the shrine. The 
 word "Mikado," which is applied to the Emperor 
 of Japan, means "Sublime Porte or Gate." The 
 priests who worship at this shrine insist that if 
 anv man drinks the water of this well he will es- 
 
BELL OF MIIDERA. 
 
BENKEI THE GIANT. 73 
 
 cape all the evils of life and his sins will be de- 
 stroyed. 
 
 Climbhig farther up the hill, we come to the 
 great Bell of Miidera. It is in a little pavilion by 
 itself, and we had to pay a small admission fee 
 to get to see it. Scarcely had we entered before 
 a Japanese, who sat on his heels behind a little 
 bookstall on our right, began in a singsong tone 
 to sound the praises of Benkei and the bell. He 
 had his story so pat that he reeled it of¥ by the 
 yard, w^ould stop short off in the middle or at 
 any point, and exclaim: *'Here is a plan of the 
 temple; buy a copy for half a cent. Have you 
 got a photograph of the bell? It is the most 
 famous in all Japan. You must not go away 
 without hearing the story of Benkei." While 
 saying these words his nimble fingers were at 
 work picking up a history of the temple here or 
 a picture of the bell there, and selling the same 
 to the visitors while he returned to the thread 
 of his story with scarcely a break in his voice or 
 change in his expression. 
 
 "Listen to the story of the bell," said he as a 
 lot of farmers and their wives gathered around 
 and stared with all their might. "You have all 
 heard of the renowned Benkei, the servant of 
 Yoshitsune. He became a priest and lived on the 
 mountain side far up above Lake Biwa. Al- 
 
74 SIDE LIGHTS ON THE ORIENT. 
 
 though he had drunk water from the well of 
 Akai and made soup with it in the great iron 
 bowl, his temper had not yet become fully sweet- 
 ened. The truth is he was still the old Benkei in 
 disguise, and he resisted its virtues. Falling out 
 with the priests of this temple because, perhaps, 
 he thought of them as disloyal to his master, he 
 came down the mountain one night, placed the 
 bell on his shoulder, and returning to his fast- 
 ness, almost as high as the clouds, he swung it 
 in mid-air where it could sound out its best notes. 
 Mark what strength this giant had ! The bell is 
 five feet three inches high, higher than that farm- 
 er who stands by its side. It would take three of 
 you to reach around it and twenty men could not 
 move it from its place. But the giant bore it off 
 with ease and struck it with a great wooden beam 
 to make it talk. Alas ! the only thing it would 
 say was : 'Miidera, Miidera, take me back to Mii- 
 dera!' This was all in so mournful a voice that 
 Benkei got mad, tore it from its fastening, and 
 kicked it down the mountain. It did not stop 
 rolling until it reached its old resting place, but 
 it was cracked and scarred by its journey. If you 
 don't believe my story, examine the cracks and 
 feel the scratches on the left side there." 
 
 The clever story-teller, with a final wave of 
 his hand, as if to crown his efforts by a master 
 
BEXKEI THE GIANT. 75 
 
 Stroke, cried out: "Get back there, you woman, 
 wife of that country gawk ! Don't look too hard 
 at that bell ! Years ago a lady of rank gazed so 
 admiringly upon it that she pulled a piece out as 
 big as your two hands ; and if you go on looking 
 like that with those gimlet eyes of yours, you 
 might pull the whole side of it out, and then what 
 would Miidera do for its famous bell?" 
 
X. 
 
 UNDER THE MOUNTAINS TO LAKE 
 BIWA. 
 
 It was on a beautiful May morning that we 
 started for a trip through the Lake Biw^a Canal. 
 This canal leads from the Basin on the west (or 
 Kioto) side of the mountains through a tunnel 
 to Lake Biwa on the other side. 
 
 On our way to the Basin we walked by the 
 side of the incline, which runs from the canal 
 below to the Basin 1,900 feet above, and which is 
 so steep that a cable is necessary to haul the 
 boats up to it from the city below\ These boats 
 are mostly for freight, and are about forty feet 
 long. The cradle is like a great wagon on small 
 wheels. One runs down the incline, held by one 
 ^ cable, while the other runs up the incline drawn 
 by another cable. The cradle that goes down aft- 
 er the boats runs right into the water at the foot 
 of the mountain and slips under the boat, which 
 may be loaded with bales of cloth or goods to 
 be sold to the people who live around the shores 
 
 (76) 
 
UNDER THE MOUNTAINS TO LAKE BIWA. 77 
 
 of Lake Biwa. The boatmen, with bamboo poles, 
 guide their boat into the cradle, signal that they 
 are ready, and then the cable begins to pull the 
 boat and all right up out of the water on its 
 overland trip until it reaches the basin above, 
 which is the mouth of the canal through the 
 mountains. 
 
 A passenger boat awaited us at the top of the 
 incline, and in we got with the other passengers, 
 who were all Japanese, having to sit on the 
 floor on straw mats as they did; and then we 
 started for the tunnel through the mountain just 
 ahead of us. It was a peculiar experience to 
 have to go into that dark hole about ten feet 
 high, twenty feet wide, and with at least five 
 feet of water under us running as swiftly as a 
 mill race. If we had been spilled out, it would 
 have been almost impossible to do anything but 
 cling to the side of the boat, if we could have 
 gotten hold of that. The small stationary wire 
 cable, which ran along the right side of the tun- 
 nel, was too high up from the water to be 
 reached. There crouched just behind me a 
 pretty little Japanese girl, about ten years old, 
 who with her little brother and her mother, who 
 was a farmer's wife, were going through to their 
 home on the lake. It was their first trip, as they 
 had come over the mountain, and I could feel her 
 
78 SIDE LIGHTS ON THE ORIENT. 
 
 pressing against my back almost in a tremble for 
 fear we might upset. 
 
 Just before our boat started in the boatman 
 lighted a paper lantern and placed it midway 
 between the bow and stern. This, with a flick- 
 ering torch, was the only relief from the black 
 darkness which enveloped us. The lantern soon 
 went out, and there we were with only an oc- 
 casional flare of light sometimes thrown upon 
 the low roof above and sometimes upon the swift 
 current by our side. Our boatman, who stood 
 in the bow, was a powerful fellow. Bare to the 
 waist, his muscles stood out, in the occasional 
 flash of the torch, in great knots as he threw 
 himself first on one foot and then on the other, 
 grasping the cable at the side of the tunnel with 
 his two hands and pulling the boat forward with 
 a vigorous swing. By the time we were through 
 the first tunnel, which took us forty-five min- 
 utes, he was dripping with sweat. 
 
 The daylight was sweet as we swept out from 
 under the mountain into the canal on the other 
 side and were towed by the two boatmen through 
 fields of rice and barley on the east of us and 
 along the mountain slope on the wxst, where 
 graceful bamboo groves waved at us and where 
 the pink azalea bloomed in profusion in and 
 about the pines and chestnut trees. We soon 
 
UNDER THE MOUNTAINS TO LAKE BIWA. 79 
 
 came to a second tunnel, shorter than the first, 
 which also ran through a high mountain, and 
 then reappearing we wound along through a 
 lovely valley until we came to the third and long- 
 est tunnel, into which we plunged in company 
 with several other boats. It seemed as though 
 we would never get through that Egyptian dark- 
 ness, but in a little less than an hour we were in 
 the sunshine once more and on the bank and 
 walking toward the lock, where the water of 
 Lake Biwa is let in through great gates and let 
 out again, so that boats can be raised and low- 
 ered because of the difference between the level 
 of the lake and of the water in the canal. The 
 whole trip took us two hours and fifteen min- 
 utes. 
 
 This wonderful piece of engineering was due 
 to the genius of Mr. Tanabe Sakuro, a gradu- 
 ate of the Imperial College in Tokyo. His pur- 
 pose was to conduct the water of Lake Biwa 
 through the canal under the mountains into the 
 city of Kioto on the west side of the range, so 
 that rice, barley, bricks, lime, and many other 
 things can be brought directly into the great city 
 in the shortest time and at the lowest price. Be- 
 sides this freight, many passengers, like our- 
 selves, make the trip at a cost of four cents each 
 way. In addition the rice fields are irrigated 
 
80 SIDE LIGHTS ON THE ORIENT. 
 
 along the line of the canal, mill wheels are turned 
 where wheat and barley flour is being made, and 
 electric lights are furnished to Kioto as well as 
 electric power for street cars. 
 
 One or two of the inscriptions over the en- 
 trances of these tunnels will be of interest. Mar- 
 quis Ito is the author of one inscription engraved 
 in the granite which arches over the canal, and 
 reads: 'The thousand and ten thousand changes 
 of scenery." At the other end of the tunnel we 
 found the words, "Hoso Banzai;" or in English: 
 **May the Emperor's dynasty continue for- 
 ever!" Still a third by Count Inouye is from 
 the classics of Confucius: "The benevolent m.an 
 seeks the mountains (for meditation), while the 
 wise man seeks the water." 
 
 As our hostess, Mrs. W. A. Davis, had pro- 
 vided us with a substantial lunch, filling a neat 
 little bamboo basket, we determined to make a 
 trip down the lake shore to the famous pine tree 
 at Karasaki. Jumping into a jinrikisha, which 
 held two, a merry ride of over half an hour 
 brought us to a little peninsula jutting out into 
 the lake, on which stands the most wonderful 
 tree we ever saw. It is supposed to have been 
 planted during the reign of the Emperor Jomei 
 (629-641), which would make it over one thou- 
 sand years old. It is certainly the oldest pine 
 
UNDER THE MOUNTAINS TO LAKE BIWA. 8l 
 
 tree in Japan and perhaps in the world. Its 
 height is only 42 feet, but it would take five per- 
 sons with outstretched hands to reach round the 
 trunk, and the branches from east to west meas- 
 ure 162 feet, while those from north to south 
 extend over 200 feet. It covers about two- 
 thirds of an acre, which is now carefully fenced 
 in because the body of the tree has to be pro- 
 tected by filling the hollow places with plaster. 
 The limbs, hundreds of years ago, were trained 
 to turn down, and here and there where they 
 have been bent over decay has set in, and one 
 finds a little board roof built over the spot by the 
 Japanese to shelter it carefully from the weath- 
 er. As the branches extend out so far from the 
 trunk, they have to be propped up with 380 
 wooden supports. 
 
 It is said that the Emperor referred to above 
 had a follower who, while living here in Kara- 
 saki, planted a bush in the courtyard of his 
 residence, and called it ''Nokiha-no-Matsu," 
 which means : "The pine tree growing by the 
 eaves of the house." This shows how sma:ll it 
 was when first set out. There are many Japa- 
 nese poems written in praise and admiration of 
 this marvelous tree, which is one of the wonders 
 of Japan. No wonder the poets were stirred to 
 write, for as we sat looking out of the window^ 
 
82 SIDE LIGHTS ON THE ORIENT. 
 
 of the tea house near by and caught sight of the 
 waters of Lake Biwa through the branches and 
 heard the ripple of the waves we wished for the 
 skill and genius to write a poem on the old pine 
 tree of Karasaki. 
 
XI. 
 
 ARIMA, THE CRATER CITY. 
 
 An early start from Kobe by train and then 
 by jinrikisha enables you to reach Arhna for 
 dinner. It is a beautiful trip. On the right of 
 the train, as we sweep along, is the magnificent 
 bay on which I counted 250 sailboats at one 
 time. On our left, upon the crest of the moun- 
 tain range — perched midway, as it were, between 
 the sea and the sky — is the temple dedicated to 
 the mother of Buddha. Our train dashes along 
 the seashore and through the foothills of the 
 mountain range, tunneling under the rivers in- 
 stead of passing over them. In a half hour we 
 are sweeping through rice fields, beyond which 
 rises old Bismarck. This has become well known 
 among the Japanese and foreigners from its re- 
 semblance to the bald head of the old German 
 statesman, who had only a few stray hairs stand- 
 ing up from the top of his pate. The two or 
 three lonely trees on top of the hill, which can 
 easily be seen from a great distance, makes the 
 resemblance striking enough for the nickname 
 which has long been used in and about Kobe. 
 
 (83) 
 
84 SIDE LIGHTS ON THE ORIENT. 
 
 Some of our party took "rickshaws" from the 
 wayside station, where we left the train, while 
 three of us concluded to walk. A few minutes 
 brought us to the opening of a mountain gorge, 
 down which the vv^ater poured in tiny rivulets, 
 gathered in waterfalls, leaped from crag to 
 crag, dashed over bowlders, and finally gathered 
 in a stream which swept swiftly by our very 
 feet. The road ran zigzag, in and out, around 
 the side of this ravine, looking at times as though 
 it would be swept by the torrent from under our 
 feet, and at others, as we looked up, seemed to 
 be suspended in mid-air. The Japanese are 
 rightly famous for their country roads so beau- 
 tifully made, so well kept up, and making it pos- 
 sible for the people who live in one valley to 
 cross over the mountain ranges, with vegetables 
 and fruits on their backs, to the villages and mar- 
 ket towns in another valley on the far side of 
 the range. 
 
 One intensely interesting thing we sa>v as we 
 made our way up to Arima was what might be 
 called the "shingling of the mountains." The 
 rains are so heavy and the earth so loose that 
 the mountain sides are continually washing away. 
 Pebbles, rocks, and even great bowlders are 
 loosened from their places, rolled down the gorge 
 into the bed of the stream, and are swept out 
 
ARIMA, THE CRATER CITY. 85 
 
 into the valley below, destroying the rice and 
 beans and injuring the little farms on every side. 
 To stop this, men are employed by the govern- 
 ment to climb up the steep hillside with clumps 
 of sod in their hands. These are actually fas- 
 tened into the ground by sharp bamboo stakes 
 driven through them, just as a carpenter fas- 
 tens shingles on the roof of a house with nails. 
 Line after line of sod is fastened upon these bare 
 places, sometimes tied with straw ropes, until the 
 grass can get a foothold, and thus the nakedness 
 of the mountain is covered with a garment of 
 green and the farmers miles below have their 
 little farms and garden plots preserved from the 
 dangerous wash and flood which once in a while 
 carries their thatched cottages into the sea. 
 
 We reach Arima at last. It has been a hard 
 climb, but a delightful one. The little town is 
 nestled away among the mountains, and a por- 
 tion of it is said by some of the Japanese to be 
 in the crater of an old volcano. Up from the 
 tiny Japanese house where we stayed the cliffs 
 rose like sentinels about us; so steep were the 
 walls that it looked as though only an ant might 
 climb up, and yet one morning flags were fly- 
 ing from the very edge, planted there by some 
 active Japanese boys who had scaled the heights 
 from a rugged path on the opposite side. 
 
86 SIDE LIGHTS ON THE ORIENT. 
 
 Whether this be a crater or not, there are so 
 many things told us about it and the history of 
 the town that we feel as though we were over a 
 volcano. Four or five years ago the people who 
 lived here were greatly alarmed by the jarring 
 of the earth beneath their feet and by the ter- 
 rific explosions which fell upon their ears. At 
 first they thought it was the blasting of blocks 
 of granite in some quarry down in the valley; 
 then they supposed it to be gun practice across 
 the mountains on the bay near Kobe, where the 
 Japanese battle ships cast anchor. But these ter- 
 rible noises continued by day and by night. The 
 glass rattled in the windows, the tumblers jingled 
 on the tables in the hotel, and then would come 
 a sudden bumping of the earth under their feet 
 like that of a farm wagon jostling over a rough 
 country road. At last the scientists and students 
 of earthquakes came from Tokyo and elsewhere, 
 and after a careful examination declared that 
 there was a great cavern in the earth under one of 
 the mountains near Arima, and that the jarring 
 and sound of explosions were caused by the roof 
 of an immense hollow place in the earth caving 
 in. This so alarmed the people of Arima that 
 many of them left their homes. After a few 
 months, however, the noises ceased, and here the 
 Japanese are back again, bathing as usual in the 
 
TORIJIGOKU, ARIMA. 
 
ARIMA, THE CRATER CITY. 8/ 
 
 hot Springs, making their beautiful basketware, 
 having little family picnics on the mountain side, 
 and enjoying the quiet and rest of the summer 
 season, apparently without fear of what might 
 happen at any moment. 
 
 An interesting walk about Arima is to the 
 waterfall, where, like a bridal veil, down through 
 the pine trees and then over the rocks, there 
 tumbles a stream of water which is one of the 
 attractions of the place. Just beyond that, along 
 a narrow path, where we walked through groves 
 of waving bamboo, is the Torijigoku^ or Bird 
 Hell. In the ground at our very feet there 
 is a square hole. It seems to have rocky sides 
 and must be very deep. It is half full of water, 
 dark brow^n in color, and on the surface of 
 which bubbles are constantly rising. We are 
 told by the Japanese that no bird can fly across 
 this place with safety. If one chances to be too 
 venturesome and comes within a few feet of the 
 Torijigoku, he is overcome by some magic spell 
 and falls helplessly into the jaws of this earth 
 monster. If this were in China, they would be 
 sure to say that it was a dragon under the 
 ground with his mouth wide open waiting to 
 destroy its victim. 
 
 Looking down into this gruesome place, we 
 actually find a dead bird. It seems to have 
 
88 SIDE LIGHTS ON THE ORIENT. 
 
 fallen during its flight across the place, for there 
 is no tree above our heads, or perhaps it unsus- 
 pectingly lighted on the edge and was overcome. 
 The explanation is in the poisonous gas which 
 comes up through the water. The poor little 
 bird breathes some of this into his lungs, and 
 before he knows it is overcome and drops dead. 
 So famous is this spot that the Japanese have 
 cut the name Torijigoku in the stone near by 
 which marks the place, and have erected a shrine 
 just a few feet beyond, where an image of Bud- 
 dha has been engraved on a block of granite and 
 stands guard, as it were, between the parting of 
 the ways, for two paths meet at this point. 
 
 We are glad to have other memories connect- 
 ed with Arima in the mountains. The Presby- 
 terian missionaries have held delightful meetings 
 here and the Methodists have just closed their 
 Annual Conference, over which Bishop A. W. 
 Wilson presided. As we sat in the Uttle chapel 
 by the side of the road on Sunday morning and 
 heard the missionary children sing "There Is 
 Sunshine in My Soul," it did seem one of the 
 loveliest spots on earth. There was no quaking 
 of mountains nor rumbling under the ground. 
 The rain that had been pouring down in tor- 
 rents had ceased, and down through the tender 
 leaves of the Japanese maple the sunshine glint- 
 
ARIMA^ THE CRATER CITY. 89 
 
 ed and traveled until every shadow seemed to 
 be chased away, and there was joy and gladness 
 in every face and in every heart. May we not 
 sincerely hope that this may be a prophecy to 
 us of the future of Japan, when the light of God's 
 truth is to be found evervwhere? 
 
XII. 
 OUTDOOR LIFE IN KOREA. 
 
 There is a legend in Korea that three sages, 
 three thousand years ago, came out of a fissure 
 in the ground. This was on the island of Quel- 
 part, to which Prince Pak Yong Ho was recently 
 exiled. Each of the wise men found a large box 
 floating in from the south containing a pony, a 
 calf, a pig, a dog, and a wife. The pony in the 
 story is put first and the poor wife comes last. 
 But this is the place that woman too often occu- 
 pies in heathen countries. Girls frequently have 
 no names at all, and are numbered one, two, 
 three. Even grown women are spoken of as 
 "the daughter of so and so" or *'the sister of so 
 and so." 
 
 But to return to the pony. He is the livest 
 thing in Korea. When I made my trip from 
 Wonsan to Seoul with Dr. Hardie over the 
 mountains, I was given one of these ponies to 
 ride. He was so small my feet almost touched 
 the ground, but we waded or swam through the 
 deepest rivers and climbed the steepest mountain 
 
 (90) 
 
OUTDOOR LIFE IN KOREA. 9I 
 
 roads. His nostrils were slit to give him wind, 
 and he was so particular that he would only drink 
 hot water and eat cooked food. The river water 
 is so cold, coming as it does from the mountains, 
 that the natives train the ponies not to drink the 
 water for fear of colic. 
 
 When we reached the inn, or caravansary, at 
 night, we passed in through a great front gate 
 and came to a court, on one side of which was a 
 row of sheds with tile or straw roof, hard earth- 
 en floor well tramped down, and troughs hewn 
 out of solid logs, where the ponies were fed. The 
 impatient little animals would scream and kick 
 for a whole half hour while their beans and 
 chopped straw were being boiled in another part 
 of the court. The noise was so great at one 
 time early in the night and the yells of the mapu 
 (horse boys) were so fierce that I ran out into 
 the court to see what the trouble was. The con- 
 fusion was great enough for it to have been a 
 tiger carrying one of these little Shetland ponies 
 off in his mouth. It turned out to be a fight over 
 some beans between my pony and his neighbor. 
 Mine had behaved himself so badly that two of 
 the mapic had put a rope under his forelegs, 
 thrown it over a beam, and had actually pulled 
 him up off the ground. He was so chagrined 
 at this sort of punishment in the presence of all 
 
92 SIDE LIGHTS ON THE ORIENT. 
 
 the other ponies that he behaved himself for the 
 rest of the night; but he lost his supper. 
 
 One of the ponies in our party lay down twice 
 in the middle of a river, leaving his rider to 
 flounder out the best way he could. While a pony 
 will kick a stranger and try to bite his feet off, 
 as mine did several times, he will let the mapii 
 catch him by the nose or hold on to his tail as 
 he goes up over the rocky hills. It is astonish- 
 ing what these little fellows can carry. One of 
 ours had on top of his wooden pack saddle two 
 boxes, one on each side filled with food and 
 cooking utensils, on top of these a folding cot, 
 on top of the cot a cotton mattress and a bundle 
 of bedding, with an American leather valise to 
 balance the bundle, and a frying pan on top of 
 all. It was a curious sight, but that frying pan 
 turned out to be one of the most valuable arti- 
 cles we had. It and the coffee pot were on the 
 fire morning and night. With a cup of hot cof- 
 fee in the early morning while the stars were still 
 shining, a piece of fried ham, and a slice of toast 
 browned over the fire on the end of a stick, wq 
 made a good breakfast and were ready for a big 
 day's travel. 
 
 The Koreans are as fond of dried fish as we 
 are of smoked ham. The sea on the east coast 
 and far to the south furnishes a fish called the 
 
OUTDOOR LIFE IN KOREA." 93 
 
 ling, which is caught by thousands, dried, packed 
 in bundles, and carried on the jiggy or on pony 
 back into the remote mountain regions. Shark 
 meat is much eaten and so is the octopus, with 
 its ugly body and its dangling legs, which make 
 the latter one of the most hideous monsters of 
 the deep. It has a pouch out of which is thrown 
 an inky sort of fluid which discolors the water 
 so that its victims fail to see it approach. Then 
 with those slimy legs it coils itself all around its 
 prey until the poor frightened victim cannot get 
 away. In some portions of the Japan Sea the 
 octopus has been found large enough to drag a 
 fisherman to the bottom. 
 
 In ancient times among the islands south of 
 Korea there was much fishing done by the Ko- 
 reans ; but it has fallen largely into the hands 
 of the Japanese, who now include the fishing for 
 pearls. It is along the rivers, even in the winter 
 time when they are frozen up hard and fast, that 
 we can see the native fisherman seeking his 
 daily meal. Far out on the ice, with a log under 
 him or a rude sled, with a straw mat folded up 
 for warmth and protection, the fisherman seats 
 himself at the hole he has cut in the ice. He 
 has so many cotton-padded jackets on, and his 
 big trousers and wooden shoes are so bunglesome, 
 that it is a wonder he can exert himself enough 
 
94 SIDE LIGHTS ON THE ORIENT. 
 
 to do anything. Even his head is wrapped up 
 until YOU can see only his face and his black 
 topknot sticking up through his cap. Here he 
 sits by the hour awaiting his opportunity to har- 
 poon the unwary fish that come to the surface, or 
 to catch them in the meshes of his little scoop 
 net. 
 
 It takes very little to make some people satis- 
 fied. About the only enjoyment this fisherman 
 has is his pipe, with a bowl the size of a thimble. 
 The pipestem is made of bamboo, and often is 
 so long that the bowl can rest on the ground 
 while the smoker puffs at the other end. On our 
 way to Seoul we saw one man at the railway 
 station who had a pipe so long that he could not 
 reach the bowl with a match while he had the 
 stem in his mouth. We all wondered what he 
 was going to do. He solved the problem easily 
 by lighting a match, sticking the end of it in the 
 ground, and then standing off with one end of 
 the pipe in his mouth he applied the other to the 
 fire and puffed away with all his might. 
 
 These simple-hearted people are fond of work- 
 ing together. This is true of them when trans- 
 planting the rice in the spring or cutting the 
 wheat in the autumn. When eight or ten labor- 
 ers get together, as they often do, in spading dirt 
 with a long-handled spade held by one man, while 
 
OUTDOOR LIFE IN KOREA. 95 
 
 four or five more on each side grasp a straw 
 rope fastened near the blade, they wait until the 
 leader chants a song of four syllables, repeat it 
 after him, give a jerk and a swing, and throw 
 the dirt far off into the field. Here is one of 
 their labor songs : 
 
 Take a hold there, take a hold there; 
 
 Don't be lazy, don't be lazy; 
 
 Whoop her up, whoop her up. 
 
 Ho, there! Ho, there! 
 
 Knock 'em silly, knock 'em silly ; 
 
 Now the chorus, now the chorus. 
 
 Hey — ah, Hey — ah. 
 
 The leader repeats the first words, the men 
 repeat them again, and then they all join in the 
 chorus. In this way much of the hard work 
 they have to do is made easy, and what otherwise 
 would be a burden too hard to be borne is turned 
 into a sort of amusement for the crowd. 
 
XIII. 
 
 THE STREETS OF SEOUL. 
 
 The main streets of the city of Seoul, the 
 capital of Korea, are very broad; but like those 
 of Peking, China, they are often so filled up with 
 little booths on each side that it is difficult on 
 a market day to get along in some places. We 
 meet a man with a jiggy on his back. This is 
 a carrying frame made of wood and preferably 
 of the two branches of a tree, with the smaller 
 branch sticking out at an angle from the larger 
 so as to form a big notch or rack into which al- 
 most anything can be placed, from pine brush 
 piled higher than a man's head to a pig with its 
 feet tied hard and fast and sometimes a straw 
 rope tied around its mouth. It is said that some 
 of these jiggy men can carry two barrels of flour 
 on their backs. The coolie sets his jiggy on the 
 ground and props it up with a forked stick. 
 When he takes up his load he kneels down and 
 puts his arms through two loops made of rope 
 that are fitted to his shoulders. By leaning for- 
 ward he gets the weight on his back and hips, 
 rises first from one knee and then from the other 
 
 (96) 
 
THE STREETS OF SEOUL. 97 
 
 by the aid of his forked stick, and off goes the 
 jiggy-koon (for that is what they call him) for 
 a trip of one hundred miles perhaps, makmg the 
 journey in three days. 
 
 " Here is a booth in which an old man with a 
 high-top hat, long linen robe, and a pipe which 
 reaches to the ground is selling medicme. On 
 the table before him are roots and herbs of every 
 kind. When you come to look carefully you also 
 find tiger's bones to make you brave if you are 
 timid, antelope powder to make you spry if you 
 have the rheumatism, and powdered centipeds 
 to be taken with hot water if you have the stom- 
 ach ache. These are the old-style Korean reme- 
 dies with which people are doctored. Yonder at 
 the head of the street, out through the city gate. 
 is Dr Avison's Mission Hospital, where poor 
 sick Koreans can have the best medical and 
 surgical treatment, without centipeds or tigers 
 bones. It is a pleasure to turn from the one and 
 enter the other, where the trained nurses pass 
 quietly around the beds in the sick wards and 
 where the Christian doctor is so able and will- 
 ing to do his utmost to stop the pain and save 
 the life of the suffering Korean patient. 
 
 We meet two women who are curiously 
 enough dressed. One has a white veil, or gown, 
 drawn so closely around her face that you can 
 7 
 
98 SIDE LIGHTS ON THE ORIENT. 
 
 see only her nose and one eye; while the other 
 wears a quaint garment with what looks like 
 green sleeves hanging down on each side of her 
 head, and the body of the gown is folded up on 
 top of her head in a little square pad. This is 
 the costume that many women wear when they 
 walk on the streets of the capital. 
 
 One story I heard in accounting for it was that 
 in ancient times Korea was constantly threat- 
 ened by her enemies. The Chinese soldiers would 
 overrun one side of the country and the Japa- 
 nese the other. Then again the Koreans warred 
 among themselves. They wore armor when they 
 went to the battle, and fought with bows, arrows, 
 and spears. As they could not wear this armor 
 all the time and guard their flocks or cultivate 
 the fields, the women would put on the armor 
 and ca'rry the weapons of warfare ready to hand 
 to their husbands or sons in case of need. When 
 the time passed for guarding themselves in this 
 way the custom had become so old and habitual 
 that the women began to wear green or purple 
 gowns on their heads in imitation of a suit of 
 armor. It is a queer story and hard to believe. 
 
 Looking down a side street, the eye falls upon 
 a great stone tortoise with an immense tablet of 
 solid rock rising from the middle of his back. It 
 is one of the curiosities of Seoul, because of its 
 
THE STREETS OF SEOUL. QQ 
 
 size and of the beautiful work in stone. The 
 tortoise is symbolical of long life, and these mon- 
 uments are often erected in China and in Korea 
 to commemorate some great deed or in memory 
 of some distinguished man. 
 
 This reminds me of a story which Mr. Hul- 
 bert tells and which makes us think of "Uncle 
 Remus :" "A wicked tortoise, in search of a. rab- 
 bit's liver to use as medicine in healing the sea 
 king's daughter, persuaded a rabbit into riding 
 on its back across the water to an island that the 
 tortoise said was a rabbit's paradise. When well 
 out from shore the tortoise warned the rabbit 
 to prepare to die, for his liver was needed by the 
 sick daughter far down under the water. After 
 a moment's thought the rabbit laughed and said : 
 'You might have had it without all this trouble. 
 We are made with removable livers, so that after 
 eating too much we can throw our livers out and 
 wash them and keep them cool. I had just laid 
 mine out to dry when you came, and your story 
 was so fascinating that I forgot the liver entirely. 
 You are welcome to it if you will let me show 
 you where it is.' The tortoise turned round and 
 swam to the shore to get the rabbit's liver. The 
 latter jumped off and scampered away, having a 
 good laugh at the expense of his enemy." 
 
 On our left along the street, not far from our 
 
lOO SIDE LIGHTS ON THE ORIENT. 
 
 mission houses, is a paper store. The Koreans 
 are noted for their splendid oil paper. Great 
 sheets of it are made for the floor and of such a 
 size as to fill the whole room. These are easily 
 washed and kept clean. Fans are made of the 
 same material and pasted on fine strips of bam- 
 boo. The fan is so strong and the paper so well 
 oiled that it can be dipped in water without hurt- 
 ing it and be used as a sprinkler for the floor or 
 the yard in front or at the back of the store. The 
 Koreans taught the Japanese the art of making 
 paper. 
 
 A side street crosses a ditch at the bottom of 
 which is a little stream of running water. This 
 must be washing day. A row of women on this 
 side and several on the other are rubbing and 
 scrubbing their clothes on the rough stones which 
 are placed at intervals on each side of the water. 
 Woe be to you if you have come from America 
 with a small stock of linen collars and cuflfs or 
 any other sort of clothes that need to be washed 
 often ! If the stone is not rough enough, a stick 
 is brought into play, and the clothes are ham- 
 mered with a good will until the washerwoman 
 is satisfied that she has done her best to break ev- 
 ery button, rip up the seams, and wear an occa- 
 sional hole here and there. 
 
 Another dutv of the women is full of interest 
 
WASHING. 
 
 IRONING. 
 
THE STRRF.TS OF SEOUL. TOt 
 
 to the tourist : that of poundini>- their clothes, or 
 rather their husliand's elothes. 1^he first nii;ht 
 [ spent in Seoul, lonj;- after the midnight hour 
 in an alle\- near by 1 heard a i)onndini;- whieh 
 was done with sueh regularity that it seemed to 
 be a part of a maehine. The next morning I 
 was told diat it was probably some man's wife 
 who was beating his linen gown with paddles, 
 which are slightly curved and which by these 
 regular strokes not only smooth the wrinkles 
 out of the linen gown and thus iron it, but make 
 it glisten and shine until it looks as though it 
 were absolutely new. Sometimes instead of 
 one woman two will do the ironing, so that four 
 sticks are applied to the cloth, which is laid on 
 a piece of wood in folds. All night long they 
 may continue the work of preparing the master 
 of the house for his journey or official visit, when 
 he must be clothed with all the dignity that his 
 stiffened and whitened gown can give him. Tru- 
 ly half of the people in this world do not know 
 how the other half live. 
 
XIV. 
 THE TIGER HUNTER. 
 
 Kim In Won^ the tiger hunter, has just been 
 in to see me. He is the first baptized member 
 of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, in 
 Korea, and hves in the Httle village of Ko Yang. 
 Although the old man is seventy-six years of age, 
 he is quite erect, still vigorous, and has walked 
 over fifteen miles this morning to pay his respects 
 to the visitor who has come from America. 
 
 A number of years ago Dr. Scranton, of Seoul, 
 had some colporteurs under his direction, two of 
 whom went to the village of Ko Yang to sell 
 Bibles. Hearing of Mr. Kim, who had a repu- 
 tation in all that section as a hunter and a man 
 of great courage, they called at his home. The 
 following is his story of the visit and what oc- 
 curred afterwards as he told it to me, Rev. W. G. 
 Cram acting as my interpreter : 
 
 "They came to my village and to my home," 
 said Mr. Kim. "When I found them at my door, 
 I said : 'Come in.' Upon asking their mission 
 they replied that they came to sell a wonderful 
 book and to preach about the new doctrine." The 
 
 (102) 
 
THE TIGER HUNTER. IO3 
 
 old man, in his vigorous way and with a twinkle 
 in his eye, looked at me and remarked: "I told 
 them to begin preaching at once that I might 
 hear them. They did so and preached well. 
 When they had finished, I said that I would be- 
 Heve from this time. They both seemed glad, 
 and perhaps would have been contented to go 
 to another village ; but I was not willing for them 
 to do this, and said : 'Let us go right out and be- 
 gin to preach to the villagers of Ko Yang.' " 
 
 Dr. C. F. Reid baptized Mr. Kim fourteen 
 years ago. His son and grandson are both Chris- 
 tians. He brought me a letter which he had 
 written the Doctor, and asked me to convey it to 
 him with his love. He was delighted to know 
 that while the good Doctor was living in Oak- 
 land, Cal., and prevented from returning to Ko- 
 rea, his son, Dr. Wightman Reid, was coming 
 to Korea to take charge of the hospital in 
 Songdo. 
 
 I knew the old man was a famous tiger hunter 
 as well as an earnest Christian. Eight years ago, 
 when on a visit to Korea, one dark night he and 
 another native Christian walked two miles 
 through a drizzling rain to meet me on my way 
 to Ko Yang. When I dismounted and urged 
 him, who was so much older than I, to get on 
 my pony and ride over the slippery road, he 
 
I04 SI OK Lu;iris on tuk ouiknt. 
 
 laughed and said: "How could I respect myself 
 to have you walk when you have come ten thou- 
 sand miles from the Christian land to visit Korea 
 in her darkness and need ?*' He would not ride, 
 and so we walked along together to his house, 
 where he had a warm supper prepared for us, 
 and where we spent the hours until midnight 
 with the rooms packed full of listeners as we 
 went over the old story of how Jesus came to 
 save the world from its sin. 
 
 Reminding him of that visit and that we were 
 old friends, I asked him to tell me something of 
 his life as a hunter. He replied that from twenty 
 years of age he had with knife and gun sought 
 the tiger in the mountains, and in all had killed 
 fourteen of them with his own hand. Korean 
 tigers are among the largest and fiercest. It is 
 said that during some winters, when the snow 
 remains long on the ground, they have been 
 known to leap upon the roof of a Korean house, 
 tear up the thatch, and carry otf one of the chil- 
 dren. The year before I made my last visit to 
 this country a hungry tiger had come into the 
 village in the neighborhood of Wonsan and car- 
 ried off a yearling calf between his jaws. 
 
 "Have you ever been in peril of your life?" I 
 asked, trying to draw the old man out. 
 
 "Yes," he said : "I had to face one tiger so 
 
KIM, THE TJGEK HUNTER. 
 
THE rlGER HUNTER. IO5 
 
 large that it took eight men to carry him after I 
 had killed the beast. For a while it seemed im- 
 possible for me to overcome him. At another 
 time an unusually large tiger, which I had shot, 
 leaped upon me. I fell with my face to the 
 ground as he sprang, and was bitten by him on 
 the back; but my clothing was so loose that it 
 got tangled in his teeth." 
 
 "How in the world did you escape ?" I asked. 
 
 He replied: *'A friend was with me on the 
 hunt. I cried out to him: 'Can't you help a 
 fellow? Shoot, or I will be a dead man.' He 
 dared not shoot for fear of killing me, but he 
 beat the tiger with the butt of his gun. The fero- 
 cious beast sprang forward and fell into a ditch, 
 carrying me with him. The bullets which I had 
 already put into his body had taken effect, and 
 he was dead. With my back badly torn and 
 bleeding, I crawled out from under the tiger's 
 body with the help of my friend and found my- 
 self still able to walk. He stopped the blood and 
 then we measured the tiger's mouth with a stick 
 and found it one foot wide." 
 
 Looking at me with his honest eyes, he said: 
 ''Ah, Moksa, what am I that I should have es- 
 caped from a tiger with such a mouth as that? 
 Surely the Lord wanted me for something." 
 
 At another time he told me that just as he was 
 
I06 SIDE LIGHTS ON THE ORIENT. 
 
 about to shoot his gun exploded. The very moun- 
 tains seemed to leap into the air. His clothing- 
 was torn, and he actually found a piece of the gun 
 up one of his sleeves. Others looking on re- 
 marked: "He is preserved by the Lord of heav- 
 en." 
 
 I said to old Mr. Kim, who was decorated by 
 the Emperor for his bravery and prowess as a 
 tiger hunter, and who wears the decoration, 
 which is something like an earring: ''You have 
 indeed been preserved by the Heavenly Father 
 to be a witness among your own people. Do you 
 preach to them?" I asked. 
 
 "Yes," said the old man, 'T try to be a faithful 
 witness ; but the ears of the people are wet. They 
 listen like they had a wet cloth over their ears; 
 they do not believe in the power of the gospel, 
 and say : 'How can any man do that ?' But," he 
 continued, "there is a little group of faithful ones 
 who are true to God." 
 
 It was an inspiration to talk with old Kim and 
 find how simple and childlike was his faith in 
 Christ. He had come with his long white linen 
 robe on, which was spotlessly clean. Under the 
 robe and fastened to his waist was a linen bag, 
 and upon my inquiring what he carried about 
 him in so large a bundle he smiled and, reaching 
 down, produced a well-worn New Testament and 
 
THE TIGER HUNTER. I07 
 
 a hymn book, without which he never went any- 
 where. As we parted, after a prayer in EngHsh 
 and then one in Korean, he said: "The joy of the 
 presence of the Holy Spirit in my heart is with- 
 out Hmit. I read the third chapter of Hebrews 
 and pray that Christ will help me to hold fast the 
 confidence and the rejoicing of the hope firm 
 unto the end." Then brushing the tears from 
 his eyes, he added : "Sometimes as I lie upon my 
 back in my little village home it seems to me I 
 can see Christ bearing the cross for me. It is 
 too much, it is too much that a poor creature 
 such as I should have so great a Saviour. Pray 
 that I may not fall into temptation, but be kept 
 faithful and be able at last to enter upon the 
 Sabbath of the Lord, where I shall have rest for 
 evermore." 
 
 Surely the missionaries must have great en- 
 couragement in the conversion of a man who 
 was so bold and fierce in early life, but now has 
 become gentle and so full of patience and faith 
 that he is a living example and pattern to his own 
 countrymen. 
 
XV. 
 
 COUNTRY FOLKS. 
 
 The best way to study a country is to see how 
 the real folks live. The most of these are found 
 out in the country living a simple life. Here we 
 are in a little valley with high mountains on 
 each side. The mountains in Korea are beauti- 
 ful, even if they are bare. In the springtime 
 they are colored with pinks, azaleas, wild daisies, 
 here and there a tiger lily, and down behind the 
 rocks or just on the border of the rank grass 
 are modest little violets that are just as fragrant 
 as those of Tennessee or Kentucky. In the au- 
 tumn, when the November sun rises and sets, 
 these rugged old mountains have a rosy hue and 
 then a deep purple coloring that lifts you straight 
 up to God and makes you think of higher things. 
 I can't help but think that some of the strength 
 of character which the Koreans have comes from 
 their great mountains that tower so high above 
 their heads. But at last it takes the Spirit of 
 Him who made the everlasting hills to change 
 the heart and purify the life. 
 (io8) 
 
COUNTRY FOLKS. lOQ 
 
 Yonder to the right on the hillside is a wheat 
 field where the grain has been cut close to the 
 ground with a sickle. Higher up you see buck- 
 wheat growing with its reddish stem and small 
 white flower not 3'et ripe. Men must be like 
 goats to be able to scramble up such steep places, 
 plant and cultivate the grain, and then carry it 
 on their backs to the little villages that, with their 
 brown straw roofs, look like clumps of mush- 
 rooms down below. In our walk we have just 
 reached one of these curious little dwellings, with 
 its mud walls daubed on a frame of reeds and 
 wood. Some parts of it seem to be blocks of 
 earth cut with a spade and piled up betw^een 
 wooden posts until they have dried there hard 
 and fast. The floor is of earth, beaten down 
 hard, while the roof, curiously enough, is the 
 most expensive part of the house. It consists of 
 layers of straw placed one above the other until 
 the covering is nearly a foot thick, and then straw 
 ropes are passed over the roof from front to rear 
 and end to end to hold the straw down. Once 
 or twice I have seen a piece of rock tied to the 
 end of each rope and dangling at the eaves in 
 order to keep the wind from blowing the roof 
 off. I couldn't help but wonder what would be- 
 come of the little baby boy toddling around if 
 those rocks should fall. The reason the roof fre- 
 
no SIDE LIGHTS ON THE ORIENT. 
 
 quently costs more than the house is because it 
 has to be renewed so often. 
 
 We have almost stumbled upon a threshing 
 floor, like one of those mentioned in the Bible 
 stories. The flails have been laid aside, for the 
 wheat has been threshed and is now gathered on 
 big straw mats to dry in the sun. The old 
 farmer, whose skin is blackened by exposure to 
 many a summer's sun and whose blacker topknot 
 sticks straight up from his head like a handle, 
 is spreading the wheat back and forth with a 
 wooden rake, which is only a board fastened to 
 the end of a stick. His shoes are more interest- 
 ing than his rake. They are also made of wood 
 and are like two little canoes in shape, turning 
 up as they do at the toe and the heel. They are 
 made for mud, as they stand up on two fittle 
 wooden props, but he has gotten into them to 
 walk in the wheat that he might not get it dirty. 
 xA.las ! he seems to forget that the threshing floor 
 was the lounging place for the dogs and the fam- 
 ily pig before they began their work and that his 
 wife forgot to wash his shoes after the last rain. 
 A good many of these farmers wear straw shoes 
 made in their homes during the long winter days 
 and sometimes leather sandals made out of raw- 
 hide, which are fastened round the instep and 
 ankles by a leather thong. 
 
COUNTRY FOLKS. Ill 
 
 What a primitive mill with which to crush the 
 wheat or whiten the rice ! The rice, however, is 
 generally whitened in a big wooden mortar as 
 big as a bushel basket, the grain being pounded 
 with a double-headed club four or five feet long, 
 skillfully handled by the farmer, but more often 
 by his wife. The winnowing of the wheat may 
 be left to the boys, as it is a lighter job. Some- 
 times the grain is tossed in the air from a big 
 shovel and caught again or from a basket held 
 in both hands, while the wind blows the chaff 
 away and leaves the wheat or rice, as the case 
 may be. One would almost think he had been 
 on a trip to Palestine or to Mexico. 
 
 It is not always possible to get a peep into a 
 Korean house, but permission is given us to do 
 it in this case. It happens to be the kitchen, where 
 we find the range with three vessels — one for hot 
 water, one for cooking rice, and another for 
 beans. The Koreans have a curious notion about 
 a meddlesome little sprite called the tokgahi. 
 Somehow he gets into the house through a crack 
 or hole, flies into the kitchen, and then there is 
 mischief on hand. They say one of his favorite 
 amusem.ents is to bewitch the rice kettle and 
 make the cover fall in. It seems impossible for 
 such a trick to be played, as the cover is larger 
 than the kettle in which the rice is cooked. The 
 
112 SIDE LIGHTS ON THE ORIENT. 
 
 explanation has been made that when the cover is 
 cold and the vessel, being very thin, gets heated 
 up quickly and expands before the cover does the 
 latter might possibly fall in. Suspended from 
 the eaves of the house near the back door is a 
 wisp of straw with which to frighten this sprite 
 away, or a bundle of rags may be tied up there 
 for the same purpose. When these fail and they 
 still have trouble in the kitchen, their only re- 
 course, as these poor deluded people believe, is 
 to smash up the pots and earthenware vessels and 
 pitch them out of doors. 
 
 The mill made of two stones used in the kitch- 
 en and worked by two women ( for one generall}- 
 pours in the grain while the other turns) makes 
 one think again of the Scriptures. Here they are 
 making the flour of wheat or barley a little finer 
 in their preparation for the family meal. 
 
 The range is fearfully and wonderfully made. 
 In the kitchen the meals are cooked over it, and 
 in the company room, which may be next to the 
 kitchen, the guests who spend the night are also 
 pretty well cooked by morning. The heat runs 
 from the range through earthen flues under the 
 floor of the guest room and other parts of the 
 house. During a trip through tlie country sev- 
 eral years ago I got so hot in the night I had 
 to go out in the court, where the ponies were, to 
 
COUNTRY FOLKS. 1 13 
 
 cool down ; and we heard of one missionary who 
 went to bed with some candles in his pocket and 
 dreamed that he was melting. When he woke 
 up he was sure that he was melting. Shaking 
 himself and putting his hand in his pocket, where 
 he felt the hottest (for he had lain down with his 
 clothes on, it was so late and he was so tired), 
 there was nothing left of the candles but the 
 wicks. 
 
 Korean winters are very severe. It is neces- 
 sary to provide against them ; hence these stoves 
 under the floor. They have not learned how to 
 ventilate their houses, either in summer or win- 
 ter, and so the belated traveler is likely to get a 
 roast at any season of the year. 
 
 8 
 
XVI. 
 THE RUBBER CHURCH. 
 
 The city of Pyeng Yang, far away in the 
 north of Korea, is a great missionary center. 
 The Presbyterians and Methodists are here side 
 by side, working together wnth a beautiful spirit 
 in the schools, in the hospitals, and out in the 
 evangelistic field. Having heard so much about 
 the work here, I could not leave Korea without 
 making a visit. 
 
 After a day's ride from Seoul on the train, we 
 got off at the station, a mile from the city, and 
 were told to get into a street car. We looked 
 about us and asked where the car was, thinking 
 we might see an electric line or a horse car or 
 certainly one with a mule hitched to it. Our mis- 
 sionary friend. Mr. Noble, who met us, pointed 
 to something like a piano box on wheels, and 
 asked us to get in. There were two hard benches 
 back to back, and we soon found ourselves on 
 one side — four of us — wnth two Japanese and two 
 Chinese on the other. It was a funny experience, 
 for the seat was so narrow we could hardly sit 
 on it, and the car was so small that our feet 
 
THE RUBBER CHURCH. II5 
 
 dangled over the sides. The question was how 
 we were to travel without steam, electricity, or 
 horse power. While I was still puzzling over 
 the situation two big Korean coolies came up 
 from behind, put their bare shoulders to the plat- 
 form of the car, and began to push with all their 
 might. From a walk they soon got into a trot 
 and then a run, and finally as we ran down grade 
 in some places it became a wild race. Once in 
 a while they would get a foothold, pull themselves 
 up, and ride ; but most of the time they were on 
 their feet pushing and singing or yelling until it 
 sounded as if we had a couple of wild Indians 
 after us. This was our introduction to the 
 streets of Pyeng Yang. 
 
 From Mr. Noble's front porch we had a splen- 
 did view of the river as it wound around the city 
 and swept on to the sea. In that very stream, 
 and not far away, about forty years ago the en- 
 tire crew of a schooner called the ''General Sher- 
 man" were murdered by the Koreans. It was 
 no wonder they were treated so badly, because 
 these men had come, so it was said, to rob and 
 plunder the graves of the Korean kings in their 
 search for gold. The natives were maddened by 
 the presence of the foreigners, whom they dis- 
 trusted ; and finally, after firing arrows at them 
 in vain and wasting their ammunition (for their 
 
Il6 SIDE LIGHTS ON THE ORIENT. 
 
 guns were only matchlocks), they made fire rafts, 
 floated them down the river, and burned up the 
 intruders' vessel, killing those who escaped to 
 the shore. 
 
 Far up the river on the left bank in a peace- 
 ful spot there stands a wonderful illustration of 
 the power of the gospel. It is what I call the 
 "Rubber Church." It belongs to the Presbyte- 
 rians and has been built in sections. First, they 
 began with a square in the middle of the lot. 
 This section held about two hundred and fifty 
 people. When it was filled, they built the church 
 out on one side and added another section. When 
 that was filled, they stretched the church out on 
 the opposite side and added another section. And 
 the next will be an extension on the north, per- 
 haps, and the one following that will be on the 
 south. On Sunday afternoon we attended a serv- 
 ice in another Presbyterian church, where over 
 one thousand men sat on the floor, hymn book in 
 hand, and joined in the singing of praise and 
 thanksgiving to God until the sound rolled out 
 upon the air and swxpt down the stream where 
 the fire and flood had consumed their enemies 
 only a few years ago. In the congregation that 
 afternoon there were earnest Christian men who 
 had themselves taken part in the battle with the 
 General Sherman. 
 
THE RUBBER CHURCH. II7 
 
 How odd it is to see a church full of men ev- 
 ery Sunday and no women or children ! Even if 
 they do have rubber churches, they can't stretch 
 them fast enough to hold the Church members 
 and the inquirers. The women have their serv- 
 ice Sunday morning, there being no room in the 
 afternoon, when seven hundred of them meet to 
 worship Him who has done so much to give 
 peace to their hearts and blessings to their homes. 
 There could hardly be a more interesting sight. 
 Each woman wears a linen skirt, which has been 
 carefully pressed and ironed, with a short white 
 sack above that, and a snow-white turban bound 
 around her jet-black hair. The children on such 
 occasions have green and pink and red trousers 
 and jackets, and when they sit together bunched 
 up in a group they look for the world like a patch 
 of sweet pease, but not quite so fragrant. 
 
 Some of the women who came to the Presby- 
 terian Bible School for ten days' study walked 
 over one hundred miles with their babies on their 
 backs in addition to their bedding and a sack of 
 rice or wheat under their arms with which to 
 feed themselves that they might be no expense 
 to their missionary teachers. It was just such 
 earnest women as these whom we saw at Won- 
 san coming up to the preacher one Sunday night 
 with the rings they had pulled off their fingers. 
 
Il8 SIDE LIGHTS ON THE ORIENT. 
 
 asking that he sell them and use the money to 
 help pay for the building of their church. 
 
 There are two intensely interesting spots in 
 Pyeng Yang. One is the grave of Kija, the no- 
 ble Chinaman who centuries ago came to Korea, 
 founded this city, taught the people, established 
 a government, and conferred upon them many 
 blessings which have continued to this day. The 
 well which he dug, and which is the far-famed 
 ''Kija Well/' can still be seen as you go from the 
 station to the city. The grave of this great 
 statesman, who left his native land and was 
 buried in foreign soil, is found near the oldest 
 city wall, now little more than a mound of earth. 
 It is the oldest of the three city walls belonging 
 to the city, and was built by its founder to pro- 
 tect the little colony which was the beginning of 
 a nation. 
 
 The other spot is the grave of Dr. D. C. 
 Rankin, of Nashville, Tenn. He was for a num- 
 ber of years Editorial Secretary of the Board of 
 Missions of the Southern Presbyterian Church. 
 Never was there a sweeter-spirited man. He 
 loved children, and was so kind and thoughtful 
 that there was not a child who knew him who 
 did not trust him absolutely. His kindness to 
 animals was such that in their dumb way they 
 confided in him as their best friend. 
 
THE RUBBER CHURCH. 1 19 
 
 One dark night I called to see him when he 
 lived on Garland Avenue, back of the Vanderbilt 
 University. It had been raining hard. He 
 pointed to a very large cat lying on the hearth 
 in front of the fire, and said that half an hour 
 before he heard a scratching at the door of his 
 study. Upon his opening the door the cat walked 
 deliberately in to where he had resumed his seat 
 and laid on the floor a little kitten which was near- 
 ly drowned and which he had picked up out in the 
 street. Tom then looked up at him as if to say, 
 "Help this poor little waif, for I have done all 
 that I can/' licked the kitten on the face, and 
 went off to the fire to dry his own coat. The 
 Doctor said to me: "How could I resist such an 
 appeal as that ?" 
 
 His great heart of love took in the whole 
 world. On his table could be found papers pub- 
 lished in French with which he was studying the 
 condition of the poor African slaves in the Congo 
 Free State, and by their side were letters from 
 China and Korea, which led him finally to take 
 that long journey that he might the better know 
 how to lay the needs of the heathen before the 
 people of his own Church. Never very strong, 
 the strain was too much for him, and he laid 
 down his life among the Koreans. It was not a 
 life lost. On the other hand, it would seem as 
 
I20 SIDE LIGHTS ON THE ORIENT. 
 
 though influences have gone out through his sac- 
 rifice, and that of others, which have helped to 
 make Pyeng Yang the greatest missionary center 
 of Korea — sacrifices that will result in greater 
 blessings to the Koreans through the gospel than 
 Kija, with all his learning, could ever have hoped 
 to confer. 
 
XVII. 
 CANAL LIFE IN CHINA. 
 
 The Grand Canal of China stretches nearly 
 five hundred miles from the city of Hangchow 
 on the south to within a short distance of Tien- 
 tsin on the north. It is wonderful to think of 
 this having been dug out with hoes and the dirt 
 carried off in baskets on men's shoulders. The 
 tens of thousands of coolies at work must have 
 looked like so many ants. Out from this great 
 waterway on each side are smaller canals, 
 which run in every direction until they form a 
 network of water connecting every village and 
 every town in the lower valley of the Yang-tse 
 River. 
 
 Upon these canals are to be seen big house 
 boats owned by mandarins, with banners flying, 
 a gong to be beaten on the bow, and a yellow 
 dragon flag flying from the stern. The next one 
 we meet may be a tiny mail boat propelled by a 
 man in the stern, who rows with his feet, paddles 
 with his hands, steers with another small paddle 
 under his arm, and can actually smoke a pipe 
 while he is doing all three. In addition to the 
 
 (121) 
 
122 SIDE LIGHTS OX THE ORIENT. 
 
 mail, this boat can carry one or two passengers, 
 provided they lie down and keep perfectly still. 
 To sit up any length of time and not turn over, 
 one must almost have his hair parted in the mid- 
 dle. One foreigner who was obliged to ride in 
 a mail boat and who chewed tobacco said he was 
 afraid to change his quid from one side of his 
 mouth to the other. 
 
 The Ningpo boats have large staring eyes, one 
 on each side of the bow. Upon being asked why 
 these eyes are necessary, a Chinaman replied in 
 pigeon English : 
 
 No got eyes, no can see; 
 
 No can see, no can savvy; 
 
 No can savvy, how can niakee walkee water. 
 
 The word ''savvy" means understand. 
 
 There is much about the Chinese boats which 
 makes one think of a fish. The bow of the boat 
 may have the eyes just mentioned; in the stern 
 of the boat is the yulozv, made like a fish's tail. 
 by which the boat is propelled ; on each side 
 near the middle of many of the sailboats is a 
 broad board six or eight feet long, which looks 
 like a fin and is let down in the water to prevent 
 being capsized; while the sails, especially about 
 Hongkong and Canton, stand up like the dorsal 
 fins of a perch. In the spring of every year there 
 
CANAL LIFE IN CHINA. I23 
 
 is the dragon boat festival, when a number of 
 craft, highly painted, are launched upon the ca- 
 nals ; and these to the simple country people, who 
 flock by the hundreds to the scene in their holi- 
 day dress, are made to look as though they were 
 monsters of the deep just come to the surface 
 for their benefit. 
 
 There are many ways to catch fish^ but one of 
 the most curious is by the use of cormorants. 
 These are large birds with black feathers and 
 wings, long bills, keen eyes, and a pouch-like 
 throat. The fisherman who owns the cormorants 
 has trained them from the time they were small. 
 They are fond of fish, and he began by throwing 
 them into the canal, where they would dive in- 
 stantly upon sighting their prey, but would be 
 pulled back to the boat by the string which had 
 been fastened to their legs. When once they 
 have acquired the habit of catching fish quickly 
 and returning to their master, the string is taken 
 off, an iron ring is fastened around the neck, and 
 then they are ready to serve him as his most 
 trusty servants. He flings them into the canal; 
 they swiftly disappear, then come to the surface 
 and are lifted by the fisherman up to the side of 
 the boat on the end of a bamboo ; then comes the 
 most interesting part of the process. The cormo- 
 rant is allowed to swallow every fish that will go 
 
124 SIDE LIGHTS ON THE ORIENT. 
 
 down his throat. Fish above a certain size he 
 cannot swallow on account of the ring, try as 
 hard as he may. The fisherman catches the bird 
 by the neck, chokes him until he opens his mouth, 
 and pulls the half-swallowed fish out by the tail. 
 
 It is estimated that ten million people in China 
 live on the water. How they manage to get a 
 living is difficult to explain when one finds three 
 generations in a single boat. We passed one 
 that was really a floating farm. There was a 
 cow in the bow of the boat with an iron ring 
 through her nose and a rope attached to the ring, 
 which held her fast, or by means of which one of 
 the boys led her out to eat grass along the bank. 
 Next came two pigs, fed and cared for in a lit- 
 tle space about four feet wide and six feet long. 
 Then came the middle room, occupied by the 
 grandfather and grandmother. The next room 
 back of them contained the father and mother, 
 and with them were the four or five sons and 
 daughters who helped take care of the stock, 
 cook the food, and row the boat. Far back on 
 the stern was the big bamboo basket in which 
 the chickens were being raised, and swimming 
 about on the canal a flock of ducks that had been 
 hatched from eggs kept warm in the cotton- 
 padded quilts of the farmer and his wife, and 
 some of them carried about in the bosom of the 
 
CANAL LIFE IN CHINA. 125 
 
 old grandmother, who had no other occupation 
 left her but to hatch chickens and ducks. Far 
 in the distance beyond the three boats upon 
 which we saw the cormorants sitting quietly 
 for a resting spell is the beautiful sixty-three- 
 arch marble bridge which runs along the Grand 
 Canal beyond the city of Soochow. 
 
 The city is situated in the center of a great 
 plain, w^hich is filled with canals teeming with 
 life. In addition to the gateways through which 
 travelers enter the city and reach its thorough- 
 fares, there are the many water gates which 
 connect the inner with the outer moat and 
 through which boats can reach the heart of the 
 city and go out in every direction to the villages 
 beyond. It is thus that opportunities are given 
 to reach the Chinese everywhere by water as 
 well as by land. 
 
XVIII. 
 THE KING OF THE THIEVES. 
 
 There is a proverb which runs: "Set a thief 
 to catch a thief." I did not know that there was a 
 King of the Thieves until our house in Shanghai 
 was robbed the third time, and it became neces- 
 sary to take unusual measures in order to stop 
 these depredations. A number of things were 
 taken each time, but the last night the thief came 
 he entered the bedroom of two American gentle- 
 men, took what he could lay his hands upon, 
 and the next morning they failed to come to 
 breakfast because they had no trousers to put on. 
 This was the straw that broke the camel's back, 
 and a messenger was promptly sent summoning 
 the King of the Thieves himself. i\t first he re- 
 fused to come, and denied all knowledge of the 
 case ; but threats of the police brought him to his 
 senses, and His Royal Highness came in person 
 with several attendants. 
 
 Imagine a man weighing 250 pounds, with 
 only one eye, without any ears, with a great gash 
 across the back of his neck, with a deep red 
 scar over one cheek, with only a thumb and two 
 
 (126) 
 
THE KING OF THE THIEVES. \2J 
 
 fingers on one hand, and the loss of two fingers 
 from the other. He was lame and had to ride 
 on horseback or in a chair because the tendons 
 above his heels had been cut in two at one time 
 as a punishment. These slashes and scars, to- 
 gether with the loss of his e3^e and ears, had 
 grown out of fights, captures, torture, and hair- 
 breadth escapes almost without number. It was 
 marvelous that such a man should have been al- 
 lowed by the Chinese authorities to remain at 
 liberty. In any other country he would have 
 been securely locked up and imprisoned for life. 
 But as the Chinese police force is ineffective, and 
 this man had given up the business of stealing 
 himself, he was permitted to become the King 
 of the Thieves in order either to help the offi- 
 cials to catch other thieves that were not of his 
 gang or recover property when it had been 
 stolen. 
 
 A long palaver followed his examination of the 
 house and of the rooms from which the stolen 
 goods had been taken, the King all the time de- 
 claring that his men had no hand in the business, 
 but that it was done by others. At this juncture 
 one of the gentlemen who had lost his clothing, 
 seeing several gold rings on the fingers of one 
 of the King's lieutenants, seized the hand, pulled 
 the rings off, put them in his pocket, and said 
 
128 SIDE LIGHTS ON THE ORIENT. 
 
 they would not be given back until the stolen 
 property was restored. The plan worked like a 
 charm. The next morning the two pairs of trou- 
 sers reappeared, including what was in the pock- 
 ets, and, in fact, everything else that had been 
 taken. 
 
 So skillful was one of the professional thieves 
 in Canton considered that a wager was laid be- 
 tween two Europeans that he could steal the 
 sheet from under a man while he was in bed. 
 The thief was sent for and was promised a hand- 
 some present if he could get the sheet without 
 waking the other man up. In the morning he 
 came back with a smiling face, with the sheet 
 folded up in his hand. Upon being asked how 
 he did it, his reply was that he had tickled the 
 unconscious sleeper with a straw. Every time he 
 moved an arm or a leg he would pull on the sheet ; 
 and finally getting him where he could make him 
 turn over by the use of the straw, he pulled the 
 sheet out altogether. 
 
 One form of punishment when a thief is 
 caught is to put a board around his neck with 
 a piece of paper pasted on the board giving the 
 time and place where the theft occurred and a 
 description of the articles stolen. Sometimes sev- 
 eral are chained together and made to stand up 
 as^ainst the wall on the side of the street 
 
THE KING OF THE THIEVES. I29 
 
 where the passers-by can see them. The board 
 is called a kangite, is very heavy, prevents ly- 
 ing down, and sometimes is so large that the 
 hand cannot be lifted to the mouth in taking 
 food. In the case of highway robbers the kaiigue 
 is fastened to the top of a wooden cage, which is 
 so high that the robber can only stand on his 
 toes, and there he hangs by his head until he 
 starves to death. 
 
 One of the signs of better days in the Chinese 
 Empire is an imperial edict to abolish death by 
 such torture. It belongs to heathenism, and is 
 a remnant of a barbaric age. With the entrance 
 of a gospel of mercy and of a Christian civiHza- 
 tion, the old methods will disappear and a more 
 humane treatment of criminals prevail. In Ja- 
 pan these reforms have already accomplished 
 much, and we may expect similar results in China 
 within a few years. 
 9 
 
XIX. 
 'BEGGING A BUSINESS. 
 
 The Chinese are not a lazy people. On the 
 other hand, the millions who make up the Chi- 
 nese Empire are industrious, frugal, and willing 
 to work if they can get it. Where there are so 
 many, however, it is difficult to make a living, 
 and there must necessarily be a great deal of 
 poverty. There are special causes of the poverty 
 which exists, such as the frequent floods caused 
 by the Yellow River overrunning its banks or 
 changing its channel; these come so often that 
 the river is called "China's Sorrow." Then there 
 are famines, such as the one through which Cen- 
 tral China passed in 1906. Probably half a 
 million people starved to death, and half a mil- 
 lion more, many of them women and children, 
 were left without homes and without food. 
 Again, the widespread use of opium has impov- 
 erished many and brought the smokers or their 
 families to beggary. 
 
 Begging in China has been reduced to a sci- 
 ence. It makes one think of Brazil, where in 
 certain sections the country is divided up, and 
 
PRINCE OF BEGGARS. 
 
BEGGING A BUSINESS. I3I 
 
 the beggars come round regularly on horseback 
 to get their weekly fee. The Chinese have a 
 King of the Beggars in some cities, who divides 
 the town into districts, appoints his assistant beg- 
 gars to their respective places, gives them his 
 card or a slip of paper showing that they are au- 
 thorized, and in return for a share in what they 
 receive he gives them a shelter and sometimes 
 provides tea and clothing. 
 
 One of the most picturesque figures is that of 
 a professional beggar in Shanghai in his winter 
 rig. He not only has on a coat of many colors, 
 but it is made up of the coats of many animals. 
 There are probably the skins of half a dozen cats, 
 one dozen rats, and several dogs in its make-up. 
 The interesting part of it all is that cats, rats, 
 and dogs furnished him a number of meals, which 
 he greatly enjoyed, before he made a double use 
 of them by wearing their skins. 
 
 "Once a beggar, always a beggar," is an old 
 saying. Whether this is true or not, long-con- 
 tinued begging produces a habit and leads to 
 much ingenuity in thinking up devices for trick- 
 ing the public. A man came one day to a mis- 
 sionary holding out his right hand, with the palm 
 turned up, and pointing to the wrist, where there 
 was a fearful gash which extended through the 
 tendons and blood vessels. Out of sympathy. 
 
132 SIDE LIGHTS ON THE ORIENT. 
 
 enough money was given him to last several days. 
 At the end of a week he returned, asking for 
 more help and again showing his wrist. The mis- 
 sionary's suspicions were aroused because there 
 had been no change in the wound. He grasped 
 the beggar's arm vigorously. The latter tried 
 hard to get away, and in the struggle which en- 
 sued a casing of flesh-colored wax, with red 
 paint to represent blood, fell off of his wrist, 
 which was in as good condition as that of the 
 other arm. 
 
 Recently while in Soochow an old Chinaman, 
 staff in hand, came to Dr. Park's hospital gate 
 asking alms. The Doctor had seen him several 
 times before, and, knowing his accomplishments, 
 told us to stand near by and see the old fellow 
 perform. Dr. Park then told him that he could 
 give him no money until he cried. At first he 
 said he could not cry, but the reply was: "You 
 cried like a good fellow when you came before, 
 and you surely haven't forgotten how." With 
 that the old professional bent himself over, be- 
 gan to work his face and knit his brows, then 
 turned his eyes upward, and with a whine in his 
 voice the tears actually filled the corners of his 
 eyes and chased each other down his cheeks. It 
 was the same day that another beggar, a younger 
 man, came to the Doctor begging for money. 
 
BEGGING A BUSINESS. I33 
 
 He was about to hand him a few copper cash 
 when the saucy fellow straightened up and, with 
 an air of independence, said : ''You had better 
 give me two dollars instead of a few cents; if 
 you do, you will get rid of me, for I'll promise 
 not to come again in six months or a year." 
 
 There is a school for beggars in which they 
 are taught how to impose on different classes of 
 people ; how to put lime in their own eyes in or- 
 der to produce blindness ; how to tie a string 
 around the foot above the ankle and let it cut 
 into the flesh gradually until the foot drops off, 
 so that the raw stump and bone can be shown 
 to the public as the beggar sits by the roadside; 
 and women are taught how to paste grains of 
 soft-boiled rice on the faces and bodies of little 
 children to imitate an eruption of smallpox. The 
 child is laid on a piece of cloth by the roadside 
 in expectation of passers-by tossing a copper cash 
 for its relief. 
 
 While in the city of Peking years ago in charge 
 of a hospital I had the honor of being elected the 
 honorary physician to the "Beggars' Refuge." 
 Of course I accepted, thinking it would be an op- 
 portunity to do good and reach some poor crea- 
 tures who could not otherwise be helped. The 
 first suggestion to be made was that of a bath 
 tub with a wooden bottom on the inside and iron 
 
134 SIDE LIGHTS ON THE ORIENT. 
 
 on the outside, so that a fire could be made un- 
 der the tub, thus heating the water and giving 
 the beggars a much-needed hot bath. They se- 
 riously objected on the score of danger to their 
 lives, as many of them had not bathed for ten 
 years. 
 
 My first patient v^as brought to me as deaf 
 as a post. Upon examination I found his ears 
 stopped up with Peking dust and dirt, which 
 was packed into a solid cake. An hour's work 
 with warm water, soap, and a syringe opened up 
 one ear, and another hour the second ear. As 
 soon as hearing had been restored and he was 
 positive of the fact he began to dance about the 
 room (for this man was not anxious to be deaf), 
 and then running to his comrades he told them 
 that a miracle had been worked, for he had not 
 been able to hear for months. My reputation 
 was made, objections to the bath tub were with- 
 drawn, and soon I had the pleasure of seeing my 
 beggars washed and clean for once in their lives, 
 and without any serious results. 
 
 These wretched people are not without grati- 
 tude. Dr. M. T. Yates, the great Baptist mis- 
 sionary who lived for so many years in Shanghai, 
 saved the life of a poor fellow who had laid him- 
 self down to die at the Doctor's gate. The mis- 
 sionary by prompt treatment relieved him from 
 
BEGGING A BUSINESS. I35 
 
 the attack of Asiatic cholera, with the result that 
 the beggar returned ten days after, pledging the 
 missionary that when they went to heaven he 
 would become his donkey and let the Doctor 
 ride him. 
 
XX. 
 
 STRAW AND BAMBOO. 
 
 One hardly knows which to admire most, the 
 ingenuity or the economy of the Chinese. They 
 can make almost anything with their nimble fin- 
 gers out of the very simplest and cheapest mate- 
 rial, and at the same time they are obliged to 
 economize by making a little go a long way. 
 
 It has interested me much to see what a China- 
 man can make out of rice straw. The sandals 
 worn by the farmer are made by his wife or by 
 himself on rainy days or during the winter when 
 he cannot work in the cold. Down on the dirt 
 floor they patiently sit by the hour or upon low 
 stools, rubbing and twisting the straw into cords, 
 which are skillfully woven into sandals, which 
 protect the feet and are easily fastened on by 
 strings made of the same material, which pass 
 between the great toe and the next one, run over 
 the instep, and are tied around the ankle. All of 
 this for less than one cent, and it makes a shoe 
 which may last for a week or can be used for a 
 thirty-mile walk. 
 
 One morning while our boat was Iving at an- 
 
 (136) 
 
STRAW AND BAMBOO. 1 37 
 
 chor In the canal near the town of Wang-Doo a 
 Chinese friend came aboard with a present of a 
 string of crabs. There were ten in the strings 
 all alive, as they had been caught only a few 
 hours before, all working their legs in the most 
 vigorous manner, and spitting out foam and bub- 
 bles until the whole seemed to be covered with 
 soapsuds. He held the string in his hand, and 
 it consisted of four straws twisted together. The 
 crabs were held as easily as if each had been 
 tied with a piece of twine. In the same village 
 you can literally see eggs sold by the yard. Each 
 egg is held in a little oval made of straw. A twist 
 at the end of each oval holds the strands tightly 
 together, and thus the market man can hold up 
 before your very eyes a string of eggs as long as 
 your arm. 
 
 Walking along the banks of the canals, the 
 harness with which the buffalo is hitched to the 
 plow or to the water mill is probably of straw. 
 The farmer's hat may be made of the same ma- 
 terial; and in Japan the women working in the 
 rice fields under the hot sun wear on their backs 
 a straw mat or shield which covers almost the 
 entire body and makes them look like snails 
 crawling through the mud. In the same country 
 the ox, who carries heavy burdens, toiling up 
 the rocky mountain sides, instead of being shod 
 
138 SIDE LIGHTS ON THE ORIENT. 
 
 with iron as in Korea, has a straw shoe carefully 
 bound by his owner over his feet to keep him 
 from slipping. 
 
 Speaking of the rice field, either in China or 
 Japan, the most interesting sight is that of the 
 farmer, who on a rainy day is obliged to don 
 his raincoat and continue the work of irrigating 
 his fields. He looks for the world like a porcu- 
 pine, for his wife has taken hundreds of straws, 
 run a big needle with a strong thread or string 
 through the butt ends, and has made this into a 
 cape, which he fastens around his neck and per- 
 haps another around his waist. Apart from the 
 looks of the thing (for he looks like a hedge- 
 hog or the thatched roof of a house), the garment 
 is as secure a waterproof as one made of rubber. 
 
 A fair quality of paper is made of straw, bas- 
 kets for charcoal carried on the backs of moun- 
 taineers several days' journey, mats to sit on, 
 mats to cover with (the latter much used by the 
 beggars) ; food is cooked with straw by millions 
 of Chinese, for they cannot afford any other fuel ; 
 chickens and pigs are tied with it as they are car- 
 ried to market ; and to cap the climax, the ingen- 
 ious Chinese make traps with it with which to 
 catch fleas. These traps consist of a little straw 
 box with two or three straws split half in two 
 leading up to the box from the floor, with the 
 
CORMORANT FISHING. 
 
 FISHING IN STRAW HOUSES ON BAMBOO POLES. 
 
STRAW AND BAMBOO. 139 
 
 white or Inside of the split straws uppermost. 
 The flea is fond of exercise and likes to jump on 
 anything white. He leaps on the straw, which 
 attracts him, makes another jump toward the 
 box, and lands with his feet tangled up in the 
 birdlime or glue which has been smeared on the 
 edge of the box, and there he sticks like "Brer 
 Rabbit" when he struck the "Tar Baby." 
 
 Bamboo. 
 
 The bamboo in Oriental countries is more use- 
 ful than any other substance. At all events it 
 has a greater variety of uses. Oil jars are made 
 out of it by cutting off a section and knocking 
 out one or two of the joints. The ox (or water 
 buffalo) which draws the water mill or grinds the 
 millet is blinded by having a piece of curved bam- 
 boo placed over each eye while at work. The 
 Chinaman and the Japanese as well as the Korean 
 eat with chopsticks made of this substance, and, 
 singularly enough, bamboo shoots are eaten by 
 them. The latter must be cut when they are 
 tender just as they appear above the ground. 
 Boiled and cooked with a little milk, these shoots 
 are a very palatable dish. 
 
 Bamboo implements and utensils are found on 
 every farm, from the hoe handle and the rake 
 
140 SIDE LIGHTS ON THE ORIENT. 
 
 to the water pipes that help to irrigate the rice 
 fields by bringing the water from some mountain 
 stream or spring. Frequently the house and much 
 of its furniture are made of bamboo. The fam- 
 ily may sit on bamboo stools, eat off of a bamboo 
 table with bamboo chopsticks (as already indi- 
 cated), and hang their clothes on bamboo pegs or 
 fold them away in a wardrobe made of the same 
 material. If the farmery's son writes a letter, he 
 does it with a camel's-hair brush fastened in a 
 bamboo handle; if his daughter tries to fan out 
 the flies or mosquitoes, she may do it with a bam- 
 boo fan (but they come back again, because they 
 find a refuge near by in the bamboo grove which 
 shades the house and beautifies the place) ; if her 
 father is better off than most farmers and can 
 afford it, she binds her feet to be admired by the 
 young men of the neighborhood, and her feet are 
 called the "waving bamboo" because they are sup- 
 posed to be so graceful. Fortunately for the girl, 
 this custom is going out of style. 
 
 Another custom which I am glad to say is a 
 thing of the past is that of impaling a prisoner 
 who has been condemned to die by fastening him 
 on the ground over a bamboo shoot. At least 
 this was one of the terrible modes of torture in- 
 flicted by heathen people. The shoot is so sharp 
 as it comes out of the ground and grows so fast 
 
STRAW AND BAMBOO. I4I 
 
 that it will pass up through the body in a day or 
 so if the victim is held to the ground during that 
 time. 
 
 One of the interesting sights in a Chinese city 
 is a traveling restaurant made of cane. This is 
 carried on a man's back, being In two parts, each 
 fastened on the end of a bamboo pole thrown 
 across his shoulder. For two cents you can buy 
 a bowl of soup, a mess of crawfish, a meal of rice, 
 or a couple of eggs fried in oil. One of the most 
 common sounds at night is the regular beat of 
 the watchman with his stick on a hollow bam- 
 boo as he makes his rounds. This he does to 
 scare away the thieves and to let his employer 
 know that he is wide awake and that "all Is 
 well." 
 
XXI. 
 
 THE STRAITS OF MALACCA. 
 
 The southern tip of the continent of Asia is 
 long and narrow like a finger pointing toward 
 the south. Just below the end of this continen- 
 tal finger, and lying somewhat aslant across it, is 
 the long island of Sumatra. The sea between 
 these is called the Straits of Malacca, taking 
 the name from the Malay Peninsula. Every 
 steamer from China bound for London via the 
 Suez Canal passes through these Straits, first 
 stopping at Singapore on the Pacific side and 
 then at Penang on the Indian Ocean side. 
 
 Leaving Hongkong, with its stately Victoria 
 Peak lifted up into the sky far to the north, the 
 beautiful sunsets on our right over Tongking and 
 Cochin China and the lovely moonrises on our 
 left toward the Philippines and the island of Bor- 
 neo made the closing hours of the day very at- 
 tractive as we stood on the deck watching the 
 one go down and the other come up. It was the 
 many lights twinkling along the shore that told 
 us we were about to drop anchor near Singapore. 
 The next morning we steamed into the inner har- 
 (142) 
 
THE STRAITS OF MALACCA. 1 43 
 
 bor, with islands on every side of us covered with 
 tropical verdure. We knew that we wxre within 
 one hundred miles of the equator, but the deep, 
 dark shade of palm and banana trees made the 
 shores seem to be the most delightful of resting 
 places. 
 
 We had hardly cast anchor off the pier be- 
 fore a half dozen canoes shot alongside with 
 one or two boys in each, ready, like those at 
 Honolulu, to dive for a small piece of silver 
 and even for a penny. Throw as hard as we 
 might, the coin would never get ten feet below 
 the surface before one of these expert swimmers 
 would catch and land it safely in his mouth. But 
 the most amusing thing about these fellows was 
 their playing a game of tennis on the water. A 
 white rubber ball tossed from the paddle of the 
 first boy would be caught on the paddle of the 
 second, pitched to the third, struck back again, 
 and so on, with as much ease as if they had been 
 on their feet on mother earth. 
 
 How we wished for some way in which we 
 could have carried home with us the beautiful 
 shells and lovely coral which Hterally filled a 
 canoe paddled from a neighboring island, where 
 these specimens had just been found! It seemed 
 as though every shape and every color had been 
 utilized in the beautifying of these delicate little 
 
144 SIDE LIGHTS ON THE ORIENT, 
 
 houses which had been occupied by the denizens 
 of the deep. One dollar in American money 
 might have bought the lot, and possibly the canoe 
 thrown in ; but where could we have stowed them 
 away ? 
 
 A gharry ride to the Botanical Gardens is a 
 treat every passenger enjoys. The gharry is a 
 four-wheeled, closed carriage, with blinds in- 
 stead of curtains in order to keep out the sun, 
 but to let in the breeze. The pony is not larger 
 than a Shetland, but is capable of any amount of 
 travel, and does not seem to share the lazy look 
 of the natives, who are content if they can get a 
 dish of curry and some fruit and spend the day 
 in the shade. 
 
 The Gardens are very extensive, carefully kept, 
 and are supplied with trees and plants from al- 
 most every portion of the tropical world. There 
 are royal palms from Cuba with their ostrich-like 
 plumes, date palms from Arabia, sago palms from 
 the South Sea Islands, the kauri pine from New 
 Zealand with a leaf like the oleander but with 
 the rough bark of the pine tree. The most beau- 
 tiful of all was a bank of maidenhair fern, twen- 
 ty feet long and four feet high; while the most 
 startling and attractive was a great tree which is 
 called the "Flame of the Forest." This is the 
 Royal Poinciana from the island of Madagascar, 
 
THE STRAITS OF MALACCA. I45 
 
 which fairly blazes like a flame of fire. Venus's 
 flytrap is a little plant which is found in the 
 swamps of North Carolina. It has two leaves 
 or segments facing each other which are supplied 
 with needles or spines. The moment a fly or in- 
 sect lights upon this sensitive surface the leaves 
 fold together, imprisoning the poor little unfor- 
 tunate and sucking the very lifeblood out of him. 
 Then tlie two halves, having completed their meal, 
 open once more, get rid of the body of the victim, 
 and are ready for another. 
 
 Two days' steaming around the end of the 
 Malay Peninsula and we are at Penang. A shout 
 from the captain just before we arrived called 
 our attention to a fishing boat directly in our 
 way, which would have been run down had our 
 steamer not suddenly changed her course. As we 
 swept by the fisherman put out his head, and we 
 saw that he had been fast asleep and ignorant of 
 the danger. 
 
 Only four hours' stop, but we make good use 
 of it by pulling ashore in a curious little painted 
 boat, with the bow turned up like the toe of a 
 Turkish slipper and the stern divided into two 
 parts like the tail and wings of a swallow. On 
 our way to the wharf we passed a boat with at 
 least four thousand cocoanuts on it, and in the 
 fruit shops we saw men drinking the cocoanut 
 10 
 
146 SIDE LIGHTS ON THE ORIENT. 
 
 milk, which in the fresh cocoanut is sweet and 
 nourishing. A run into the market gives us a 
 peep at curious-looking white egg plants, the lar- 
 gest bamboo shoots we ever saw, great piles of 
 ginger to be candied or made into preserves, and 
 bushels of shrimp and shellfish. The tables for 
 fish are made of tiles with grooves between them. 
 Each table slants a little downward, so that tiny 
 streams of water running out at the top can run 
 along the grooves and keep the fish wet and cool. 
 The funny thing about it all is that the Chinaman 
 who sells the fish or shrimp sits on a block of 
 wood in the middle of the table and seems not to 
 care a fig for the water running under and about 
 him. 
 
 Curious houses these Malay people live in, with 
 roofs made of rushes or palm leaves, the sides of 
 mats, and the whole thing on stilts of bamboo or 
 wood so high above the ground that they have 
 to go up a ladder to get into the house. 
 
 The way they dress is more curious still. The 
 men frequently have red calico skirts wrapped 
 around them, but with nothing on above the 
 waist except a turban or a fez cap on the head. 
 For an ornament one fellow had a ring on his 
 big toe, and a woman, as if to offset him, in ad- 
 dition to the light shawl over her shoulders and 
 head and the usual skirt, had bored a hole in the 
 
THE STRAITS OF MALACCA. 1 47 
 
 side of her nose and fastened a silver brooch into 
 it the size of a quarter of a dollar. 
 
 Returning to the wharf to catch our steamer, 
 we passed tall mango trees on the right and the 
 "Traveler's Palm" on the other side of the street. 
 This is the most interesting palm of all. It re- 
 ceived its name from the fact that when thirsty 
 a traveler can climb to the top, cut off the stem, 
 scoop out a hole, and in a few minutes find it full 
 of water with which he can quench his thirst. 
 
XXII. 
 JUGGLERS AND SNAKE CHARMERS. 
 
 The island of Ceylon is like a pear in shape, 
 hanging down in the Indian Ocean, with its stem 
 toward the north and near the coast of India. 
 The upper part of the pear is so near India that 
 the strait between the two can almost be crossed 
 on the shallow reef, which is called "Adam's 
 Bridge." There is a mountain in the center of 
 the island called "Adam's Peak." On this moun- 
 tain, impressed in the rock, is Adam's foot. I 
 suppose this gave the name to the mountain. He 
 must have been a giant, for the impression of the 
 foot shown in the Buddhist Dagoba at Kandy, the 
 capital, is over a yard long. Eve must have been 
 left behind when her husband came over here, 
 because we hear nothing of her at all. 
 
 As our steamer passed through the magnifi- 
 cent breakwater and dropped anchor in the har- 
 bor of Colombo we realized how wise it was in 
 the English government to build the sea wall of 
 concrete which keeps the thundering billows of 
 the Indian Ocean from interfering with this now 
 quiet anchorage. Even the five boys on a raft 
 
 (148) 
 
JUGGLERS AND SNAKE CHARMERS. I49 
 
 of four cocoanut logs, who came alongside sing- 
 ing a song and clapping their hands to keep time, 
 did not have to guard themselves against the 
 waves. But they were just as ready as those of 
 Singapore and Honolulu to dive for a piece of 
 money. They must have had a thriving business, 
 for into this crossroads of the East Indies there 
 are steamers from England, France, Germany, 
 Australia, Arabia, China, and Japan. Who 
 would have thought that a little island only 270 
 miles long and 140 miles broad, occupied at one 
 time by wild tribes called the Veddas, would 
 furnish one of the world's great ports with its 
 banks, hotels, churches, schools, street cars, auto- 
 mobiles, and everything else that goes to make 
 up a city? 
 
 We had not been at our hotel on the beach 
 half an hour before the jugglers and snake charm- 
 ers came on the lawn to amuse the guests. The 
 first fellow, instead of being a fire eater, pro- 
 fessed to be able to kindle a fire inside of him. 
 Like the others, he was tall, lean, hollow-eyed, 
 black-skinned, with a turban on his head and 
 nothing on his body above his waist. He now 
 hops on one foot and then on the other in an 
 unaccountable way. No one knows what is going 
 to happen. His movements get quicker ; he puts 
 his hand on his stomach as if in pain, with his 
 
150 SIDE LIGHTS ON THE ORIENT. 
 
 eyes almost starting from his head, and then, 
 bending over toward the gentleman who was sit- 
 ting on the steps nearest to him, you really begin 
 to see the smoke coming out of his mouth and 
 nose. He straightens up and seems to feel bet- 
 ter. Then he bends over again, and there comes 
 another puflf of smoke. The man seems actually 
 to be on fire and needs a bucket of water 
 poured into him to put it out. This goes on for 
 some time, and then without a word all of a sud- 
 den the smoke ceases, the fire goes out, and the 
 juggler, immensely relieved, passes his hat for 
 some coin. 
 
 A second man comes up on the porch, squats 
 dow^n on the hard floor, gets out his few little 
 things, and goes to work. Many are the won- 
 derful things he does. But I will describe only 
 one of the most interesting. A pile of sand, 
 enough to fill a hat, is poured out upon the floor. 
 He beats the sand with a rag doll, which squeaks 
 and groans. He then talks to the doll in some 
 sort of jargon we cannot understand, and the 
 doll seems to give its orders to the sand, after 
 which the latter is covered with a cloth. The 
 juggler's arms and body are bare, so that he can- 
 not introduce anything under that cloth without 
 our seeing it. The sand had all been spread out 
 before it was heaped up, so we knew there was 
 
JUGGLERS AND SNAKE CHARMERS. I5I 
 
 nothing" in that. He extends one hand, lifts up 
 a corner of the cloth, peeps under it, gets off 
 some more of his mysterious words, looks de- 
 lighted, throws off the cloth, and there is a little 
 green leaf which has just pushed its way up 
 through the sand. We all believe the leaf is sim- 
 ply stuck down there, and see nothing remarkable 
 about it. The cloth goes on again, the doll re- 
 ceives a beating and dances around like a sprite, 
 the cloth is rising up, and when he throws it off a 
 second time a little shoot has come up, with sev- 
 eral fresh leaves on it. On goes the cloth again, 
 and then off for the third and last time, after 
 which we see it rise up, and now we rub our eyes 
 with amazement, for a little mango tree has ac- 
 tually grown up out of the sand and is standing 
 there a foot high. One gentleman cries out: "I 
 bet it is only a stem and has no root." The jug- 
 gler understands enough English to pull up the 
 tree and show the half dozen roots which had 
 spread themselves through the sand. Then his 
 triumph was complete, and all agreed that he had 
 earned his money. 
 
 The snake charmer was the third man, and re- 
 mained out on the lawn. First, he gave an exhi- 
 bition of a little boy who could twist himself 
 into all sorts of shapes, making two loops by 
 crossing his hands and feet and then passing 
 
152 SIDE LIGHTS ON THE ORIENT. 
 
 his feet and legs over his head and around his 
 arms until you wondered if he would ever get 
 straight again. Then bending his head down 
 toward his heels until they almost touched, the 
 man lifted the boy up in mid-air, balanced him 
 on the end of a bamboo stuck in the middle of 
 his back, and while still bent over backward grad- 
 ually raised the boy high above our heads until 
 the lower end of the bamboo stood on the jug- 
 gler's chin. This done, he walked about on the 
 grass until he was ready to lower his burden amid 
 the applause of those who saw it. 
 
 A basket at his feet was opened and showed 
 a large snake curled up. He struck the snake, 
 when it shot up its head and body, at the same 
 time spreading a kind of hood about its neck 
 and head. This was the deadly cobra. He struck 
 it again, and it struck back at him, being very 
 angry. Getting out a little flageolet, he played 
 softly, when the snake relaxed its hood and sank 
 back in the basket perfectly still. The cobra is 
 the deadliest serpent in India and Ceylon. In the 
 temples one frequently sees an image of Buddha 
 with the cobra erect behind it with its head and 
 hood arching over the image. This grows out 
 of a tradition that Buddha while in the forest 
 was protected by the snake, and so the Buddhist 
 holds it in great reverence. Along the roads on 
 
JUGGLERS AND SNAKE CHARMERS. 1 53 
 
 this island large ant-hills are pointed out with 
 one or two holes near the base. The natives say 
 this snake, finding the ant-hill a place to his lik- 
 ing, makes his home there whether the ants want 
 him or not. 
 
 Our snake charmer on the lawn now opens a 
 bag, and out comes a little four-footed animal, 
 with a long, narrow head, tapering nose, and 
 sharp teeth. It is the mongoose, the fiercest ene- 
 my of the cobra. While he is held by the cord 
 tied around his neck^ the charmer strikes the 
 snake several times, angers him, and then pulls 
 up the mongoose. The latter, not one bit afraid, 
 flies at the cobra, and as quick as a flash fastens 
 his teeth in the snake's under jaw. It takes a 
 sharp lick to separate them, for they roll over 
 on the grass in deadly combat. The mongoose 
 runs back into his bag, still showing his teeth, and 
 the charmer plays on his flageolet with all his 
 might until the venomous serpent is safely cov- 
 ered with the top of the basket. It is a rare sight, 
 but one does not care to see it a second time. 
 
XXIII. 
 BUDDHA'S TOOTH. 
 
 In the city of Kandy, which is seventy-five 
 miles by rail from Colombo, there stands the 
 Maligawa Temple, which is supposed to contain 
 Buddha's tooth. Ordinarily the tooth cannot be 
 seen, as it is held by a lotus flower of pure gold, 
 hidden under seven bell-shaped metal shrines, each 
 shrine being set with jewels and precious stones of 
 great value. Once a year, and sometimes on great 
 festival occasions, the tooth is brought out and 
 carried through the streets in a shrine under a 
 canopy on the back of an elephant. 
 
 This sacred object was brought from India 
 to Ceylon nearly 1,700 years ago by the Princess 
 of Kalinga, who hid it in the folds of her hair. 
 Nearly 700 years ago the Malabars carried it 
 back to India, after which it was once more re- 
 stored to Ceylon and hidden away. A few years 
 after Columbus discovered America the Portu- 
 guese found the tooth and took it to Goa, where it 
 was burned by the Archbishop in the presence of 
 the Viceroy and his court. Another was soon 
 manufactured out of a piece of ivory two inches 
 
 (154) 
 
BUDDHA S TOOTH. 155 
 
 long and less than an inch thick. This is what is 
 now in the temple at Kandy, and is the object of 
 worship which attracts devotees from every part 
 of the Buddhist world. 
 
 Gautama, the founder of Buddhism, was born 
 in India nearly 500 years before Christ. He was 
 a prince and lived like any other man of wealth 
 and power who had never given any serious 
 thought to life here or hereafter. One day he 
 began to think so seriously about the evil, the 
 pain, and the sorrow of this world that he re- 
 solved to give up his kingdom and his home and 
 become a wanderer far away from the haunts of 
 men. In the hours of his loneliness and self- 
 denial he thought out his philosophy of life. It 
 was this : All existence involves pain and suffer- 
 ing, all suffering is caused by desire, the cessa- 
 tion of suffering will follow the extinction of 
 desire, and the extinction of desire will be ac- 
 complished by perseverance in the eightfold path 
 — namely, right beliefs, right resolves, right 
 speech, right work, right livelihood, right train- 
 ing, right-mindfulness, and right mental concen- 
 tration. 
 
 Some of these things sound very good, but how 
 are we to accomplish them unless some person 
 greater than ourselves can give us the power 
 to do it? Then the end of it all, with Gautama's 
 
156 SIDE LIGHTS ON THE ORIENT. 
 
 reasoning, was to think and concentrate your- 
 self into Nirvana, which means extinction of the 
 life of the body and of the life of the soul. This 
 would be going out into outer darkness and utter 
 nothingness. 
 
 Buddhism was once the great religion of India, 
 but now there are only 9,000,000 in that country. 
 It is much stronger in Ceylon, Siam, China, and 
 Japan, where it is most active. It made us 
 sad at heart to see the poor devotees, most of 
 them old men and women, bowing down before a 
 shrine which contained nothing but the imitation 
 of a tooth, and it looks, it is said, more like that 
 of a crocodile than that of a man. And yet there 
 they were, burning candles and incense, offering 
 basketfuls of beautiful white jasmine flowers 
 which filled the air with fragrance, and bending 
 low as they kneeled upon the hard stone pave- 
 ment, repeating in an undertone praises to "Lord 
 Buddha." Two of the women were pilgrims who 
 had come by land and sea from far-away Burma 
 to make their offerings to and receive blessings 
 from this miserable relic. 
 
 Bishop Thoburn states the case very clearly 
 when he says that Christianity teaches all of the 
 moral virtues of Buddhism and fills up its awful 
 vacancy with a living, personal God. He adds: 
 "Christianity has a Saviour; Budhism casts each 
 
BUDDHA S TOOTH. 1 57 
 
 individual upon his own helplessness. Chris- 
 tianity is a revelation of hope; Buddhism, a re- 
 ligion of despair. Gautama offers only death; 
 Christ offers life and immortality." 
 
 There are several very large elephants belong- 
 ing to this temple which can be seen every after- 
 noon having a bath in the river. It is a pity that 
 more of the followers of Gautama did not follow 
 their example. Late one evening I saw two of 
 these elephants grazing about in the inclosure 
 across the street from the temple and almost un- 
 der the great bo tree, in the shade of which 
 Gautama had his seat in the forest. 
 
 These animals are so intelligent and so strong 
 that anything concerning them seems interesting. 
 Bishop Wilson says he has seen them at work in 
 the sawmills of Burma, rolling logs and lifting 
 timbers with as much sense and with far more 
 ease than the men. On this island they are trained 
 to drive wild elephants into the kraal. Once in 
 the inclosure, the tame elephants go in among the 
 wild ones, help the hunters to tie the hind legs 
 of their big companions to the trees, and then 
 will go on each side of a captured animal and 
 rub and pet him with their trunks until he be- 
 comes quiet. 
 
 In the museum at Colombo is a huge stone 
 lion on the back of which was placed the throne 
 
I5B SIDE LIGHTS ON THE ORIENT. 
 
 of one of the native kings (or chiefs) of Ceylon. 
 A few years ago the attempt was made to bring 
 this Hon, which weighs many tons, from the ruins 
 of the old city down to Colombo. It was so heavy 
 the bottom of the wagon fell out, and it seemed 
 impossible to move it any farther. Elephants 
 were secured and made to understand what was 
 needed. They went to work with a will, and 
 pulled so hard that they pulled the second wagon 
 in two. A third, stouter than the others, was 
 prepared, and then it was found that the bridges 
 over the rivers were not strong enough, for the 
 elephants would put their front feet on each 
 bridge, shake it, and then, tossing up their 
 trunks, refuse to go forward. A road had to be 
 built down the bank of the river and another on 
 the opposite side, when the elephants willingly 
 enough, and as though they took a real interest 
 in the enterprise, pulled the lion through the 
 river, up the bank, and out on the other side. It 
 is not surprising, therefore, that the Buddhist 
 priests who, with their red and yellow robes, 
 throng the Maligawa Temple like to have these 
 great animals join in the processions during the 
 religious festivals when the tooth of Lord Buddha 
 is to be carried from the shrine through the 
 streets of the capital of Ceylon. 
 
ELEPHANT AT WORK. 
 
 TEMPLE OF BUDDHA S TOOTH. 
 
XXIV. 
 OCEAN ISLAND. 
 
 A TRAVELER Occasionally meets up with people 
 who have had wonderful experiences. On our 
 steamer I was introduced to a square-shouldered, 
 burly-looking, freckle-faced, red-headed passen- 
 ger, who bore the name of Captain Walkup. 
 He looked a sailor, every inch of him; but 
 he had scarcely spoken before I discovered in 
 his hearty grasp of the hand and friendl}^ 
 smile that he had a big heart in spite of his 
 freckles. He turned out to be the captain of the 
 famous Morning Star. This is the well-known 
 missionary ship which has sailed and steamed 
 among thousands of the little coral islands in 
 the South Seas, has carried food, clothes, and 
 medicine to many a lonely missionary, and has 
 had hairbreadth escapes from hurricanes and — 
 what is far more to be dreaded — cannibals. 
 
 It was not long before I got the Captain started 
 on the story of his missionary journeyings, and 
 soon my interest was centered upon Ocean Is- 
 land, 250 miles west of the Gilbert group. A 
 
 (IS9) 
 
l6o SIDE LIGHTS ON THE ORIENT. 
 
 good many years ago a number of islanders were 
 driven by a storm upon the shore of this lone 
 sentinel, their canoes were wrecked, and they 
 were left high and dry for life. Here they re- 
 mained almost without clothing, eking out an 
 existence by fishing and sheltering themselves 
 from the sun under the shadow of the rocks or 
 such primitive huts as they were able to build out 
 of wreckage and grass, for there were no trees 
 on the island. The heat was almost insupporta- 
 ble, as they were nearly under the equator. Some- 
 times it does not rain for two years, and they 
 nearly perished for lack of water, having to be 
 very careful of the water that had been collected 
 during the rainy season in the hollow of the 
 rocks, in caves where it trickled down through 
 the earth, or in rude cisterns fashioned with their 
 hands and with sharpened sticks or fish bones. 
 No people could have been poorer or more mis- 
 erable. 
 
 In addition to all this, their wickedness and 
 that of white men brought on other troubles. 
 They got to drinking and learned the use of fire- 
 arms, for both liquor and guns were supplied by 
 the whalers who would occasionally visit the 
 island. Things went from bad to worse until 
 Captain Walkup says almost every child born 
 on the island had died : and thousrh the inhabit- 
 
OCEAN ISLAND. l6l 
 
 ants had multiplied until there were 400, they 
 were now rapidly diminishing. Then the Morn- 
 ing Star hove in sight, ran up its flag, and offered 
 to leave a missionary worker who could not only 
 point them to Christ but teach them how to plant 
 vegetables, build better houses, and make life 
 more tolerable. 
 
 The story of God's love and the mission of 
 Jesus Christ to redeem man from his cruelty, sin, 
 and shame was so new that it seemed to have 
 come straight out of the heavens. The simple 
 islanders listened and wondered, and then with 
 tears rolling down their cheeks confessed their 
 ignorance, their sin, and their need, and accept- 
 ed Christ as their Saviour. A wonderful trans- 
 formation took place. They fished with more 
 diligence, they put on neat cotton shirts which 
 the missionaries taught them how to make out 
 of cloth brought on the Morning Star, they 
 learned to read out of simple little primers made 
 for them by their teachers, built a schoolhouse 
 and a church, and asked that they might have 
 the privilege of supporting their own pastor. 
 This I thought was hardly short of marvelous, 
 after the Captain told me, with a shrug of his 
 shoulders, that they had been in the habit of kill- 
 ing every man who drifted on the shore from 
 other islands. The v/omen and children were 
 
 TT 
 
l62 SIDE LIGHTS ON THE ORIENT. 
 
 saved, if there were any in the canoes, but the 
 men were sacrificed. 
 
 And now comes another part of the story, 
 which is scarcely less astonishing. The mission- 
 aries discovered that what seemed to be a bare 
 rock was phosphate of lime, which is very valua- 
 ble as a fertilizer. This deposit is over twenty- 
 five feet deep, and it was calculated there were 
 at least 18,000,000 tons of the phosphate which 
 could be mined, shipped, and sold in countries 
 far distant, where the soil needed to be enriched. 
 It was a mine of wealth. These islanders, who 
 for several hundred years had nothing to make 
 clothes out of, not enough water to drink, and 
 with difficulty caught enough fish to eat, were 
 almost as rich as if they had the greatest dia- 
 mond mine in the world. The Captain said, with 
 a wink of his right eye and a jerk of his thumb 
 over his shoulder: ''You will hardly believe it, 
 but there is a steamer following us now with 
 1,000 tons of that phosphate on board, and she is 
 bound for Kobe, Japan." To my surprise, I 
 learned that the Japanese Mitsu Bishi Steamship 
 Company was sending to those islanders once 
 every month a vessel to bring to their own shores 
 what is so much needed to enrich their country. 
 
 Ocean Island is now a beehive of activity. 
 There are 100. white men and over ^oo natives 
 
OCEAN ISLAND. 1 63 
 
 brought from the Gilbert Islands who are at work 
 in the phosphate beds. x\bout i.ooo tons a day 
 are dug up and prepared for shipment. Around 
 the little whitewashed cottages there grow flow- 
 ers and vines, the latter bearing cucumbers and 
 melons of every sOrt. Trees have been planted, 
 and by the use of rain water gathered in the 
 tanks, which the white men have shown them 
 how to build, the whole face of the island is 
 being transformed. You may count 130 chil- 
 dren with books in hand trudging along every 
 day up to the schoolhouse. On Saturday after- 
 noon work stops that the laborers may have a lit- 
 tle recreation, for this is in the hottest zone of the 
 world, and Sunday is a day of absolute rest be- 
 cause almost every islander has become a con- 
 sistent Christian. This surely is an illustration 
 of being lifted by the gospel from darkness into 
 light and from heathenism into the life which 
 God gives the world through faith in Jesus 
 Christ. 
 
 Captain Walkup says that Pleasant Island, far 
 to the east, has had a history much the same as 
 this one. If anything, the islanders were more 
 wicked and cruel. There were only 1,500 people, 
 and these were made up of fourteen tribes that 
 were at war with each other all the time. The 
 island was divided up between these tribes, and 
 
164 SIDE LIGHTS ON THE ORIENT. 
 
 a man belonging to one could not cross the line 
 into the territory of another. They were con- 
 stantly killing each other with clubs set with fish 
 teeth, which tore the flesh, or they would pierce 
 each other through and through with sharp jave- 
 lins made of fish bones hooked at the end. Some 
 times captured children were strung together by 
 running these long fish bones through their ears, 
 and the old people were beaten to death because 
 they could not work. 
 
 While walking on the shore one day an Eng- 
 lishman, who was an escaped convict and had 
 been on the island for forty years, ran out of the 
 bushes and urged the Captain to bring some mis- 
 sionaries on the Morning Star. He had just lost 
 a son, who had been clubbed to death by the sav- 
 ages, and he was sick at heart. *T am tired of 
 the whole thing," said he, ''and wish you w^ould 
 open a Christian school and help these people to 
 live a better life." A native teacher was sent 
 who remained seven years. He was supported 
 by the Union Church in Honolulu, which we 
 saw on our way to Japan. The result of his work 
 and of others is 700 Church members or 1,000 in 
 the Sunday morning congregation gathered in 
 the beautiful little church which they have built 
 with their own hands. Behold what God hath 
 wrought ! 
 
XXV. 
 THE ROOF OF ASIA. 
 
 During our trip from Nashville to San Fran- 
 cisco I had occasion to write about "The Roof of 
 the Continent/' for the Rockies may be so styled. 
 We had no idea at that time that we would have 
 the privilege of standing on the ''Roof of Asia," 
 which is the highest view point in the world. The 
 Himalaya Mountains, which run nearly east and 
 west, form the great ridge (or divide) from 
 which China slopes to the east, Russia to the 
 west, and India to the south. From the melting 
 snows of this and kindred ranges rise the Yang-tse 
 River, emptying into the Pacific; the Ganges, 
 which feeds the Indian Ocean; and the Indus, 
 with its mouth in the Bay of Bengal. 
 
 Boarding a train at Calcutta one evening, we 
 traveled all that night almost due north, and in 
 the morning found ourselves still in the midst of 
 rice fields, palm trees, and groves of bananas. At 
 9 o'clock, after we had had some breakfast, we 
 changed to the "Climber." This is a little train 
 traveling on a two-foot track, with cars that seem 
 made for play instead of travel, for each passen- 
 
 (165) 
 
l66 SIDE LIGHTS ON THE ORIENT. 
 
 ger coach holds from six to eight people only, 
 except in the third-class, where they were packed 
 like sardines. 
 
 We started off on level ground, and were in- 
 clined to poke fun at our little locomotive, which 
 fairly seemed to dance along the track, and hard- 
 ly took seriously to the fact that it had to pull us 
 all day long up mountain sides which would have 
 taxed a horse to travel. But it was not long be- 
 fore we came to have profound respect for the 
 engine and the Scotch engineer, who seemed a 
 part of each other. Our car was the second in 
 the train, and it was a constant temptation to 
 stick our heads out of the windows and see what 
 the locomotive was about. It puffed and blew 
 and twisted, shaking itself from side to side as 
 we zigzagged along and rounded short curves 
 until we thought surely we should be landed in 
 some deep valley far below ; but it always kept the 
 track and constantly climbed higher and higher. 
 
 One of the most interesting points on the road 
 is the "Loop." Here the mountain was so steep 
 , that, finding it impossible to go on, the engineer so 
 constructed the road as to make it pass over itself 
 and wind in a spiral around an adjacent hilltop in 
 order to get high enough to reach another level in 
 the mountains. It made me think of a point on the 
 Southern Pacific Railroad in California, between 
 
THE ROOF OF ASIA. 167 
 
 Los Angeles and San Francisco, where the con- 
 structing engineer was at his wit's end, when his 
 little boy, who was with him, asked: "Father, 
 why don't you make the road cross itself like 
 the loop of a string?" He caught the idea at 
 once and worked out the problem just as.it has 
 been done here. 
 
 From this elevation we looked almost straight 
 below us 2,000 feet, where lie the jungles of 
 grass, matted vines, ferns, and tropical growth 
 in which the deadly cobra is found and the royal 
 Bengal tiger still roams at large. It is said that 
 a missionary, passing through the jungle on his 
 way to a native village, had one of these snakes 
 to twist himself into the wheel of his bicycle. 
 You may imagine it did not take long for that 
 missionary to dismount and get rid of his unwel- 
 come companion. In the Zoological Garden at 
 Calcutta we saw a magnificent tiger of unusual 
 size and strength having his dinner off of a big 
 piece of beef. As he crunched the bone between 
 his teeth we were glad he was behind the iron 
 bars, for we were told that he was a man-eater 
 from these very jungles and had disposed of at 
 least two hundred men, women, and children. 
 
 As we climb into the region of cloud we find 
 ourselves in the midst of tea plantations. From 
 the little evergreen shrubs, planted in rows and 
 
l68 SIDE LIGHTS ON THE ORIENT. 
 
 diagonals, the buds and tender leaves are picked 
 by women and children, dried, and shipped from 
 Calcutta to England, Europe, and almost every 
 part of the world. The farms are on hillsides 
 so steep that in many places the tea pickers have 
 almost to hold on with one hand while they pick 
 with the other. And yet here and there you see 
 tiny little thatched huts belonging to the laborers 
 that seem to swing in mid-air. While the front 
 door is level with the ground, one might toss a 
 pebble out of the back window i,ooo feet down 
 the mountains. It would be a dangerous place 
 for one to live who was in the habit of walking 
 in his sleep. It was not far from here that a 
 Mrs. Lee and her husband, both missionaries, 
 had left their children to go to school while they 
 continued their work in Calcutta. The house was 
 supposed to be in a secure place, as there was a 
 good foundation and a yard of fair size ; but un- 
 der the heavy rains which poured down in tor- 
 rents during the monsoon (or wet season) there 
 was a landslide (or avalanche) which swept down 
 with terrific force, burying the house and the in- 
 mates under tons of earth and rock. A telegram 
 was sent to the parents, who traveled night and 
 day, walking miles at a stretch over roads which 
 had been torn up by the mountain torrents ; but 
 they reached the spot only in time to hear the 
 
THE ROOF OF ASIA. 169 
 
 oldest boy tell the story before he died. The 
 workmen had dug him out, but the others were 
 beyond their reach. 
 
 At last we are on the summit of the range 
 over which we have been climbing all day. The 
 beautiful Kinchinjunga bursts upon our view. It 
 soars like a snow palace in the upper clouds 28,- 
 156 feet above the level of the sea. The sun is 
 setting in the far West and lights up with rosy 
 hue each dome and pinnacle until, like some celes- 
 tial city let down, it looks as though it were all 
 to be lifted up again into the heavens. We saw 
 Fujiyama, in Japan, 12,365 feet high. You could 
 add a second Fuji, placing it on top of the first, 
 making 24,000 feet, and still Kinchinjunga would 
 require 4,000 more to measure its height. Not 
 one peak alone, but several over 24,000 feet, 
 lift up their heads as they tower above the plains 
 of India, the table-lands of Tibet, and even the 
 roof itself of the great Asiatic continent. And 
 Mount Everest is the highest of them all. As we 
 gazed and gazed, I could not help repeating to 
 myself those beautiful words of David in the 
 twenty- fourth Psalm : 
 
 Lift up your heads, O ye gates; 
 
 Even lift them up, ye everlasting doors; 
 
 And the King of glory shall come in. 
 
 Who is this King of glory? 
 
 The Lord of hosts, he is the King of glory. 
 
FEB IE 1»0d 
 
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS • 
 
 029 925 694 7 
 
 I- '' !i 
 
 
 ?m