THE VISIT TO ENGLAND IN 1882
From 1880 onwards Mrs. Gilmour suffered severely from illness, and
medical advisers recommended at length the rest and change of a visit to
England. Mr. Gilmour's furlough was also nearly due. Consequently, in
the spring of 1882, he and his family returned to England. This visit
was helpful and memorable in many ways. The rest so thoroughly well
earned was greatly enjoyed. The return to civilisation, the society of
loved relatives and friends, the comforts of ordinary English life, and
the change of thought and occupation which these involved--all reacted
happily and refreshingly upon both Mr. Gilmour and his wife.
But a sojourn at home is not by any means a season of entire rest for
the jaded worker. The Churches constantly need the stimulus and
awakening that are best supplied by the men who have been filling the
hard places in the field. Gilmour also was so full of enthusiasm for his
work, and so eager in his desire to benefit the Mongols, that he would
doubtless have found for himself many opportunities of pleading their
cause, had not the authorities of the London Missionary Society,
following their usual custom, furnished him with a long list of
deputation engagements, Into these he threw himself with an energy that
very greatly enlarged the circle of his friendship, secured very many
new supporters for the missionary cause, and obtained for himself, on
the part of many, a devout, prayerful sympathy for the remainder of his
earthly service.
He had brought with him a large quantity of manuscript material dealing
with his twelve years of Mongol life and experience. From this he
prepared the volume which was published by the Religious Tract Society
in April 1883, under the title of _Among the Mongols_.
The book was very cordially welcomed by the press, and we single out for
quotation a portion of one review which stands out pre-eminent not only
for its literary quality, but also as placing on record the impression
James Gilmour was able to make upon men entirely ignorant of him and his
work by the simple narrative of his experiences. It appeared in the
_Spectator_ for April 28, 1883.
'We have a difficulty in passing judgment on this book. It is
possible, even probable, that the impression it has made on us is
individual to this reviewer, and due to an accident which, with
other readers, will not repeat itself. Having time, and an interest
in nomads, he read a page or two, and read on, and read on, for
five hours, till he had finished the book,--which is much too
short,--fascinated, lost, carried out of himself and England. He
was in Mongolia, sitting under a blue-cloth tent, with savage dogs
howling around, and gazing outside, through the doorless doorway,
on a vast panorama of poor tufted grass, stretching away to huge
black hills in the distance, and Tartars on camels, Tartars on
horses, Tartars on springless, unbreakable ox-carts, hastening up
to the encampment; while inside he listened to a quiet Scotchman,
resignedly yet clearly explaining everything in a voice---- there
was the puzzle. Where in the world had the reviewer heard that
voice before, with its patient monotone, as well known as his
oldest friend's, its constant digressions and "reflections," its
sentences so familiar, yet so new, sentences which, as each topic
came up, he could write before they were uttered. "James Gilmour,
M.A." Never knew him, or heard of him; yet here was he, talking
exactly as some one else had years ago talked a hundred times. So
oppressive at last became the will-o'-the-wisp reminiscence, that
the reviewer stopped, after an account of the Desert of Gobi, and
deliberately read it through again, in search of a clue which might
reawaken his memory. It was all in vain, and it was not till
another hundred pages had been passed, always under the impression
of that bewildering reminiscence, that he exclaimed to himself,
"That's it! Robinson Crusoe has turned missionary, lived years in
Mongolia, and written a book about it." That is this book. To any
one who, perhaps from early neglect, does not perceive this truth,
our judgment will seem erroneous; but to any one who does, we may
quite fearlessly appeal. The student of _Robinson Crusoe_ never
expected that particular pleasure in this life, and he will never
have it again; but for this once he has it to the full. Mr. James
Gilmour, though a man of whom any country may be proud, is not a
deep thinker, and not a bright writer, and not a man with the gift
of topographical, or, indeed, any other kind of description. He
thinks nothing extraordinary, and has nothing to say quotable.
There is a faint, far-off humour in him, humour sternly repressed;
but that, so far as we know, is the only quality in his writing
which makes him _littÈrateur_ at all. But Heaven, which has denied
him many gifts, has given him one in full measure,--the gift of
Defoe, the power of so stating things that the reader not only
believes them, but sees them in bodily presence, that he is there
wherever the author chooses to place him, under the blue tent,
careering over the black ice of Lake Baikal, or hobnobbing in tea
with priests as unlike Englishmen as it is possible for human
beings to be, yet, such is his art, in nowise unintelligible or
strange. It may be, as we have said, that it is an individual
impression, but we never read, save once, the kind of book in our
lives, did not deem it possible ever again to meet with this
special variety of unconscious literary skill. We are aware of a
dozen shortcomings, of a hundred points upon which Mr. Gilmour
ought to have given light, and has not; but there has been, if our
experience serves us at all, no book quite like this book since
_Robinson Crusoe_; and _Robinson Crusoe_ is not better, does not
tell a story more directly, or produce more instantaneous and final
conviction. Heaven help us all, if Mr. Gilmour tells us that he has
met any unknown race in Mongolia, say, people with the power of
making themselves invisible, for Tyndall will believe him, and
Huxley account for them, and the _Illustrated London News_ publish
their portraits--in the stage of invisibility. We do not say the
book is admirable, or perfect, or anything else superlative; but we
do say, and this with sure confidence, that no one who begins it
will leave it till the narrative ends, or doubt for an instant,
whether he knows Defoe or not, that he has been enchained by
something separate and distinct in literature, something almost
uncanny in the way it has gripped him, and made him see for ever a
scene he never expected to see.
'We do not know that we have any more to say about the book. Its
merit is that, and no other; and we do not suppose anybody ever
proved _Robinson Crusoe's_ value by extracts. But we must say a
word or two about the author and his subject. Mr. Gilmour, though a
Scotchman, is apparently attached to the London Mission, and seems
to have quitted Peking for Mongolia on an impulse to teach Christ
to Tartars. He could not ride, he did not know Mongolian, he had an
objection to carry arms, and he had no special fitness except his
own character, which he knew nothing about, for the work.
Nevertheless, he went, and stayed years, living on half-frozen
prairies and deserts under open tents, on fat mutton, sheep's tails
particularly, tea, and boiled millet, eating only once a day
because Mongols do, and in all things, except lying, stealing, and
prurient talk, making himself a lama. As he could not ride, he rode
for a month over six hundred miles of dangerous desert, where the
rats undermine the grass, and at the end found that that difficulty
has disappeared for ever. As he could not talk, he "boarded out"
with a lama, listened and questioned, and questioned and listened,
till he knew Mongolian as Mongols know it, till his ears became so
open that he was painfully aware that Mongol conversation, like
that of most Asiatics, is choked with _doubles entendres_. As for
danger, he had made up his mind not to carry arms, not to be angry
with a heathen, happen what might, and--though he does not mention
this--not to be afraid of anything whatever, neither dogs nor
thieves, nor hunger nor the climate; and he kept those three
resolutions. If ever on earth there lived a man who kept the law of
Christ, and could give proofs of it, and be absolutely unconscious
that he was giving them, it is this man, whom the Mongols he lived
among called "our Gilmour." He wanted, naturally enough, sometimes
to meditate away from his hosts, and sometimes to take long walks,
and sometimes to geologise, but he found all these things roused
suspicion--for why should a stranger want to be alone; might it not
be "to steal away the luck of the land"?--and as a suspected
missionary is a useless missionary, Mr. Gilmour gave them all up,
and sat endlessly in tents, among lamas. And he says incidentally
that his fault is impatience, a dislike to be kept waiting!'
[Illustration: A MONGOL CAMEL CART
(_From a Native Sketch_)]
The book met with a ready and wide acceptance. It soon 'found its
public.' It was only to be expected that many of the friends and
supporters of the London Missionary Society would welcome it. And there
are others, like the reviewer, who 'have time and an interest in
nomads,' who were certain to consult it. But in addition to these
special classes the book did good service in some cases, by deepening
the impression already made by other first-rate delineations of
missionary enterprise and endurance, and in others by creating respect
for missions and missionaries in minds hitherto strange to that feeling.
In various editions very many thousands of the book have been sold
during the nine years which have passed since the publication of the
first edition.
The success of his book led to the suggestion that he might easily find
much useful employment for his pen. He did contribute some papers to the
_Sunday at Home_, _Pall Mall Gazette_, and other publications. But in
this, as in all other enterprises, loyalty to the great work of his life
ruled him. He soon came to the conviction that he ought not to take time
from the work of winning souls, and spend it in writing papers and
books--and from the moment of that decision he put mere literary work
resolutely aside.
'I feel keenly,' he wrote in 1884, on his return to Peking, 'that
there is here more than I can do, and writing must go to the wall.'
And as late in his life as 1890 he added, 'I could have made, and
could now make, I believe, money by writing, but I do not write. I
settle down to teach illiterate Chinamen and Mongols, heal their
sores, and present Christ to them.'
Towards the end of 1882 James Gilmour entered upon a long series of
meetings on behalf of the London Missionary Society, consisting of
sermons and addresses to Sunday School children on the Sunday, and
speeches at public meetings during the week. A long series of his
letters written to his wife between November 1882 and March 1883 is
still extant, and they form an impressive record of the work considered
suitable for a wearied missionary at home in search of rest and change.
He visited Edinburgh, Falkirk, Glasgow, Liverpool, Kilsyth, Hamilton,
Paisley, Dundee, St Andrews, Arbroath, Lytham, Aberdeen, Montrose,
Manchester, Hingham, Cambridge, Norfolk, and Southampton. And this list
exhausts only a portion of his excursions on the effort to stimulate and
develope the faith and the zeal of the churches at home. His wanderings
brought him into contact sometimes with relatives, sometimes with old
college friends, now grave pastors fast hastening towards middle life.
The meetings he attended always added to the circle of his friends, for
none could hear his ringing voice, and feel the clasp of his hand, and
pass under the influence of his ardent enthusiasm on behalf of the great
enterprise of the modern Christian Church without receiving an
impression never likely to be effaced.
He in turn experienced a strong and abiding spiritual refreshment from
this renewal, after twelve years' absence, of touch and fellowship with
the Christian life of Great Britain. His earnestness deepened, he
studied with intensest interest movements like the Salvation Army, then
coming into great prominence, and other agencies for improving the
religious life of the nation, and he rejoiced in all fellowship with
other disciples of the Lord Jesus which had for its aim the
strengthening of the life of faith.
He rejoiced greatly when at infrequent intervals a Sunday came upon
which he was entirely free from engagements. Such rare occasions he
utilised very fully for spiritual edification. He was somewhat hampered
in his possibilities on these days by the fact that his temporary home
was at Bexley Heath, and his strong Sabbatarian views never permitted
him to travel by rail or omnibus on the Lord's Day. The following letter
shows how he passed one of these days.
'Yesterday being a fine day I left home at 7.15 A.M., walked to
London (twelve miles), got to Spurgeon's at 10.30. Had a permit
from a seat-holder, was close to the platform, heard a good earnest
sermon, was introduced to Spurgeon in the vestry after service,
went home to one of his deacons for dinner, there met an American
who had under Mr. Moody been converted from drunkenness to God, and
whose craving for drink was as instantaneously and as thoroughly
expelled as the devils by Christ of old. After dinner visited
Spurgeon's Stockwell Orphanages, then walked to Camberwell and
dropped in, in passing, at the Catholic Apostolic Church and heard
a sermon from a man who would have described himself as an Apostle,
I suppose, and who ridiculed in a gentle and mild way the idea that
all men were to be partakers of the Gospel blessings which he
seemed to think were the special property of what he called "The
Church"; walked on to Lewisham, heard Morlais Jones: and then
walked home in the moonlight, arriving here footsore and weary
about 10.20 P.M. I enjoyed the day very much, all but the last four
or five miles home at night. I am thankful to find myself so
strong. I had a warm bath and slept like a top.'
Those who were privileged to entertain James Gilmour, if congenial, and
the old friends who were fortunate enough to secure him for even a brief
period, often experienced his power of vivid and entrancing narration.
His twelve years of service had been very full of varied and uncommon
experience, and when in the vein he could make the hours pass almost as
minutes. 'During this furlough,' writes Dr. Reynolds, 'I had several
opportunities of intercourse with him, and listened to several of his
addresses on the progress and need of missionary enterprise in the north
of China and Mongolia, and was profoundly impressed by his earnestness,
but I was more deeply moved when in quiet _tÍte-‡-tÍte_ he unveiled some
of his special experiences. I should like to mention one. He once had
great hope of the conversion to God of a Mongol, who had given him his
entire confidence, and who was suffering from cataract in both eyes.
Gilmour felt that this was a case in which surgical help might restore
the sufferer to at least partial sight, and he made arrangements that in
the escort of a Mongol the patient should find his way to the medical
institution at Peking. He started on the pilgrimage when Gilmour, with
his brave young wife, were encamped in a great temporary settlement of
Mongols, who were in a state of considerable fanatical excitement
against the new faith and its foreign teacher. Gilmour said, "We prayed
night and day for the success of this experiment, and we arranged to
cover all expenses connected with the arrangement." Alas! wind laden
with dust, and blinding heat and other apparent accidents conspired
against the poor sufferer, and when the necessary time had elapsed after
the operation and the bandages were removed, the patient was found to
be _stone blind_. The Mongol companion stirred up the poor fellow's
suspicion by telling him that he knew why the Missionary had sent him to
Peking. "I saw," said he, "the jewel of your eye in a bottle on the
shelf. These Christians can get hundreds of taels for these jewels which
they take out of our eyes."
'When the blind man was brought back to Gilmour, his companion spread
his suspicions and exasperating story in the entire district, and the
fanatical hatred was augmented into seething and murderous passion, and
our dear friends were in imminent peril for several weeks. If they had
ventured to escape, it would have been a confession of a vile conspiracy
with the Peking doctors, and a signal for their massacre. They remained
to live down the ominous and odious charge, and in continuous effort to
justify the simplicity of their motives and the purity and beneficence
of their mission.
'Deeply moved, as I was, by the story of this hairbreadth escape, I
asked Mrs. Gilmour more about those fearful weeks of suspense, and she
assured me that they had been perfectly calm, and that they were
entirely resigned to God's will, whatever it might be.'
'Many other trials of faith and patience were described by Gilmour,
without one touch of self-approval or self-admiration, and the only
trouble that haunted him was that the results of his long journeys and
of his various missionary enterprises had been apparently so few.'
It was certain that James Gilmour's power as a speaker would be utilised
for the great event of the London Missionary Society's year, the annual
meeting at Exeter Hall. This fell, in 1883, on May 10, and he was the
last speaker. This involved waiting about two hours and a half for his
speech, and corresponding exhaustion on the part of the audience. But
none who were present will forget the rapid way in which he secured the
attention of his hearers, and the ease with which he held it to the
close. He chose to speak of work in China, rather than in Mongolia; the
recent publication of his book helping among other reasons to determine
this choice. Part of the speech deserves reproduction here, because it
outlines very sharply the work that engaged much of his time while
resident in Peking, and because nowhere else can such a realistic,
sparkling, and lifelike picture of the preaching work of the Peking
mission, and consequently more or less of all preaching in great Chinese
cities, be found.
'In Peking we have three chapels. A chapel there is merely a
Chinese shop, put into decent repair, and a signboard stuck over
the top. The Chinese are very fond of giving themselves very high
names. You will come to a man sitting in a little box scarcely big
enough for himself to turn round in, and if you read his sign, it
is some flowing name about a hall; it may be the "Hall of Continual
Virtue," or something of that kind, or the "Hall of the Five
Happinesses." So our title above our chapel just runs in the native
idiomatic style, and it is the "Gospel Hall.' Inside there is not
very much to see. The counter has been cleared away and the
shelves, and, in place of the mud, a brick floor has been put down;
and then there are forms arranged for the sitters, and there is a
low platform for the speaker. I do not know how it happens, but it
does happen, that up in the left-hand corner of the chapel--and it
is always the left-hand corner--there is a table and two chairs,
and on that table there is a teapot and set of cups, because in
China everything is done with tea. You must always begin in that
way. These chapels are open six days in the week in the afternoon.
'Now, supposing you come in at the door, the natural thing for the
missionary seems to be just to walk up to this table and sit down,
and then the next thing is to get a congregation. Sometimes there
is no difficulty about getting it, if it happens to be a fair day
or there is a crowd in the streets. They simply pour in: but the
tide goes different ways sometimes, and does not pour in always
like that. I want to give you just a fair, square, honest idea of
what the thing is. Sometimes the congregation will not come in, and
sometimes, after a little while, one man looks in at the door and
sees a foreigner, and he is off. He has seen quite enough and does
not want to see any more; and if you were to ask him what he had
seen, he would not say he had seen a foreigner; no, he would say he
had seen "a foreign devil." And, friends, you would not be very
much astonished that some of those ignorant men coming from the
country are alarmed when they see a foreigner, if you could only
imagine the terrible lies that they circulate about us there; about
how we take out people's hearts for the purposes of magic, and
steal people's eyes to make photographic chemicals, and administer
medicines to bewitch them generally. I say that, if the first man
who comes to a chapel on an afternoon is a man who has heard these
things, you cannot be astonished that all you see of that man is
his back and his pigtail as he goes away.
'Another man sometimes comes--a bolder man, and he comes in, and
the most natural thing for him seems to be to walk up to the table
and sit down on the other side, and there you and he are a pair.
The proper thing is to pour him out a cup of tea: that is
etiquette, and the etiquette seems to be that he should not drink
it. Sometimes, after the service begins, I see the native preacher
come slyly up, as if he did not mean anything at all; and he walks
up to the teapot, and lifts the lid quite quietly, and slips that
tea back into the pot again, and puts on the lid and warms it up,
and it is ready for the next man who comes.
'If you get into conversation with one man, the congregation is,
for the most part, practically secured, because, though a Chinaman
is very much afraid of being spoken to directly by a foreigner,
most Chinamen are very curious to overhear any conversation that
may be carried on; so if you are speaking to him, in comes another
man to listen, and if you can get other men to come in and listen
over each other's backs, very soon more come in than the original
speaker cares to overhear his private conversation; and when that
step is reached, it is time to go to the platform and ask the
hearers to sit down and begin the regular service. Sometimes nobody
comes in, and then you have to try something else, and that is to
go and sit down a little nearer the door, and sometimes, in that
way, gradually a few people come in. But then in Peking sometimes
there is a great north-west wind blowing; and I think that is about
the hardest thing on a man's congregation before he gets it,
because, when the weather is unfavourable, there are not many
people about, and so we have to adopt another plan. We do not go on
to the streets, but inside the chapel the native preacher and I do
our best to sing a hymn. I say do our best, because sometimes these
native preachers do not succeed in singing very well; however, we
succeed in making a noise, and that is the thing that draws. The
people look in, and see what they suppose to be a foreigner and a
native chanting Buddhist prayers. In they come; they have not seen
that before, and they sit down, and, as soon as the hymn is
through, we have the opportunity of telling them the contents of
the hymn; and there you have your sermon ready to your hand.
'But suppose you have got your congregation, it is not all
smooth-sailing water. Sometimes there are interruptions. Sometimes,
just when you have the ear of your audience, all at once a
tremendous row happens just outside the door, and the congregation
jump to their feet and rush out to see what is going on. I could
have told them if they had only asked me. No doubt, some unwise
Chinaman, in place of coming straight in and sitting down, stood on
the outskirt of the crowd on tiptoe. A city thief coming along
says, "Ah, there is my man," and he walks quietly up to him with a
pair of sharp scissors, cuts off his tobacco pouch, and goes off
with it. Of course, as soon as the man misses the pouch, his first
impulse is to grab his next neighbour; that neighbour remonstrates,
and then a fight commences.
'Sometimes a funeral passes, and that is almost as serious an
interruption as a fight; because, although a Chinaman does not
think much about his soul after he dies, he thinks a vast deal
about his dead body, and, in order to be perfectly sure that he
will not be cheated by the undertaker, he buys his coffin before he
is sick, and sees that he has a good bargain. And so, having a good
coffin, he wants a good funeral; and it is said some men spend
nearly half of their fortune in having a grand procession when they
are carried to their grave. When one of these enormous funerals,
with a procession sometimes a quarter of a mile long, comes by, it
is a very bad job for your congregation. Out they go to have a look
at it.
'Then the interruption is sometimes another thing, and this last
one is a more difficult case to settle. When one of the upper ten
thousand in China has a marriage, they want to have a great
exhibition; and after they have bought the furniture, they get and
hire a great many men, and have them dressed to carry that
furniture in procession along the streets and show it to their
neighbours. First comes a great wardrobe, and then a little
cupboard, a washstand, a square table, and all sorts of furniture.
Now when that comes, what are you to do? They have been at the
expense of paying for an exhibition for their neighbours to see,
and they feel that it would be unneighbourly if they did not step
to the door and look out and see the things carried past, and there
goes your congregation. Sometimes unusual interruptions happen. I
remember once a woman put her head in at the door. Women do not
come to these chapels often--I am very glad they do not. That woman
put her head in at the door, and I saw danger. She glared round the
place, and then she spied one man, and she shouted out something at
him: "Come out of that!" and, friends, he came out of that, in a
big hurry, too. He disturbed us very considerably. It was not the
woman so much as the man--we all pitied him as he went out.
'Those audiences are very mixed, and they are very curious to your
eyes. Sometimes I see those audiences, most of whom we do not know
anything about, listening to what I have to tell them, quite as
still as you are now--their pipes out, the smoke cleared away. They
lean forward and listen just as still as audiences in this country
sometimes listen when the preacher, in an interesting discourse, is
coming up to a division of his subject. And, friends, let me tell
you what it is that makes them listen best of all--it is the
central doctrine of the truth of Christianity. When we come to tell
them of how Christ left the surroundings of heaven, and came to
spend so many years in such very poor, unsympathetic company on
earth (and that is a subject that a missionary sometimes can talk
feelingly upon when he has been in a foreign country for some
time), when we can tell them that, and then come to the last and
greatest part of all: how Christ allowed Himself, for love of man,
to be nailed to the cross, and not only that, but kept in Him that
gentle spirit that made Him pray for those who were putting Him to
death--oh, friends, when we come to that and tell them of it--I
know that a Chinaman is degraded, corrupt, sensual, material, but
he has a human heart; and when you can get at the heart, it
responds to the story of the Cross. We want to do something in
drawing the net, and so, on this table in the corner, there is a
pile of books, and as it gets towards the time to close, I say to
the friends, "Now, you will soon be going away to your evening
meal; and as I am a foreigner, probably you have not understood all
that I have said;" and then I say, "Now, before you go, there are a
number of books upon this table, where you will find the whole of
this subject put down in black and white; will you just come up and
have a look at the books before you go?" We want, if possible, to
establish a point of contact with them, and so to get a little
private conversation, as it were. If you ask them to come up and
look at a book, and they ask the price of it, you have an
opportunity of talking to them, and some of these men not only buy
the books, but they read them and come back for others.
'Now, how does the matter stand? These heathen have been in our
chapel, and we have taken the opportunity of putting some of the
truth into their hearts; but I know a good part, much, it may be,
of what the man has heard when he goes out--well, it is stolen
away, or it is trampled under foot; but some part of it remains.
'And now I can come to the practical part. I have not been trying
to entertain you, but I have been trying to interest you, and what
I want to impress upon you is this: after those men have left the
chapel you can do as much for their conversion as we can do in
China. I want you to pray for the conversion of these men to whom
we in Peking, and others in other parts of the world, are the means
of communicating these truths of Christ. I believe it is not only
the earnestness of the missionary that is going to produce results,
but it is your earnestness here. We are your agents, and I
believe, fervently, we shall have results there in direct
proportion to the measure of your earnestness here. I believe I am
speaking to the right people when I ask you to pray. Unprayed for,
I feel very much as if a diver were sent down to the bottom of a
river with no air to breathe, or as if a fireman were sent up to a
blazing building and held an empty hose; I feel very much as a
soldier who is firing blank cartridge at an enemy, and so I ask you
earnestly to pray that the Gospel may take saving and working
effect on the minds of those men to whose notice it has been
introduced by us. Not long ago, at the close of a local
anniversary, when we had been having a meeting, as we were going
home, three of us got off a tram-car--two ministers of the locality
and myself--and, as we were walking along, one said: "Ah, Gilmour,
it is all the same over again; it is just the old thing; you
missionaries come, and you have an anniversary, and the people's
earnestness seems to be stirred up, and you ask their prayers, and
it looks as if you would get them, but," he said, "you go away, and
the thing passes by and is just left where it was before." I do not
think that was quite correct. I think my brother was labouring
under a temporary fit of the blues, and I was very glad to find his
companion said it was not quite correct. What I want is this, to go
back to my work feeling that there are those behind us who are
praying earnestly that God's Spirit would work effectually in the
hearts of those to whom we have the privilege of preaching. If you
pray earnestly you can but work earnestly, and then you will also
give earnestly; and I do not think we can be too earnest in the
matter for which Christ was so much in earnest that He laid down
His own life.'
The month of June and part of July was spent at Millport, a
watering-place on the west coast of Scotland, near the lovely scenery
of Arran. On July 4 he ascended Goatfell, and in so doing had an
adventure which might have had very serious consequences. He started
late, lost his way, but finally reached the summit at 8.45 P.M., and
then, as he notes in his diary: 'Fog came on nearly at once with rain
and thunder. Sat in the lee of a dripping rock on a wet stone and looked
at a couple of acres of fog and granite boulders. Very dark and cold
about midnight, the time wore on very slowly, more rain dripping, and
fog. At 2 o'clock A.M. I began the descent, and in a short while it was
light enough to see. Came on all right, and saw where I had missed the
way.... I have not caught cold. I was wet all night, but kept wrapt up
in my plaid and as warm as I could manage. Next day the minister
congratulated me on being seen alive after my Goatfell adventure.'
On September 1 the return voyage to China began, and Peking was reached
on November 14.