First Year in Burma
We were wakened early on January 1, 1891, by the harsh cawing of a
myriad of crows, which roost in the shade-trees of the public streets
and private yards. We came afterwards to know these annoying pests,
that swarm over Rangoon all day long, as a tribe of thieves full of
all cunning and audacity. The first exhibition of their pilfering
given us, was that first morning when the early tea and toast, always
brought to you on rising in India, was passed into our room and placed
in reach of the children. The crows had been perched on the window-sill
before this, restlessly watching us within the room. But on our turning
for a moment from the tray on which the toast was placed, the crows
swooped upon it, and carried it off out of the window. This is but a
sample of the audacious annoyance suffered from their beaks and claws
continually. They are in country places also, but not so plentifully as
here in the cities, where they literally swarm. Were it to our purpose
we could write pages of these petty and cunning robberies of which they
are guilty. A very common sight is, when a coolie is going through the
streets with a basket of rice on his head, to see the crows swoop down
and fill their mouths with the rice, and be off again before the man
knows their intention, or has time even to turn around. It must have
been some such sight as this in ancient Egypt, familiar to Pharaoh’s
baker, that caused him to dream of the birds eating the bread out of
the basket that he carried on his head, and that foreshadowed the dire
results to himself. Those “birds” must have been “crows” of the Rangoon
species.
I could not wait long that first morning in Rangoon, and the first
of a new year, to get out into the streets astir with human life. I
took my first impression of many specimens of humanity that passed in
view. While the common distinctions in dress, complexion, manners,
and occupations, which mean so much when you come to know their
significance, were not recognized in this first view of the people,
I did get a very definite impression of two classes--one well formed
and well fed, and the other class, those poor weaklings, mostly of
the depressed peoples of India, who migrate to Burma. Of the latter,
I wrote at the time to friends in America, that they were specimens
of the human race that had about run their course, and must die away
from sheer weakness. Later conclusions do not differ materially from
this first decision. But I did learn later that the fine-looking
people of strong physique were Burmese, and that the province of
Burma, generally, has very few peoples of any race that compare in
feebleness with some of the immigrants from India that flock into the
cities, such as Rangoon. It is chiefly what the traveler sees in coast
towns like Rangoon, which leads so many transient passers-by to wrong
conclusions concerning Oriental countries. In Rangoon, many other
peoples are more in evidence than the Burmese.
After that early walk and breakfast, which came about ten o’clock,
the usual time, I met with Rev. Mr. Warner, and took in charge the
affairs of our mission. It is a simple thing for a preacher to go from
one pastoral charge to another in America, in every respect very much
like the Church and community he has always served; but it is entirely
different to go to a distant and unfamiliar country, and take up work
essentially different from anything you ever had to do with before.
Then, at home it is the custom for each man to be occupied with some
one specific work and its obligations; but on the mission-field, such
as Burma has been until now, there is such a variety of interests as
loads every missionary with the work that ought to be distributed
between two or three. That morning I learned that we had an English
Church in Rangoon which supported its own pastor; an English school
that numbered nearly two hundred pupils, and an Orphanage for the
poor Eurasians and Anglo-Indian children. There was also a work among
the seamen that visited the port. A woman’s workshop had been founded
some time before for helping the poor Eurasian, and other women, to
earn a living with the needle. There was also preaching going on
among the Tamils and Telegus, some converts and a fair day-school
being conducted among them. This work was mostly in Rangoon; but some
preaching was done in the villages round about, and one exhorter was
holding a little congregation of Tamils at Toungoo, one hundred and
sixty miles north from Rangoon. A further account of Methodism will
be given later, and it is only necessary here to tell how the work
appeared to me that morning when I began my labors in Burma.
[Illustration: METHODIST CHURCH, RANGOON]
We had a modest wooden church and also a parsonage, a fair-sized
building for the school, and another of equal size for the Orphanage.
Besides these buildings, we had a couple of residence bungalows,
intended for rental for the support of the Orphanage, but for which
we were badly in debt. Considering the small size of the mission,
our debts were large and troublesome. They were incurred out of the
emergencies of our work, and were not the result of bad management
in any way. These debts were to be met at once, and added much to my
concern for the mission.
Another embarrassing feature of the finances of the mission was found
in this, that we had very small missionary appropriations, and the time
had been not long before when our workers in Burma had no money from
home. The beginning of the mission had been made entirely without funds
from America.
This was the more apparent when we look at the distribution of the
missionaries. I was to take the pastorate of the English Church, and
receive my salary from it; Miss Files, the principal of the Girls’
High School, had never had any salary, except what the school could
pay her; Miss Scott, principal of the Orphanage, had half salary;
Miss Perkins, the new missionary, alone had a salary from the Woman’s
Foreign Missionary Society. Mr. Warner had less than full salary,
though appointed to native work. We had, also, a number of teachers all
paid locally, and supplies in the mission-work, none of whom received
a salary from America. Here was an outline of a situation in what
was called a “self-supporting” mission-field. How to pay debts, keep
all this work going, and make advance in mission operations with our
limited money, was my greatest responsibility. There had never been
a dollar given to the mission from America for property. The problem
was easy of statement, but difficult of solution. To plunge right
into this work, my first day in the country, and immediately become
the responsible head of the district, was beginning mission-work with
vigor and without delay. I have learned since to believe it a serious
misfortune that any missionary should be so overwhelmed with work and
responsibility on entering a foreign mission-field. All this, too, when
we had yet to adjust ourselves to life in the tropics.
We were about to prove what it meant to be suddenly dropped down into
the heart of an Oriental city, and there adjust ourselves to the most
trying conditions we had ever known. The parsonage belonging to the
English Church, which we occupied, shared the lot with the church
building. At the time the church and parsonage was to be built, it
was the policy of the Government to give a grant of land to any
religious society for a church or parsonage. The city is blocked out in
rectangular shape, but unwisely made very narrow and long. The blocks
are eight hundred feet long by one hundred and fifteen feet wide. Our
lot included one end of a block, and was one hundred feet deep. On
this lot stood the church and parsonage, facing the main street. When
the location was chosen, it was a fairly satisfactory site on which to
have a residence, and in a Western country, with Western conditions,
it might have contained a fairly comfortable residence; but in Rangoon
the natives soon began to crowd into poorly constructed buildings all
around the parsonage, and the filth, that so rapidly accumulates in
an Oriental city, piled up everywhere. The only sewerage was in open
ditches that ran on three sides of our residence. The stench of these
sewers was ever present in our nostrils, and especially offensive in
the rainless season. But the worst condition was the incessant noise
made by the natives. This neighborhood was occupied almost entirely by
Madassis, who have harsh, strident voices, and speak with a succession
of guttural sounds. They are always shouting, and quietness is almost
unknown to them. They quarrel incessantly. At the time we lived in this
locality there were six hundred of these noisy people living within a
hundred yards of the parsonage. They kept no hours for rest. All day
and all night the noise went on. Sometimes, of course, they slept,
and the native can sleep in bedlam and not even dream. But there are
hundreds astir at all hours of the day and night. Then there were
thousands of passers-by who at all hours added their voices to the din.
Besides, a heavy traffic was carried on on two sides of us. The streets
were metaled, and every wheel and hoof added to the uproar.
The parsonage was of the uncouth architectural plan characteristic of
Burma, roomy and arranged well enough for comfort in that country, had
the surroundings been endurable. But being placed upon posts, some ten
feet from the ground to the first floor, and the floor and walls being
made of single thicknesses of teak planks, these multitudinous sounds
of the neighborhood were gathered up and multiplied as a violin gathers
the sounds of the strings, and this discordant din was poured into our
ears. Added to all this noise was the intense heat, which even in the
coolest part of the year is very great, and you have conditions of life
that tax you to the utmost. My wife and I have pretty steady nerves;
but in the thirteen months we tried to live in the parsonage we did not
have more than twenty nights of unbroken sleep. Just after we entered
this residence, we received our first mail from home, and in the papers
to hand we read the speech of the senior missionary secretary at the
Missionary Committee meeting in Boston, held at the time we were
sailing from New York, in which he dwelt at length, “on the luxury
of missionary life in India.” I promptly sent him an invitation to
spend the last week preceding the next Missionary Committee meeting in
our guest-chamber, overlooking and overhearing all that happens among
this noisy throng of Tamils. I felt that I had learned more of the
actual conditions of life in an Oriental city in one week, than this
good man had learned in all the years of his missionary official life.
He did not accept the invitation.
[Illustration: NATIVES OF BURMA]
When one is overworked with unusual duties that tax nerves to the
utmost, and then lives in perpetual noise and heat day and night, he
has the ideal conditions for a short missionary career. We were to
prove all that this meant within one year from landing in the country.
Surprises and disappointments in the working force of a mission, at
least in its earlier and less well organized state, occur with great
frequency. Within less than three months, my missionary colleague, Mr.
Warner, and his wife left us, and took work in another mission. He
had been with our mission less than two years, having been sent out
from America. It may be said here that such changes, so early in a
missionary’s career, do not generally argue well for the stability of
purpose or settled convictions of the missionary, and do not usually
help the mission to which a change is made. But in our case it added to
our difficulties, as the Burmese work, to begin which Mr. Warner was
appointed, did not get started for some years afterward. There was no
other man to take up his work, and there could be no one supplied for
some time. This situation, coming so soon after I took up the work with
the high hopes of a new beginner, added to the complications.
The heat increased from January onward. The work became very laborious,
largely owing to failure to get rest at night. In May, I began to be
troubled with a strange numbness in my arms. This gradually spread to
most of the muscles of the body, and began to affect my head seriously.
At the same time, the heat, especially any direct ray of the sun,
caused very distressing nervous symptoms. Having all my life worked
hard, and having a body that had stood almost all kinds of strain and
seemed none the worse for it, I at the beginning expected to throw off
these symptoms quickly. But when I did not succeed in this, I consulted
physicians and found that they were puzzled as much as myself. Had it
been possible to go to some cooler place and take rest at the beginning
of this disorder, it is likely that I could have met the difficulty
and overcome it quickly; but there was no chance to leave the work, no
place to go to, and no one to relieve me. Steadily for five months the
trouble increased, until it was impossible even to read in an attentive
way, though under the excitement of a Sabbath’s congregation I could
talk to the people. In October, only a little over nine months after
landing in Burma, Bishop Thoburn peremptorily ordered me to the hills
of India for a change. He temporarily supplied my place at Rangoon.
I left Rangoon on the evening of the 10th of October on this painful
flight for health. My wife remained and did hard service, all too hard
as the case proved, to give the English congregations attention during
my absence. This early flight from my work with the uncertainties of
my ailment, and the long distance to the Indian Hills, which as we
supposed at the time, was the nearest place to get above the heat of
the plains, and the condition of the work in my absence, and the added
burden to my wife, all combined to give the occasion a serious aspect.
I took passage on a little vessel of the British India Steam Navigation
Company, which has a large fleet of steamers in these tropical waters.
I traveled after this many times on steamers of this company, and
always found the trip of four days to Calcutta very interesting. The
sea breeze modifies the heat until you can be in comparative comfort.
The officers are usually courteous, but somewhat reserved, for the most
part. Perhaps this show of dignity is assumed to support the important
office they hold. It may be that it is a National characteristic also.
The engineers, who number about the same on each ship as the officers,
and have about as much responsibility, and are equally capable men, are
usually very free and sociable. The officers are generally Englishmen,
and the engineers Scotchmen. I have been greatly surprised to find how
approachable most Scotchmen are. Being of a social disposition myself,
I usually get in touch with both classes; but I have secured the most
friendly response from the Scotch. This has been generally true on land
also.
The Bay of Bengal is a stormy water during the monsoon, from May until
October. At the latter time the wind turns into the northeast, and
one or two cyclones generally form as it turns the rain currents back
to the southwest, from whence they came. Our captain was nervous as
we rounded the land and made for the open sea, lest we be met by a
cyclone. But instead of a storm, the sea was as smooth as a sea of
glass all the way to the mouth of the Hoogli River, where we enter
the last portion of our voyage. It may not have been noticed that
many great seaports are really a great way from the sea, on rivers.
More than that, they are usually not on the main stream, but on some
subordinate branch of the many mouths of the great rivers. So it is
with the Hoogli, which is not the largest of the many mouths of the
Ganges. These river mouths, however, are very large streams, partly
made by the inflow and outflow of the tides. The tides alone make
navigation to Calcutta by ocean-going vessels possible, as there is
not enough water on the shoals except with high tide. Calcutta is up
the Hoogli River one hundred and twenty miles. One naturally wonders
why such a city is so far from the sea. I, at least, have had to
content myself without a reason, and like many things Indian, accept
that “which is,” and that “which remains as it is,” because it “has
been.” The approach to Calcutta by river is very dangerous. The number
of ships that have sunk, often with some of the passengers and crew,
make a startling history of tragedy. Some places on the river have
permanent names for the sunken ships that are buried in its sands. The
currents and the tides conflict often, and drive the vessel onto some
newly-made bar, and this overturns the great ship, which immediately
begins to sink. Three ships have gone down in this river in ten years,
one of them with much loss of life. After the vessel sinks well into
the sand it rights up again, and lifts its masts out of the water, to
remain for years a solemn monument to the tragedy of the river. Usually
all life-boats are swung loose and the ports all closed as the ship
moves up or down the river at these most dangerous parts. There are
specially-qualified pilots, highly paid, who take ships through this
river, and they are held to the severest account. An accident, whether
the pilot is to blame or not, calls for heavy penalties.
The river has its charming scenery. The country is flat; but the quaint
conical Bengali houses that line the shore, with their carefully-laid
thatch roofs, the cocoanut and date palms growing in great luxuriance
on the alluvial deposit of the river front, and the wide reaches of the
rich rice-fields, through which the winding river makes its way, all
present a picture of rare tropical interest and beauty.
Villages increase as you approach the city, and great oil refineries
and weaving establishments and manufactories increase as you near the
city. Some miles below the city the traveler begins to see a great
many ships, both sailing vessels and steamers, and as he enters the
harbor it is amidst a very forest of towering masts. The shipping that
goes in and out of Calcutta, carrying every flag under heaven, is
enormous.
I was greatly interested in seeing for the first time this most
important city in Southern Asia, if not in all the Orient. My stay was
too brief to get a fair view of the city, but enough to see that it is
as reported, “a city of palaces.” It is also a “city of hovels,” in
which multitudes of people do business and live in as great contrast to
the palatial surroundings, as can be found anywhere on the face of the
earth.
After a very brief visit with Bishop Thoburn and other Calcutta
missionaries, I made my way up country. This took me over the fertile
plains of Bengal, through the sacred city of Benares, though without
a stop until I reached Lucknow. Here I had a short rest, and then
proceeded to Bareilly and was the guest for a day of Dr. and Mrs.
Scott, and visited our theological school. In this visit I began an
acquaintance with our missionaries and our mission interests in these
great centers, which has extended through the years with great profit
to myself, and an enlargement of view of our Southern Asiatic missions,
that I could not have otherwise had. The heat of North India is much
modified by October; but as I was making for the mountains, with a
feverish desire to get where it was cool, I pushed on rapidly. The
railway journey ended at Katgodam, from whence I was to take a pony
and go by marches to Almora, the capital of Garwal, four ordinary days’
travel into the hills. All over the Indian Empire the Government has
built on every road public rest-houses, where the traveler can get
shelter, and usually food, at a very reasonable price. I had only the
afternoon to climb the eight miles to Bhim Tal, my first stage of the
journey. I traveled with light equipment; but in all parts of India
one must carry his bedding with him, even if he is going to an Annual
Conference. “Entertainment” among friends means many good things, but
seldom includes bedding, much less so among strangers. I secured a
pony to ride; but when it came to the bedding I had to hire a coolie
to carry that. I had great difficulty in getting a coolie to go four
days’ march back into the mountains. I could not speak a word of the
language, and this was a hindrance. I found a friendly native who could
talk for me. I secured a strong man for _four cents a day_. This was an
enhanced price exacted because I was a stranger.
I went steadily up the mountains, and with every degree of cooler air
I felt cheered. At last at beautiful Bhim Tal, a lake at an elevation
of perhaps five thousand feet, I came to the bungalow and had a good
supper. Bedtime came, and still the coolie did not come. I had to
borrow some blankets of a native and lay down, but not to sleep, as any
one accustomed to the country could have foretold. My coolie did not
arrive until sunrise.
During that day I had a view of the majestic mountains, that lives with
me still. At about ten o’clock in the morning, after an inspiring climb
up and still up, I came to the mountain pass, and turning a corner,
the great snowy range of the Himalaya Mountains rose into a cloudless
sky. The sunlight was reflected from the snow up into the blue heavens.
Sublime are these mountains! Three peaks near together range between
twenty-two thousand and twenty-five thousand feet, while the snowy
range is visible for hundreds of miles. It was a great experience.
Having never been among the mountains until that journey, and then to
have eyes, mountain hungry, feast of these piles of majestic heights,
thrilled me as no view of nature ever has done. I have seen many
beauties of natural scenery, and some of nature’s sublimity, but never
have I seen the equal of that view that burst on my enraptured vision
that glorious October day.
Making a double march the third day, I arrived at the Almora Sanitarium
of the Methodist Mission, and was welcomed by Dr. and Mrs. Badley, who
were there, the last of those who had gone up for rest that year. The
doctor was fast breathing out his life. He was dying of consumption,
but working until the last. He was busy revising his Indian Mission
Directory. His voice was gone to a whisper, and yet he worked. I helped
him as I could, and looked into his face and tried to realize the
thoughts of a man who loves work, and in the midst of a most successful
career he is cut down, and knows in every moment of waking thought
that he can live but a few days. Ten days I staid there, and then came
down the mountain road to Katgodam. On this journey I did my last
service for the sick and dying man. At Katgodam I carried him in my
arms and laid him on his bed in the car. The gentle caress from his
wasted hand, and his whispered blessing for the help I had been to him
on the hard journey, linger as a precious memory. He died three weeks
later.
From Katgodam I returned to the hills, but this time only to Naini
Tal, one day’s march up the mountains. In this wonderful hill station
I remained ten days, the guest of Rev. and Mrs. Homer Stuntz. November
had come, and by this season it was getting cool in these mountains,
frosting some at night. I here received a great encouragement in the
matter of health, as I found while living in this cool atmosphere that
my head began to clear up, and that I could read with pleasure again.
Had I been able to remain there, it is possible that I would have made
a rapid recovery; but duty seemed to call me again to Rangoon. Dr.
George Petecost was then engaged in a series of “missions” in India,
and I had secured the agreement of several Rangoon ministers and
missionaries to invite him to hold a mission in Rangoon. He was due
there in December, and it was nearing the end of November; and as I
felt better, and as I was obligated to be in Rangoon, and as the worst
heat of the latter place had gone, I hoped to continue to improve,
even if I returned. But I was quickly undeceived. No sooner was I in
the plains than all the distressing symptoms again appeared. This
condition was relieved a little when I crossed the Bay of Bengal, but
increased on landing in Rangoon. Meantime, my wife had broken down
under the strain of her work, and was seriously ill. So ended our first
year in Burma--much hard work, trying conditions, and breaking health.
Had this been all the outlook, it would have been disappointing indeed.
But the people of Rangoon had been responsive and kind. The work in
the English Church had gone forward and some conversions had resulted,
which had been of permanent worth to the Church. The lady missionaries
had completed a successful year in the school and Orphanage. The other
branches of the mission were faithfully cared for, so far as the
limited supervision given would warrant.
At this time, and indeed for the whole period of which I write, Burma
had been a district of the Bengal Conference, and as the sessions
of Conference were held almost uniformly in Calcutta or some Indian
station, we Burma missionaries usually made the trip to India to attend
the annual session. This took me, including health trips, thirty times
over the Bay of Bengal in the ten years of my missionary service. The
Indian Conferences have for many years been held as near the beginning
of the new year as may be. I left my wife very sick, and started for
Conference about the middle of January, being far from well myself, but
still at work. The Annual Conference was of great interest, and the
Central Conference, which followed immediately, even more so. I was a
member of the Central Conference also. The Central Conference of India
and Malaysia had been well organized for several years. This body, to
all intents and purposes, is a General Conference. It is an increasing
power for good. It must exist to keep Methodism in this wide area in
some organic unity. It has served this purpose admirably. At this
session of the Central Conference, held at Calcutta, in January, 1892,
two great questions had a clearly-defined statement that has become of
wide-reaching importance.
The question of territorial divisions came up early, and had the right
of way for full discussion and settlement. Our people at home can not
understand the great areas, as well as the many millions of people
in Southern Asiatic mission lands. It is all so much bigger than the
notion given by a map. At the time of which I write we had three
Conferences and the far-away mission of Malaysia. The most extensive
area was included in the Bengal Conference. One end of this Conference
included the province of Burma, and the other end reached up to and
included almost all the Northwest Indian part of our mission. Thus it
curved all around the southern and western sides of the North India
Conference, as far as Mussoorie. In length it could not be less than
two thousand miles. South India Conference included territory equally
incongruous with its name. It became apparent that we must divide up
this territory, and make more Conferences. We planned five Annual
Conferences, and raised Malaysia to a Mission Conference.
The other great question that had the earnest consideration of the
Central Conference was the indorsement of the Missionary Episcopacy.
Some of the Annual Conferences had already taken action, and the
Central Conference approved the resolutions of the Bengal Conference
indorsing and approving the Missionary Episcopacy, and asking its
continuance as contrasted with the General Superintendency. Bishop
Thoburn’s administration received, after careful debate, the first of
that series of indorsements that has lifted the Missionary Episcopacy
into a new and conspicuous place in the organism called Methodism.
These two transactions made that, my first, Central Conference of India
and Malaysia, memorable.