A Year of Changes
While still at Conference at Calcutta, I received a telegram to hasten
home, as my wife was seriously ill. Some of the brethren and I spent a
season in sympathetic counsel over this distressing situation of my own
impaired health, and the serious condition of my wife. I took a steamer
the next day, and started for Rangoon. Of course, we wished for a rapid
passage; but as often happens when we are eager for the most rapid
advance, there proves to be the greatest delay. We were delayed in the
Calcutta River forty-eight hours, owing to fogs settling down on the
water just as the tide was favorable for sailing. We had to tie up for
such time as the fog lasted, as no steamer will move on that dangerous
river in a fog. When the fog did lift, the tide had gone down, and we
had to remain at anchor till the next tide. In all my journeying up and
down the river, I have never had so much delay as on this voyage, when
I wanted to get forward the most urgently. The journey across the bay
was after the usual sort. I felt much distressed about my wife’s state,
but had great comfort in the sympathy and counsel of Dr. and Mrs.
Parker, who were fellow-passengers going home on furlough. They were
going via Rangoon, and it proved a kindly providence as they did good
service in advising us in our time of need.
As our ship approached the Rangoon River, we were again just too late
for the incoming tide, causing another long delay. So near home, and
yet we had to lie there for twelve hours! When we finally arrived
in the Rangoon Harbor, it was after the longest voyage that I have
known upon the bay. But I was immensely relieved to find that my wife
was slightly better. This was offset somewhat by the fact that I was
certainly in a much less satisfactory condition than I had been for
some weeks preceding. It was now early in February, and the heat was
becoming severe. As the heat was, or appeared to be, my greatest
drawback, and would hinder the recovery of my wife, it was decided that
the only solution of the difficulty was to make another flight to the
Indian Hills immediately for a long rest. This time the whole family
was to go. Here also Dr. Parker’s presence and counsel were of great
value. He knew India, having had long experience and the best judgment,
so we felt safe in following his advice. He had selected two of the
Indian hill sanitariums, and knew that that kind of a retreat was my
only hope. But he, and every one else at this time, supposed that my
work in Burma was ended. It was decided to ask for some one from home
to relieve me as soon as possible.
But there was the immediate difficulty of looking after the work, and
especially the English congregation. The Conference that had closed so
recently had appointed a young man, J. T. Robertson, to be my assistant
in the Rangoon English Church, so that I could give more time to the
affairs of the district. He was only a probationer in the Conference,
having been admitted to Conference at its recent session, and he had
had no experience as a pastor. More, he had come to a strange city;
but, as the case often is in our mission work, we had to take all
the risks to the work and to the man, and appoint him to the untried
responsibility of the pastorate of the English Church. That he would
have run away if he could have gotten out of the province he has often
declared; but this being impossible, he went to work with a will, and
for the next five months did very acceptable service as pastor.
Such adjustment of mission work was made as could be in the five
days that intervened after my return from Conference and our second
departure from Burma. I hoped to aid the workers somewhat by
correspondence. The journey across the water began to revive Mrs.
Smith, and her condition on arrival at Calcutta was greatly improved.
Here we sought the best medical advice. Dr. Coates, a famous Calcutta
physician for many years, gave us his counsel. He predicted that Mrs.
Smith would continue to improve rapidly, which she did. As for myself,
he said that the difficulty was very obscure, and very difficult to
deal with. He said that if I went to the hill station of Mussoorie,
where we were intending to go, it would be the very best thing I
could do. He further predicted that if I did not get better there in
four months, I would never get better in India. He stipulated “four
months,” as that would take us through the rainless hot season. If this
time were spent in Mussoorie, situated as it is at an elevation of
seven thousand feet in its cool and bracing air, it would be the best
possible place for recuperation. After resting some with friends by the
way, we arrived in that hill station on the 13th of March. The snow was
still in sight in some lower hills, and the snowy range was seen from
afar. The view of “the snows” at Mussoorie is not so commanding as from
the regions about Naini Tal, which I had visited four months before.
The “station” itself is built on a ridge and its spurs for a distance
of six miles or more, and contained at that time some thirty thousand
inhabitants. The European residents were made up of retired pensioners
of the Indian Government, a large garrison of English troops, and
others connected with the several schools for Europeans, and some who
engaged in trade. But here, as elsewhere, the great population was
made up of the natives. The conditions were as favorable as could be
found for rest and recuperation. There was enough sociability to keep
off loneliness, and plenty of good reading matter in libraries, and
opportunity to roam about the mountains. I lived much in the open
air when it did not take me into the direct rays of the sun. Though
the atmosphere is almost always cool at this altitude, the sunlight
searches one through in the rare atmosphere. It paints the cheeks of
every one like a peach, even the dusky faces of the natives are given a
flush of red. It is doubtful if even America has much better climatic
conditions for regaining health than many of the Indian hills. Could we
put the American style of living, and the homelike atmosphere around
the sick missionaries in these hills, it is certain that there would be
need of less home-going. If missionaries could always retreat to these
hills when in a decline before they are too much reduced, they would
gain the necessary strength to resume their duties.
I spent the time from March until the middle of June in this station,
directing the work off in Burma as best I could by letter. This was
difficult from the distance of two thousand miles. During these months
I thought of the anomaly of being presiding elder of a district so far
away, being also a sick man, and yet so hard pressed were we all, that
no other missionary could be spared from any field to take up the work
that I would have so gladly laid down. It became apparent that I was
not to meet with greatly improved health, even here. Bishop Thoburn
was away in America, and while he is one of the most hopeful of men,
he gave up all expectations that I would be able to go on in mission
work in India. He had actually selected my successor in America. But
when the time came to leave home, the brother failed him. As the time
wore away, and there was no material improvement in my condition, I
only hoped to put the mission interests in Burma in as good order as
I might be able, and then to return to America. This was the situation
on the 14th day of June. Just then the heat on the plains of India is
most terrific, and even the hot air and the dust storms reach such
altitudes as Mussoorie. At this time man and beast pant for “rain.” The
barren and parched earth seems to cry, “rain!” My letters from Rangoon
indicated serious complications in a business way, and there seemed
to be a great call to come down and put them to rights. The monsoon
had been promised to us; but it had not come, while from the plains
the heat rose as from a furnace. Thinking I could only do a little
more service for Burma anyway, just to put things to rights for my
successor, I concluded to make the plunge into that heat, and to go at
once, and return as soon as I could adjust business complications. Here
the physician who had my case said: “You dare not go into the plains.
In your condition the heat will kill you. You will leave a widowed wife
and two orphaned children, and you have no right to commit suicide.”
But I still thought it best to risk it for the work’s sake.
I can not forget the awful heat that greeted me all the way to lower
Bengal; it was the worst where I first entered the plain. Had I died
from the heat at any stage of that journey, I should not have been
surprised. But I lived. I crossed the bay again, and did three weeks
of the hardest work of my life up to that time in Rangoon. Weary to
exhaustion, I hastened to Calcutta on my return to the mountains. As
I lay on the hatch on that rough passage, I felt that my days as a
missionary were over, and that I had, without a formal good-bye, left
Burma forever.
On landing in Calcutta and getting my “land legs” again, I met one of
the surprises of my life. I made the glad discovery that I was greatly
improved in health! So certain of this did I become, that I told the
Calcutta missionaries freely that my days as a missionary were not
over. They would gladly have believed me, but were skeptical, and
warned me that when I should get back to the hills I would wilt again.
They said my apparent improvement was only due to the excitement of the
journey, and would soon wear away. But I went further in my conviction,
and sent a letter from Calcutta to Bishop Thoburn in America that I
was better, and expected to return to Burma, and that the bishop was
to strike my name off the invalid list. The improvement continued
after my return to the hills, and while I expected a long time to
elapse before I would be entirely myself, I never doubted after that
thrill of hope in Calcutta that I would become a well man again, and
continue my missionary career. It is exceedingly rare that such a
radical improvement in health occurs under such an extraordinary, if
not indeed perilous, strain as I was under on that trip to Rangoon. My
experience in all this has been given in some detail, because it shows
how a really desperate case may sometimes turn toward recovery at the
unexpected time. Had I returned to America, broken as I was, it would
have ended my missionary career. The Church, and ourselves, would have
been painfully disappointed, for I had not done what the Church or
myself expected, and it would have been taken for granted that I could
not possibly stand the tropical climate. As it turned out, I had the
honor to continue on the field, bearing heavy burdens for a rather
longer period than is usual in the first term of missionary service,
and to be permitted to write these records of nearly ten consecutive
years in mission work. This breakdown taught us a permanent lesson.
No missionary henceforth of our mission should be required to live in
the noise, dirt, and heat of the town of Rangoon, as we had to live
the first year. We determined to get to the suburbs for quieter and
healthier surroundings. At Rangoon this can be easily accomplished.
Just out of the town proper, and yet not far distant from our town
work, there is a great cantonment, or military quarter, reaching for a
mile or more. The location is higher than that of the town. The grounds
around residences are usually extensive; but it was difficult to rent a
house of any value with the mission money at our command. We secured a
tottering old house belonging to a miserly old man, who would not keep
it in any sort of repair. It leaned well over to one side, had uneven
floors, rickety stairs, and a roof so full of holes that ventilation
was perfect. Yet we got on well here during the dry season; but a later
experience remains to be given.
From my return to Rangoon both myself and wife plunged into the work
of the mission with redoubled efforts, that we were not to slacken
for years to come. Mr. Robertson was taken sick with the fever after
having stood at his post through the six months of my absence, and
his recovery was slow. I had the full pastoral duties, the business
of the mission, Government correspondence concerning the schools, and
the chaplaincy of the Wesleyan troops, as all our Rangoon pastors have
had in their turn. Besides this, I did a great deal of district work,
mostly of a pioneering kind. When it is understood that this is the way
many of our missionaries are loaded down, it must surprise others, as
well as themselves, that they hold out so long under these multiplied
labors, not forgetting that it is always under a tropical sun.
Our lives and labors moved on without special incident for all the dry
season from October, 1892, to the end of April, 1893, when we entered
the monsoon several days earlier than usual. It is here that the reader
may have the closing reference to the old house that made up the
residence of the official head of the Burma District at this period.
As I have already stated, the house did very well as a camping place
for the dry season, during which we seldom have any rain at all. But as
the time for the annual rains approached, I began to press our miserly
landlord to put the roof in order. This he agreed to do, but the
agreement he did not keep, and the rains came and caught us unprepared.
Bishop Thoburn had just arrived from Singapore on his biennial visit.
He had reached our house on the afternoon of the 24th of April. As the
afternoon wore away, there began to be signs of rain. The monsoon was
not supposed to be due for a week to three weeks yet. However, showers
often come lightly before this date. The difference between the light
showers and the “bursting of a monsoon” usually is, that the former are
light and merely premonitory of the coming rains, while they will be
followed by much burning sunshine and increasing heat. The “bursting
of the monsoon” usually lasts for days, and has often much of storm
with it, which also cools the temperature. Sometimes there is a fall of
twenty-five degrees, but not often, and this is not long maintained.
But on the evening named rain began to fall very gently, and for an
hour or two we were under the impression that it was only a shower;
but the rain continued through the night. There was no wind at all,
and this led to a most remarkable circumstance, which I do not know of
having paralleled, or that it has ever been made a matter of record,
though it made a deep impression at the time. All about Rangoon there
is a beautiful shade tree called the “padauk.” It has a short, thick
trunk and very long, spreading branches. The most remarkable feature of
the tree is that it blooms three times within six weeks, a heavy bloom
each time, and the third time the bloom bursts simultaneously with the
monsoons. Strangely enough, at the end of April, at the time of which
I write, there was every indication that the _third bloom_ was about
to break forth, though the rains, as stated, were not expected for some
time. So accurately does this tree mark the beginning of the actual
rains, that a common saying is, “The rains are at hand, the padauk is
ready to bloom the third time.” This was the situation as we went to
sleep that night, thankful for the refreshing rain, coming so gently
also that we did not see the stir of a leaf. After a very refreshing
sleep, we were wakened just at daybreak by a great crash, followed
almost immediately by another. I hastened to the veranda only to see
the great padauk trees in front of the house dripping with water, and
at the side of two of them, almost a quarter of each tree, broken and
prostrate on the earth, while the sounds of breaking trees came from
various directions on other streets. As the light increased, we looked
for a reason for the breaking of these great branches. We saw the
trees one mass of yellow bloom, and the ground covered with the fallen
flowers. The gentle rain was still falling through the motionless air.
For a space of three hours after day came the trees continued to break.
When the breeze began to blow the breaking ceased. Then we were able
to find a cause why these strong trees gave way. During the night the
millions of little flowers on the ends of those long branches opened
with the rain, and as their cups filled with water, there being no wind
to shake the water down, the weight of the water held in these flowers
acted on the branches as a great lever and broke them down. A really
wonderful natural phenomenon! It has had no repetition since, probably
due to the fact that the rain and the blooming have not been absolutely
simultaneous, with an absence of wind. As in this case when the breeze
started up, the water was shaken down and the breaking ceased. When the
flowers had fallen from the trees there could be no more danger; but
he who will look for it, can find the scars on the trees still where
their great branches were broken by the weight of their own water-laden
flowers.
The rain had done havoc in the house also. It had searched out every
hole in that perforated roof, and the water was dripping from the
ceiling into the middle of the room, and streaming down from the walls.
The rain continued for a term of eight days, almost uninterruptedly.
Housekeeping was out of the question. We tried to eat at our table,
but were driven away by the water and dust swept down from the roof
onto the food. There was no help for it. Mrs. Smith’s simple wall
decorations of bric-a-brac were all destroyed. We had to live about the
other mission premises as best we could during the days that followed.
There was a dry spot in the middle of one room where the bishop’s bed
stood, and he returned to sleep there each night to keep out of the
noise of the town. So it continued for eight days, to the end of the
bishop’s visit. I suppose that a bishop of Methodism does not meet
with this kind of entertainment often, even in India, much less in
America. It takes a good man to endure this sort of experience and
keep sweet, especially as he knows the home Church has abundant means
to house its missionaries, if it will. And be it remembered that the
Church had never given us a dollar for property in Burma at that time
in the whole history of the little mission; nor has it yet, except
through the Woman’s Foreign Missionary Society, which has now begun to
help with a really strong hand. But the good bishop and I determined
to buy residence property, and that on credit, as we had no money. Any
conditions of purchase were less risky and less expensive than being so
poorly housed, though this plan could not at once be carried out.
Here another painful circumstance occurred. My family had to live
in that house for the six months of the rains. Just as they were
all suffering with fever, owing to the dampness continually in the
house, a missionary paper from home came, in which there was a letter
by the same Missionary Secretary who had greeted us with the cry of
“the luxury of Indian missionaries” the first week of our life in
Rangoon, again declaring that “India was the most sumptuously provided
mission-field on earth!” This letter was intended to take the life out
of a plea for money to buy residences for our missionaries in India
and Burma that Bishop Thoburn had written. I recall this circumstance
here, solely to show how little the real conditions under which we have
worked in Burma are understood at home, even by those who at times have
had the charge of mission interests.