A Unique Enterprise
In March, 1897, the Rangoon Orphanage was removed to the Karen Hills,
east of Tomgoo, and established on an industrial basis, where it has
been maintained these four years under the new plan, and it has become
the “Unique Institution of the East,” as one discerning official called
it.
When one starts an enterprise that is entirely new he is called upon
for his reason for doing so. So long as he proceeds exactly as other
people, he needs no apology. But in all conservative countries to go
contrary to “custom” is to invite criticism, even if one’s efforts are
an advance on the established order. One curse of India is that its
people are enslaved by “custom;” and some of these customs are very
bad, and most of them are wholly unprogressive. Custom has bound chains
on the people, and they have worn these chains so long that they have
come to love their bonds better than liberty. In most matters “change”
is undesired, and to announce that a plan is “new” is enough to condemn
it hopelessly with many, and to start a thousand tongues to attack it.
It has been shown elsewhere how pitiably situated are the poor of
European descent in all parts of Southern Asia, there is a greater
percentage of these poor dependent on some form of public or private
charity than among any people I know of in any land. Perhaps in no
country do the social customs do more to unfit the poor to help
themselves. I am persuaded also that very much of the charity of the
country, of which there is a great deal, is unwisely, if not harmfully,
bestowed. Rangoon, for instance, like all Indian cities, has a
charitable society made up of ministers and officials, which dispenses
a great deal of relief. Studying its methods as a member for six years,
I became convinced that, while very much good was done, the system
pauperized a relatively large number of people, who should have been
self-sustaining.
In this general dependent condition of a large part of these people,
there is the ever-present and acute distress of poor or abandoned
children, for which there have been established many Orphanages and
schools. All managers of these Orphanages are appealed to by indolent
or destitute parents to give free schooling, including board and
clothing, to their children. The truly orphaned, or the abandoned,
children are always touching our sympathies, and appealing irresistibly
to us for aid. The number of children born in wedlock, as well as out
of legal bonds, who are abandoned by parents or legal relatives, is
astonishingly large. The result of all these combinations is to fill
our Orphanages; for the innocent child must not be allowed to suffer
all the consequences of others’ sins. So the “Orphanages” are found
everywhere to care for these children of European descent, whether they
be Anglo-Indian or Eurasian.
The founding of the Methodist Orphanage in Rangoon has been noted
elsewhere. In managing this Orphanage for a number of years after the
custom of the country, I became convinced that while the amount of
relief and protection given to child-life during its earlier years was
exceedingly great, there was a very serious defect in the system of
conducting all such institutions. I have intimated elsewhere how little
ordinary work is done by anybody of European extraction in the whole of
Southern Asia. This applies generally to the schools, including even
the Orphanages. Everything that can be done by servants is delegated to
them. It may surprise many American readers to know that “orphanages”
and “homes” for Eurasians in India depend on the work of servants,
and very little on the inmates, much as other establishments of the
country. This, too, not only in those things where the work is beyond
the power of boys and girls to do, but in many kinds of work which it
is considered “improper” or “undignified” for them to engage in.
It is considered right and proper for the girls to learn to sew, in
addition to learning their lessons, and sometimes to arrange their own
beds. Some of them even learned to cook some kinds of food, generally
“curry and rice.” But to sweep, or scrub a floor, or thoroughly to
clean a house, to wash or iron their own clothes, much less the
clothes of others, or to take up cooking or dish-washing as a regular
task, is not thought of. Those are “menial tasks;” a “servant should
do them.” What a lady of refinement and wealth in a Western land often
does from choice, even the destitute depending on “charity” are ashamed
to do in Asia. To be dependent or even to “beg” is no disgrace; but
to be a cook, a nurse for a lady, or housekeeper, unless aided by
servants, is considered a disgrace. Indeed, these kinds of work are
never done by any one unless under great extremities. The boys and men
are even less willing to do the ordinary work of life. Clerkships and
such like only are considered “respectable” employment.
In all this it will be observed that the question is not one of
indolence or lack of energy, but one of a social system. The individual
is not so much to blame. He does not do differently from his neighbors.
In the matter of the children, the managers of the Orphanages are
responsible, in so far as they can resist the enfeebling social
conditions under which they work.
We then contemplated teaching the girls and boys under our care to
help themselves where others depended on servants; to do this as a
necessary part of a well-rounded education. Of course, we recognized
the fact that we were undertaking to modify the social order, universal
among an entire people. This was recognized as a very difficult task,
and nothing but a settled conviction that the old order was fearfully
defective led us to undertake it. Looking back now, we have much
interest in recalling the comments on this undertaking. Many assured us
that it was a work that should be done, but would fail if undertaken.
Others wanted the girls especially trained for housekeepers, “so we can
be released from dependence on the Madrassi servants.” This suggestion
was wholly philanthropic! Another said several times: “What are you
training those girls for? For servants? I want some servants.” The
author of the latter remark has never made any other contribution to
the Orphanage so far as I can learn. People who had always received
something for nothing, of whom there were many, were opposed to the
plan. The “prophets,” of whom Asia has her share, were all against
us. The “loquacious oracles,” talking about what they did not know,
as was their habit, were all against us. But we had a few friends who
gave unqualified encouragement. These were of two classes; one a small
company of brave missionaries, of whom Bishop and Mrs. Thoburn were the
representatives. The other class were those who had done most for and
given most money to the Orphanage on the old basis. These people who
gave money and sympathy, while others gave poor advice and criticism,
said, “If you only teach these boys and girls to care for themselves,
it will be the greatest service to them.” We were led to follow the
advice of our friends, who really had the problem on their hearts, and
our own convictions, and so ventured on this untried undertaking.
The first consideration was to find a more suitable location for
our Orphanage. To have undertaken to dispense with servants and all
native helpers, and to introduce an entirely new household order in
Rangoon, would have been to invite such a degree of intermeddling
by irresponsible people, as we did not care to be annoyed with.
Besides, the climate in the plains is very hot, and too oppressive
for foreigners to do the extent of physical labor required to pioneer
such an undertaking. The help that the boys and girls could give at
the beginning would be insignificant. We sought a cooler climate.
This could only be found in hills high enough to lift you into a
substantially cooler and less oppressive atmosphere.
I had been making investigation in the hills of Burma one hundred and
sixty miles north of Rangoon, for four years. The original object of
this investigation was to find a cool mountain retreat to which our
missionaries could go when worn with their labor in the plains. Other
parts of India had well-established hill stations, but Burma had none.
In my own case, when health failed, I had to go the long journey to
India, and to remain there many months. Had I been acquainted with the
hills of Burma, this could all have been avoided by a change from the
heat of the plains when I first began to decline. After my return to
Burma, I determined to find such a place in Burma, if possible.
The first intimation of an accessible place came to me on a visit to
Tomgoo, where a member of my Church lived. His name was D. Souza, a
pensioner of the Indian Survey Department of the Government. As this
good brother was closing his work prior to retiring from the service,
he came to survey Thandaung, a hill twenty-three miles northeast of
Tomgoo, the head of the district and a town on the railway. Thandaung
had been an experimental garden under the Forestry Department of the
Government in the seventies, where cinchona cultivation had been
undertaken, also tea and coffee had been planted. A school had been
established at Tomgoo, intended to teach the Karens how to grow these
products. Later the school was closed, and the cultivation on the
hills abandoned. At that time Tomgoo was the military outpost, and
the authorities built a road to Thandaung, and experiments with the
place as a hill station for their soldiers were made. When Upper Burma
was annexed in 1885, there was a great rush to Mandalay, and later to
regions beyond, where in the regions of Upper Burma various attempts to
open military hill stations were made. Thandaung was abandoned, but not
till records had been made very favorable to the place as a sanitarium
for Europeans. This record did good service for us when we came to
reinspect these hills.
Mr. D. Souza secured the most of the area of the old cantonment and
some of the buildings, with a view of making a large coffee plantation.
He had begun operations early in 1893, and I visited the place first
in June of that year. For four years I made frequent visits during
different months of the year to test the climate thoroughly. I
found the climate in delightful contrast with the plains at all
times, and surprisingly invigorating during most of the year. In this
investigation I was much aided by my former sojourn in three of the
hill stations of India--Almora, Naini Tal, and Mussoorie. It has the
altitude of the first and a cooler temperature during the hottest
weather than either of the three, while from November to May there is
no fog and no rain.
I was convinced that this most accessible hill in Burma would serve
admirably for our double need; a location for our industrial plans, for
our Orphanage, and a resort for tired missionaries.
By a vote of the Bengal-Burma Conference, I was instructed to apply
for land for the enterprise. This Conference authority was sought
because it was a good thing to be “regular” in a new undertaking, and
to have the moral support of the Conference when the difficult places
in working out the new scheme were reached. I learned afterward that
a good-natured brother remarked, “O yes, vote him the authority to go
ahead; he can only fail anyway.” The Government gave us a lease of
one hundred acres of land for the new undertaking, and preparations
were begun to move the Orphanage, together with the superintendent and
my own family, to this hill. But positive authority to go to our new
location was given at the Conference session in February of 1897. It
required much haste to close up affairs in Rangoon connected with the
Orphanage, and make the move.
Before we actually took the train we allowed all the children whose
relations were unwilling to have them go with us into this new location
and untried plan to depart from the school. Nearly a dozen left us.
People whose children had been fed and clothed and schooled for years
for nothing were entirely unwilling to have them go into the new
location, where they were to learn to work as well as to eat, and
to a small extent work for what they ate. We yielded to them, being
conscious all the time of the ingratitude displayed for years of care
of their children. Indeed, it is the legitimate fruit of a system
that gives everything to dependent people and requires no service
in return, that they should come to take your service and care as a
right, without even a grateful acknowledgment for favors. There are
cases where recipients of free care have taken the position that they
were conferring a favor on the missionaries by remaining under their
protection and care.
The experimental cinchona garden had grown up in a young forest during
the years since the Forestry Department had abandoned it. The roads
were all overgrown with rank jungle. We had a small space cleared and
a hut erected, made of bamboo mats, and supported on bamboo poles with
split bamboo used as tiles folded over each other for a roof. The floor
was two feet from the ground, and consisted of split bamboos spread
out flat and laid on bamboo poles. This hut was expected to protect us
only during the month of April, at the end of which the rains begin.
We arrived at Thandaung on March 24th, and took up our abode in the
primitive domicile. The whole structure cost thirty dollars, and
thirty-five people moved into it, Miss Perkins, the principal of the
Orphanage, and the writer and his family included. This furnished us
house room at a cost of less than a dollar each.
This frail shelter was only intended to serve as a camping-place for
five weeks at the longest. I had planned for a better house than this,
and a month earlier I had given the contract for the preliminary work
of cutting and dragging timber for the framework, thinking it would be
possible to secure some kind of permanent shelter early in the rains.
It is true this more substantial building would have to be limited to
what could be built for three hundred dollars, as that was all we had
in sight for this new enterprise.
When we arrived on the mountain I found the Karens, who had agreed to
do the work of cutting and dragging timber, had failed us entirely. But
the tropical rains did not fail. The monsoon is always on time in Lower
Burma. With the first downpour all hope of building operations was at
an end.
In consequence we went into the long monsoon in this temporary
inclosure, by courtesy called a house. We improved the shelter by
laying some sheets of corrugated iron on the roof, and weighting
them down with poles. In this house we kept school, had our sleeping
apartments, and did the cooking and baking for this large family. At
first boys and girls were rebellious against assisting in household
work, and one girl ran away twice, all the twenty-three miles to the
railway. The second time we sent her permanently to her relatives.
But in good time much advance in orderly housekeeping was made. Had
meddlesome people not followed us into even this isolated place, the
work of training would have been much easier. Work for the boys was
begun also. They cut the wood, carried the water, and milked cows; also
cultivated vegetables, and we planted some eight thousand coffee trees
the first year. It was the intention to make coffee-growing a basis for
self-support. The coffee the forestry officers had planted twenty years
before was growing finely, and was of the best quality. As we did our
own work, it would seem an easy matter to secure our own support by
this coffee cultivation alone. There were other industries projected
also.
During all the months of the first rains the health of our little
colony was excellent. There was not one but what received a toning up
by the cooler atmosphere, mountain air, and healthful work. This was a
great cheer to us all, and was the first step toward making Thandaung
known favorably for a hill station.
Thandaung itself is a charming locality. The mountain chain, or
ranges, “Karen hills,” as they are called, of which the ridge known as
“Thandaung” (iron mountain) is a part, cover a very large area, running
from the Malay peninsula to China, and from fifty to one hundred and
fifty miles wide. The highest elevations are nine or ten thousand
feet, but most of the ridges and plateaus rise no higher than three to
five thousand feet. The scenery is magnificent and varied in character.
Looking westward from our school, the mountain drops away at an angle
of about fifty-five degrees into a deep valley, down which the Pa Thi
Chang stream runs in a succession of cataracts. Then the hills rise
again, forming a vast amphitheater. Standing on the site of our school,
this splendid view is constantly before us. Looking beyond the lower
hills, the view widens until the whole of the Sitiang Valley, with its
winding river and broad lakes, light up the scenery with life. Beyond
this plain rise in succession three ranges of the low Pegu Hills, the
intervening valleys but dimly defined, while beyond all these there
is a smoky depression indicating the great valley of the Irrawaddy
River. Beyond this again, on the farthest horizon, are seen the rounded
ridges of the Arracan Hills, about one hundred and twenty miles from
Thandaung. In all this vast expanse of mountain, valley, and plain
there is not one barren rood of earth. Mountains and plains, where not
recently cleared, are covered with a tropical forest. Where there are
cultivated fields, they are matted with luxuriant green of growing
rice, or yellow with the ripened crop. This stretch of deep-green
verdure under a tropical sun throws on the vision a combination of
coloring that gives the place a “charm all its own,” as one admiring
visitor declared. When the rains have washed the atmosphere clear
of dust, the view is very clear. Houses in Tomgoo, twenty-three miles
away, are very clearly seen. The great oil-trees on the plains, some
specimens of which are left standing where a great forest has been cut
away, lift their straight gray trunks a hundred and fifty feet to the
first limb, and above this hold a majestic crown. Often have I seen,
under the reflected rays of the morning sun, those trunks of trees
defined like so many giant pencils. Yet they are twelve to fourteen
miles away. To the north and south the view is over well-rounded hills
and ridges for sixty to seventy-five miles. But it is to the east we
turn for the sublimest scenery. A little over a mile from the school
a peak rises above the surrounding heights. It is called Thandaung
Ghyi, meaning the greatest Thandaung. Climbing up the forest path, and
finally scaling a sharp and rocky height, we stand on the top, only
a rod across. From here all the western view, also north and south,
is taken. Toward the east an entirely new arrangement of the hills is
made. From where you stand there is a precipitous descent of nearly
three thousand feet into a basin fifty miles across, rimmed on the
east by a great ridge with a culminating peak called Nattaung, or
Spirit Mountain, nine thousand feet high. The Bre Hills, where the wild
Karens live, join this ridge, and the two curve until they complete the
opposite border of the basin. Never have I been able to look on the
sublime ranges of mountains and picturesque plains over this sweep of
two hundred miles of Burma’s varied surface, without a profound sense
of awe and wonder. It is so wonderful that it grows on one, though seen
daily for years.
[Illustration: MISS PERKINS AND GROUP OF GIRLS, THANDAUNG.]
Once I went with a friend to Thandaung early on a January morning.
This is the season when fogs hang heavily over the plains and reach
high up the mountain valleys; but our mountain heights are above the
fogs, in perpetual sunshine. When we reached the top of Thandaung Ghyi
an unexpected view delighted our eyes. The great basin to the east
was filled with a dense fog, and we were looking down upon it as it
floated like a great gray sea three thousand feet below. The lower
mountains here and there lifted above the fog, and their wooded tops
made beautiful islands in the sea of vapor. The sun was shining from
the opposite side, and the full flood of reflected glory fell upon our
eyes.
At another time, accompanying a Government official, I went up to get
this view. The rains had not yet ceased, but were dying away. We hoped
to reach the top before the daily storm came on. We took this chance,
as the views are the most glorious after the rains have swept the sky
of every speck of dust. But the rains beat us, and we were drenched,
while the mountain was buried in the clouds. After two hours we were
growing cold, and were about to give up the object for which we came.
Lingering a last moment, I thought I saw a rift in the clouds, and then
the streak of light broadened, the rain grew less, the darkness lifted,
and a field of blue appeared, the sun shone through the falling rain,
and suddenly all the basin below, and old Nattaung, rising above,
appeared to our entranced vision! All the heightened coloring was
intensified by our position under the shadow of the retreating cloud.
Eyes may hardly hope to see a more wonderful vision of mountain scenery
than we beheld as this vision was slowly borne from the rift in that
retreating storm.
Our new enterprise was planted under such conditions and amid such
scenes as these. While it was a discouraging task, a daily view of the
mountains round about us drove away many an occasion of low spirits.
Taken all together, we in time became a happy family, sharing a common
task. During this first monsoon our frail house several times gave way
in floor, roof, or wall; but we suffered no serious harm. In September,
as the sun was occasionally breaking through the clouds, and we were
wondering what move we would make for a better habitation, a telegram
came from Bishop Thoburn, which read, “God has sent you a thousand
dollars for a house.” If the heavens had opened suddenly, and the
money had dropped into our upturned hands, it could hardly have been
more really a providential gift in our extreme need. No wonder we all
_rejoiced aloud_! Later a letter came, telling us that a good woman
who had come from Scotland to India to visit missions, and having
brought considerable money with her to give to mission institutions,
had been in conference with Bishop and Mrs. Thoburn, and as a result
of a canvass of all the many worthy objects in which a great mission
is fostering, she chose this Thandaung school as the first to receive
her favor. She approved the undertaking, and gave a thousand dollars to
erect a building for the school. No wonder the bishop could telegraph
that God had sent the help. This was only the beginning of the
beneficence of this good woman; and the strange thing was that she had
no acquaintance with Methodists, and had been trained in a Church of
quite opposite teaching and polity from ours.
The building of our first house deserves mention. The logs were cut
from the forest and dragged to a sawpit and sawed by hand by Burmese
sawyers, in the old style of one man above and one man under the log.
This was slow and crude work; but it was the only way to get building
material. The framework was built on posts set in the ground, as has
been the universal custom in the construction of wooden houses in
Burma. The iron for the roof had to be brought from Rangoon by rail to
Tomgoo, and from there to the mountain top, by carts and coolies. This
pioneer work took time and the most constant supervision. The number
and character of men that the missionary has to work with, as well as
the mixed character of the population of Burma, may be understood from
the following account: I bought the iron of a Scotchman, who imported
it from Germany. It was delivered to a Eurasian station master, aided
by a Bengali clerk. The railroad that carried it is owned by the
Government, but managed by the Rothschilds. The iron was delivered
at Tomgoo by a Eurasian station master, aided by a Hindu clerk from
Madras, and another a Mohammedan from Upper India. A Tamil cart-man
carried it to the Sitiang River, where a Bengali Mohammedan carried it
over the ferry. A Telegu cart man hauled it to the foot of the hills.
Shan coolies carried it up to Thandaung, where Burmese carpenters
put it on the house with nails that I bought of a Chinaman, who had
imported them from America. The logs of the house had been cut from
the forest by Karens, and drawn to the sawpit by a Siamese elephant!
The missionary had the simple duty of making all the connections and
keeping the iron moving to its destination.
But we were needing the new house badly before we got it. Part of the
roof was nailed on, the frame completed, but only a very little of the
plank walls begun, when our old hut collapsed entirely. We had often
patched the rotting bamboos, but as the monsoon passed away the east
wind, as usual on those hills, began to blow with great force, and the
frail walls repeatedly gave way before it, and finally one morning the
entire roof and sides were blown away. A very wonderful providence was
manifested, in that no one of our large family was hurt. Most of the
smaller children had been romping on the east side of the house, and
the gale of wind was blowing from the east. In their play they suddenly
ran down the path fifty yards or so from the house. In that instant
the roof and poles that held it down were lifted and hurled upon the
place where they had been playing the moment before. The loose pieces
of corrugated iron cut the air like swords, and some of them were
carried far down the mountain side, which falls in precipitous descent
from that point. Had the children not been moved away for that moment
by the unseen hand of God, they must have been cruelly hurt. As it was
they were out of danger, while those of us that were in the collapsed
house suffered no harm. This is but one of many indications which we
had of the kindly Providence in all our pioneering. For nearly three
years from the beginning of this work, there was not a case of serious
sickness nor an injury of consequence by any accident suffered by any
of our little colony.
But as our old hut was gone beyond repair or reconstruction, and as the
wind was now cold, for it was November, the matter of providing shelter
became a serious matter. The frame of our new house was completed,
and a part of the roof was on, also a few planks nailed upright at
one corner. Taking this beginning as a starting, we inclosed a part
of the space of the building by bamboo mats, laid a little flooring
temporarily, and then, having divided this into two rooms, we moved
into our new quarters. The workmen went right on with the construction
of the house. We lived in the house while it was being builded. When
completed, though built of unseasoned wood, poorly sawed and roughly
put together, it was a palace compared with what we had before, and
indeed it continues to this day to do very good service.
[Illustration: FIRST PERMANENT BUILDING ON THANDAUNG]
About the time the house was completed, Miss Bellingham, the generous
donor of the thousand dollars, came to Burma to see what use we had
made of the money. She spent a week on Thandaung, to our great delight
and hers. She consented that the building might bear her name, and we
have since called it “Bellingham Home.”
Shortly after we began operations on this hill, public interest in the
place began to be shown. I wrote some letters to the Rangoon papers,
and visitors did likewise. The advantages of the place were laid before
the Government. Officials began to come up on tours of inspection. The
place grew in favor, and it was planned to give Government sanction
to making it into a station. A new road up the mountain, giving a
better grade than the old road, and the cart road across the plain was
metalled. The old travelers’ bungalow on the hill, that had fallen
into decay since the military left the place, was rebuilt. So the
improvement goes on till now. The latest plan contemplates a cart road
running entirely up the mountain, and the survey of the whole hill into
building sites. There is every promise of this becoming the favorite
resort in Burma for the people who seek a change from the heat of the
plains.
In the meantime the scheme has had a good degree of prosperity, in
spite of the fact that it was pioneer in character and location. The
irresponsible gossips continue to attack it, the fearful in heart who
love their bondage to the old order still stand agape as they see the
school continue on its way. The people who have been beating their way
through the world still cry it down. But an increasing number of people
who believe in self-dependence, and the character it develops, are in
great sympathy with this work. Some who can pay full boarding fees send
their children to us. They have adopted with us the theory that this
self-help is to be accepted as a necessary part of a well-appointed
system of education.
There has been a specially significant growth in usefulness among
the girls. They have learned to bake excellent bread, cook and serve
a variety of food in a cleanly and orderly manner, and to keep the
entire house in good taste and comfort. This is realized as a great
accomplishment when one has seen the slovenly, untidy houses commonly
found where the woman in the house does not do anything to keep the
house in order herself, and counts it impossible that she should do
what she chooses to call “coolie’s work.” A woman like this would not
know enough even to instruct good servants in keeping the house, much
less the worthless servants she can ill afford to keep, whose only
qualification is that they are as incompetent as servants as their
mistress is as head of the establishment. Yet almost universally such
women would prefer to exist in a hovel, and give orders to a miserable
servant, rather than have a decent abode, if they had to sweep, scrub,
or dust it with their own hands. In contrast to these are the girls
trained in our industrial school. They can do all things necessary to
keeping a house, and have almost forgotten that there are any servants
in the world. They have done all this, and at the same time they have
been in school, doing as good work as girls in other schools, where
they depend on servants for even buttoning their clothes.
Our girls are self-respecting young women, far beyond what they could
have been had they not received the advantages in character that come
from self-help in ordinary daily tasks.
The boys have generally profited by the outdoor work. Having nothing
to begin with, it has not been possible as yet to organize the outdoor
work as that within doors. Plans are under way, however, to develop
this branch of the school, hoping for a large industrial plant.
Enough has been done in these four years greatly to encourage those of
us who have sacrificed something in planning and carrying forward this
new feature of industrial mission work. There is to-day more material
advantage in this plant than can be shown in any institution anywhere
that I have been for the money invested. More has been done in direct
school work, for the money invested, than in almost all the English
schools with which I am acquainted. The effect of the work on the boys
and girls under our care has exceeded our highest hopes. I am sure not
one of us would be willing to go back to the old order of Orphanages.
The boys and girls themselves do not want to return to the old order.
The school has met with a degree of favor from those whose judgment is
counted of the highest value to us, by reason of the fact that they
have put money into the plant under the old order and the new also,
that we hardly dared to hope for. We have also received a bequest of
seventeen hundred dollars with which we have put up a second building.
The patronage of the school by people of means and social standing
is such as to encourage us much. It reveals the fact that the school
meets a want felt most by the people who make a financial success of
life, but see that self-help should be taught to every child regardless
of financial circumstances. These people believe that indolence,
dependence, and slovenly habits are a disgrace, and honest work in all
things is honorable.
Miss Perkins, now in the eleventh year of her continuous service on the
field, has carried on this work for more than a year, being aided by
Miss Rigby, who went to her aid in 1900.
This industrial school was founded to reteach the truth long since
forgotten in Asia that all kinds of household and manual toil are
respectable. The Lord himself was a carpenter, and washed the feet of
his disciples, which many of those who bear his name would be ashamed
to do. The school has run four years without a servant, and is stronger
than when it began. In this it is the only institution among Europeans
in all Asia that is so managed. It is absolutely unique in this. It
promises much usefulness and a large growth. But if it were closed up
to-morrow, it would still have proved by four successful years that
such a plan is possible of successful operation even in Asia.
While it is not directly a part of mission enterprise, it may be
of interest to some reader to have some account of experiences and
observations in a Burma forest. Some such experiences came to me in
connection with life on and about Thandaung. Nearly the entire distance
from Tomgoo to Thandaung is through a forest reserve of the Government.
Several miles of this forest are made up of the great trees before
mentioned. One variety produces an oil used in Europe for making
varnish. The method of extracting this oil is very curious. A deep cut
is made in the tree near the ground, and in this cut a fire is built
and kept burning until the tree is blackened ten feet or more from the
ground. Then the coals are taken out of the cut, which has become a
sort of cup, into which the oil oozes from the wound made by the fire
on the tender tree. It seems almost cruel to treat the giant trees in
this way. It is astonishing that they survive and heal over the great
blackened scars left on their sides.
Another remarkable thing observed in these forests is the growth of
notable vines and parasites. Here is to be seen a great vine, like
half a dozen grape-vines joined together, climbing high round and into
these splendid trees. The trunk is usually not large, though so tall.
Then high up on this tree a spore of the peepul-tree finds a lodgment,
and sprouts, the leaf upward, the root running downward, hugging
close to the tree as if drawing life from the trunk. Sometimes the
young growth starts a hundred feet from the ground. As its main root
descends it throws outside roots which encircle the tree, and these
roots branch again so the whole trunk is soon inclosed in a great net,
ever tightening. Here is seen a very strange thing. These roots do not
overlap, but grow right into each other when they come in contact,
and the union is made without a trace or scar. As these meshes of the
living net grow, they tighten into a hug that kills, first the vine
and then the tree. Each in turn is devoured by the great parasite. Its
net meantime becomes a solid wooden shell, reaching to the ground and
lifting its crown high among the other giants; a tree made great by the
death of two others; a tree and vine, each seemingly having as much
right to live as this parasite that preys on other forest life.
Another singular circumstance annually occurs in the forest. About
the end of January a species of great bees, as large as the American
hornet, come from migrations, nobody knows where, and rest upon the
under side of the branches in the crowns of these great monarchs of the
forest, which sometimes rise two hundred feet from the ground. About
this time some varieties of these trees are in heavy bloom, and no
doubt it is this which brings the bees. They locate on only one or two
kinds of trees, and at once begin to build honeycombs, suspending them
from the under side of the limb. They multiply rapidly, and by March
there are sometimes as many as twenty to thirty swarms on a tree. The
honeycombs are sometimes three feet long, and hang perpendicularly a
foot and a half. The study of these bees is very interesting. They
build on the same trees from year to year.
But the most impressive fact is to observe the method of collecting the
honey. The trees are perfectly smooth, and are often without a limb for
one hundred and fifty feet. The Karens usually collect the honey, and
the Burmese dealers come to the camps to buy it when first secured,
and take much of it away to the towns. How do they get the honey? The
Karens climb up these bare trunks. But how? Some of them are seven
feet thick, and can not be grasped in a man’s arms so as to enable him
to climb. The daring man drives thin bamboo pegs into the bark of the
tree, and goes up on these. More, he drives in the pegs as he climbs!
They are about eight inches long outside of the small portion imbedded
in the bark, and twenty-two inches apart. So the climber, beginning
at the ground, can only place two or three pegs before he begins his
ascent. In all this perilous climb he never has the use of more than
two of these short projections at once. On these he clings with feet
and legs while he must use both hands in driving a new one. To get the
honey, he must wait till night, and then with material for a torch, a
vessel for the honey, and a rope to lower it, he climbs up into the
darkness and out onto the great branches, where with lighted torch he
drives the bees away and cuts off the well-filled honeycomb, and lowers
it to others on the ground. In this manner he takes all the honey from
a tree. A more daring feat for a small return can hardly be imagined.
And nerves of steadier poise are required to prevent the destruction
of the climber. He receives a dollar and a half for clearing one tree.
Surely a life is regarded of little value among these people.