_FURTHER DEVELOPMENTS._
It was during our second year in Burma that we opened two new mission
stations, one at Kyaukse, and the other at Pakokku. Kyaukse is a town
twenty-nine miles south of Mandalay, on the new line of railway, and the
centre of the most fertile and best irrigated district in Upper Burma.
Our work in Kyaukse has, from the first, been in charge of one of our
Singhalese preachers, and its record, up to the present, has been chiefly
of preliminary work.
Pakokku is a town of some size and commercial importance, as a river
port and place of trade. It is situated at the junction of the Chindwin
river with the Irrawaddy, and is likely to rise in importance, as the
country behind it becomes more settled, and increases its productions,
and as the trade on the Chindwin is developed. The Pakokku district was,
during the earlier years of British rule, the scene of much disturbance,
but this did not prevent us from taking the opportunity, afforded by
the development of Pakokku, to establish our mission there. Mr. Bestall
commenced the work there in the latter part of 1888. As the circumstances
at Pakokku illustrate one or two points in mission work, I may with
advantage relate them.
On his arrival at Pakokku Mr. Bestall was waited upon by the elders
of the town, who were also members of the municipality, and men of
influence, and he was politely informed that Pakokku did not want
Christianity, and it would be better if he would not preach it amongst
them. Here was a damper for the new missionary; they were determined,
it seemed, not even to give him a hearing. He received them with good
humour, and assured them that he would not teach them anything but what
was for their good. He took a bamboo house to live and carry on his work
in. It was not deserving of any better name than a hut; but for about a
year he lived there, preached there, taught school there, and built up
a singularly powerful influence, especially considering the disposition
with which the people first greeted him. He commenced a school. At first
the children who came to the mission school did so under difficulties,
having to encounter the maledictions of the monks, and to go in face
of the cheerful prospect, held out to them, of descending, in the next
birth, to the condition of vermin, if they persisted in receiving the
instructions of the missionary.
[Illustration: SCHOOL-CHAPEL AT PAKOKKU.]
But the superior quality of the instruction given, and a cheerful,
friendly manner towards all, soon disarmed this ill-will and obstruction;
the school prospered, and the meetings were well attended. There was
another Anglo-vernacular school of the same grade as ours in the town,
which, being supported out of municipal funds, could afford to take
boys at half the fees we charged, and it had all the weight of official
and influential support at its back. But the better work done in the
mission school told here also, and it was not long before we held the
field without a rival. As early as the second year at Pakokku, all this
difficulty and opposition had melted away. The Report of the Mission for
1890 states, as regards Pakokku:—
“This year has witnessed three baptisms from Buddhism. In the case
of each, long research and definite decision preceded the Christian
rite. The ages of the three were thirty-four, twenty and seventeen.
The young man aged twenty on being asked, ‘Are you ready to confess
Christ before men?’ replied in his usual serious manner: ‘I know that
the Buddhist religion is without a Saviour, and that Jesus Christ saves
from sin.’ This youth for two years had been a seeker after Christ,
and by his earnest, thoughtful course of conduct had often impressed
us. The day school has greatly increased during the year, and in April
the municipality _voluntarily closed its school in our favour_, and
entrusted the education of the scholars to our care, _giving us a
substantial grant towards the working expenses of the school_. This
action has been specially encouraging to us, for on our opening the
Mission on this station, influential members of the municipality met
us, and seriously asked us to relinquish our purpose, of endeavouring
to plant the Christian faith in the midst of the Buddhism which they
loved so well. The sons of most of these members are now with confidence
committed to our trust, and this in the face of the fact that the best
hour of the day’s work is regularly devoted to teaching the Scriptures.
The tone of the school is good, the attendance at our two Sunday Burmese
services encouraging. The pupil teacher has been baptised, and there is
a work going on in the hearts of some of the boys, which gives us great
hope of their salvation. The number on the roll is fifty. The results of
the December Government Examinations are most satisfactory. Out of twelve
presented from our school ten passed. Out of three Scholarships gained
by the whole of Upper Burma two fell to us, while one boy took the first
prize for the province in English.”
This report shows what hard work can do in the face of discouraging
circumstances, and it is also a very clear illustration of the way in
which Christian educational work, when wisely conducted, is a valuable
assistance to mission work.
So successful and promising a work must needs have permanent mission
premises in which to carry it on. Simultaneously with this educational
and evangelistic work, our pioneer missionary there had also to undertake
the worry of purchasing land, and building a school-chapel, similar to
the one at Mandalay. As a mission site, he purchased over four acres of
land in a most eligible, central and healthy situation, and at the same
price as we paid in Mandalay. It was so cheap that, before long, Mr.
Bestall was offered four times what he gave for it. The work of building
there was peculiarly slow and trying, owing to the stupidity of the
Burman workmen; but at length the school-chapel was finished, and our
work in Pakokku assumed definite shape.
The purchase of the site for the school-chapel, and the erection of the
building at Mandalay, furnished an experience sufficiently trying to my
patience, and consumed a great deal of valuable time, and I could not but
wish I had some native brethren, to share the burden of these tedious
details. Time is no object to the Oriental, and in dealing with him you
have to be prepared to see much precious time wasted. Having chosen the
site that seemed on the whole best, the next thing was to purchase it. It
was a square piece of land, about an acre and a half in extent, bounded
on two sides by the public streets, and on these two sides there were
about twenty-five bamboo houses, each in a little plot of ground, all
belonging to different owners, besides six or seven more houses inside
the square. In the Burmese times no deeds were used; everything went by
word of mouth; indeed there hardly could be said to be any property in
land, as everything belonged to the king. It was therefore, after the
annexation, a matter of no little delicacy and risk to buy land, as the
evidence of ownership, in the absence of deeds, was most precarious. The
danger was that the buyer, in the absence of any local knowledge, should
buy from some one who could not prove his title, and afterwards should
have to purchase it over again from the real owner. A great deal of
property changed hands at that time in Mandalay, and this mishap occurred
in some cases. In the case of the Mission, although in our three stations
we had to purchase from thirty or forty different owners, we managed in
every case to make one payment serve.
I also found that there were amongst the dwellers on the site of the
school-chapel, three different kinds of tenure, and we had to be careful
not to purchase what the holder had no power to sell. Some six or seven
people were merely squatters, and had put up their bamboo houses there
without any right or title to the land. The greater number held the
land on what is known in Mandalay as the _Ahmudan_ tenure. They were
the soldiers, if we might call them such, or retainers of the king, and
held only a temporary or conditional interest in the land, by virtue of
military service. One only, out of the whole number, could be regarded
as the freehold possessor. We had to pay accordingly to each. It was a
tedious business finding out all this. Some of the cases were troublesome
to settle. One in particular was in dispute between a certain widow, and
a man who is a leper, a relative of hers, for some time both claiming the
ownership. At length we reached the end of the negotiations, the last of
the bamboo houses was taken down and removed, and we were free to begin
with the building.
I have mentioned these matters to show the variety of the business
details that enter into pioneer mission work, and how many things
the missionary has to take up his time. When it came to building the
school-chapel, it proved a very lengthy and wearisome affair, on
account of the idleness and dilatory habits of the Burman mason who had
undertaken the contract. As the work proceeded he became more clamorous
for advances of money, and less inclined to do any work. Thrice the
building came to a perfect standstill; he declared he would not work
without money in hand; twice I managed to get him to start again, wishing
him to complete the contract if possible. But finding, at length, that
he never meant to finish it, I had to let him go, and employ a native
of India to do the rest of the work, losing something, of course, by
the change of contract. With all my love for the Burmans, and a sincere
desire to befriend them, I almost resolved never to employ a Burman mason
again. This lack of steadiness, reliableness, and patient continuance, is
a defect in the national character. They allow most of the prosperity to
slip past them, in this way, into the hands of Chinamen and natives of
India.
At length, however, the building was finished, a neat, substantial,
well-ventilated school-chapel, sixty feet by thirty-six, with a neat
portico in front, and two stories high. This building was no sooner
finished than we began to find the great advantage of it in our work. It
forms an excellent centre, both for educational and evangelistic work,
and is put to constant use. On a Sunday we commence with a soldiers’
parade service at seven in the morning, from eight to nine the Tamil
service, and from nine to ten the Burmese, three services in three
languages in the morning. At five in the afternoon we have an out-door
service in Burmese near the chapel, and at six o’clock the English
service, at which all classes of English-speaking people, both military
and civilian, attend. Day by day we have school there, and one evening
a week a Bible-class in English, and another evening a magic-lantern
exhibition, with Scripture slides only, for the purpose of preaching
the Gospel to the Burmans. We have found the latter an exceedingly
useful method of preaching the Gospel in Burma. The Burmans have a good
appreciation of pictures, and we have found no difficulty in crowding
the chapel, week after week, in this way. By this means great numbers of
the people have been able, through the eye, as well as through the ear,
to gather some definite information about the life and teachings of our
Saviour and the great cardinal truths of the Gospel.
[Illustration: “AT LENGTH, HOWEVER, THE SCHOOL-CHAPEL AT MANDALAY WAS
FINISHED.”]
The purchase of the mission land at Kyaukse was another opportunity of
getting an insight into Burmese ways. It was a well-situated plot of
land that we chose for the mission premises, about an acre in extent,
and was the property of the old Myo-woon or governor of the town, an
ancient-looking man, decrepit and almost blind, but with wits as sharp
as needles, and very proud and difficult to manage. He wanted to sell. I
offered a price for the land that was fair and reasonable. After trying,
of course, all he could to get more, he finally agreed to sell it for the
price I offered. When all was settled I went over to Kyaukse by train
with the money, but there was some hitch, and I had to come back again
without settling it. A second time I went, and this time all was in
readiness. I thought we might finish the matter in half an hour, and take
the next train home again. Nothing of the sort. So many frivolous points
of difficulty were raised, even after all the talk there had been before,
that it took three or four hours to finish it.
First there was the phraseology of the deed to haggle over, though that
was quite unnecessary. Then the conditions of sale, although everything
was as clear as it could well be. The last rallying point of the
retreating foe was in the matter of the fence, and here it seemed as if
the business would really come to a standstill.
If he sold the land, he must, at any rate, be allowed to remove the fence
all round the property.
To this I replied that, in the whole course of my experience, I had never
heard of such a proposal. The fence belonged to the land, and served to
mark it out, and was most important evidence, in case of dispute as to
boundaries. If we bought the land how could we give him the fence?
But the Myo-woon wanted the fence.
Very well then, we could not buy on those terms.
The scribe who was proceeding with the writing of the deed, ceased when
negotiations came to this abrupt termination, and we all sat silent,
gazing into vacancy for several minutes, the old Myo-woon, with his
almost sightless eyes, looking particularly studious. After giving me
plenty of time to relent in his favour, and finding no relenting, he
abated his terms, and made it only the east and west sides that he must
have.
No.
Then the eastern fence only.
No.
Then let him have the posts of the fence.
Not a stick.
On finding me quite resolute in the determination to have fair
terms, he surrendered the position with a grace that was really
wonderful, considering the absurd and audacious attempt he had made at
over-reaching; and he showed a truly Burmese ability, to smooth over, by
neat phrase, and courtly style, what a European in his position must have
felt as a most awkward dispute.
Europeans wonder sometimes at the outrageous way Orientals have of making
claims and requests, which seem to them unfair and impudent to the last
degree, and they sometimes feel inclined to lose patience with them about
it. I think their doctrine of Fate may account for this propensity. In
looking after himself, the mind of the Oriental does not run on what
is true, just, proper, or reasonable, but what will the Fates grant;
and he likes to frame his request or demand on the off-chance that your
charity, or necessity, or complaisance, or ignorance may induce you to
yield to him. Thus, supposing six annas to be reasonable, if he asks for
six annas, and gets it, he may, on that ground, see cause to upbraid
himself for neglect of his own interests, in not trying to get twelve.
If, however, he gets less than he asks for, or nothing at all, he can,
with the aid of the doctrine of Fate, take it with equanimity, for he
has, at any rate, given the Fates a fair chance, and got as much as it
was destined for him to get.
It was at an early period of our work in Burma that we felt it very
desirable to take steps towards the training of mission workers from
amongst the people. Our schools will want teachers, and we shall need to
multiply these agencies greatly before our influence is widely felt. We
need catechists to instruct the people in the Christian religion, and as
our native churches spring up and grow, we shall need native pastors to
minister to them. If we had five hundred such workers, we could easily
find work for them. But where are these workers? You look around for
them in vain. They do not exist. They will not rise up of themselves; we
must grow them; we must take them as they are, in the rough, and train
them. Heathenism cannot produce persons ready to our hands, with the
character, the knowledge, and the experience requisite for Christian work.
In commencing this department of his work, the pioneer missionary must
be content to begin at the very beginning. He cannot afford to hold his
hands in this matter, and wait for better, or the best, material. Time
is too precious for unnecessary waiting. Every year is valuable, and it
ought to be his aim to shorten the initial years of paucity of workers,
as much as possible, by seeking to provide them early. He had better
commence with such material as he can find, and not be disheartened,
however many failures and disappointments there may be. A wise missionary
will take care to have always about him a number of young disciples,
whom he is training or trying to train, and into whom he is endeavouring
to infuse as much as he can of himself, and the Christian training of
centuries past which he embodies,—his knowledge, methods, thoughts and
aspirations, together with his spirit and example. All the best native
ministers, catechists and teachers I have known during many years, have
been men who cherished with gratitude the memory of their association
with some missionary, and his training and example. And there is no
mission work, earnestly persisted in, that is surer of its reward than
the labour we spend on our young native brethren.
We commenced this work with a very humble effort in the way of a
preparatory school, into which we gathered, from time to time, those who
were desirous of following the studies that would fit them for teaching.
Our experience illustrates the kind of difficulties that may be expected
in a work of this kind, and it also illustrates that, although at the
outset the failures and disappointments will be more numerous than the
successes, yet even then all is not lost, and if even only one good
teacher or preacher be secured out of the first batch, that one will be
worth all the labour. Afterwards, when things get more into shape, and
we can make a better selection, we shall be correspondingly better off.
We had gathered eight Burman youths together in this preparatory
boarding school on the Mission premises. I had them regularly taught by
a conscientious and faithful native Christian teacher. They attended
Divine service regularly, and we took pains to give them, in the school,
Christian instruction, together with the course of secular instruction
that seemed adapted for them. One day I went into the school and found
all ominously quiet.
“Where are the boys?”
“All gone but one.”
“Gone? Where?” The matter was soon explained. The newly appointed Sawbwa
of Momeit, a semi-independent chieftain, ruling a mountain district a few
days’ journey north of Mandalay, being in need of more followers, some of
his men got at these boys of ours, and persuaded them that a career of
prosperity would open up to them, if they elected to follow the Sawbwa.
These visions of prosperity proved too much of a temptation for these
lads, so without as much as “good-bye” they had taken their departure,
in the usual Burmese light-hearted way; and by the time we discovered
they were missing, they were on their way up the river by steamer, in
attendance on the new Sawbwa. One of the youths, however, our most
hopeful one, K. by name, had quite privately made a remark to the youth
who did not go, from which there seemed reason to hope that, in spite of
his yielding to the temptation to leave, there was the root of the matter
in him, and some hope that it might still result in good. He told this
lad that wherever he went he meant to preach Christ. That remark was a
good sign, but our disappointment was great.
In due time the young adventurers found the wisdom of that counsel, “Put
not your trust in princes.” The Sawbwa never made good his promises.
No prosperous career opened out to them, nothing better than lounging
about the dirty village of Momeit, which constituted his capital. One
by one they left the Sawbwa. Most of them I never saw again, but K.,
the one of whom we had most hopes, came back to us, and is with us
still. Notwithstanding this and other disappointments, we still hold on
in this enterprise of training workers, and mean to do so. K. was the
first convert I baptised in Burma, and we have good hopes that he will
prove a useful preacher. He certainly has talents in this direction.
From the first he has shown more than ordinary intelligence and aptitude
for study, and a marked love for the Word of God. Finding in him
this aptitude, I commenced to give him, in Burmese, systematic daily
instruction in Bible studies and theology. I was surprised to find the
progress he had already made, and his extreme aptitude for understanding
and imparting it. With intelligence and abilities for study, and with the
taste for it, and a good natural utterance, we have great hopes of K.;
but knowing what we do of the immoralities so common in Burman society,
and the temptations to which young men are subject, we have to tremble,
and to exercise watchful care, and to pray that the grace of God in him
may prevail. The late C. H. Spurgeon has well said, “To build cathedrals
is a little work compared with building up preachers.”
A communication recently to hand, from my friend and colleague Mr.
Bestall, gives gratifying news of the young men at present in this
training school, and gives us good ground to hope that this work is not
in vain. Describing the young men he says:—
“K. first heard of Christ in 1888. It would be difficult to find a
more fluent speaker or more earnest student. He preaches well and
thoughtfully, and we hope to have more to report of him in years to come.
“G. N. is with him. He is an ex-Buddhist monk. He left Buddhism, and for
some months has been diligently studying the Scriptures. He preaches in
a very different style from K. He is quite familiar with the Buddhist
prayers in Pali, and usually prefaces his remarks by a short recital.
Having gained the ear of all, he continues, ‘I don’t pray like that now.
Why?’ and then he begins his address.
“T. follows. He has been studying for two years, and is developing into
an intelligent believer in the Gospel.
“S. is training for the work of a Christian teacher, and always
accompanies the preachers to the out-door services.
“Lastly comes N., a quiet, earnest young man, who of his own accord has
left a comfortable home to be trained in the Scriptures.”
With regard to our general work, we have had converts each year after
the first. There is no sign as yet of any great ingathering, but on
each station steady, plodding work has brought its reward. Our earnest
endeavour has been to commence on sound principles, making ample use
of the accumulated experiences of many past years, and to build the
foundations strongly and deeply, rather than to aim at mere rapidity,
which, in Burma, would be apt to end in disappointment. We have made
perceptible progress from year to year in the hold we have on the people,
the language and the work generally.
One of our most important enterprises is a Boarding School and Training
Institution for girls. We aim not only at the conversion of individuals,
but also to constitute Christian homes in Burma, and for that purpose
we must have women converted as well as men, and as many of them as of
men. If special efforts are not directed to the conversion of women in
these Eastern lands, there is great danger of the work being one-sided.
The demand for the education of boys is much greater than for the girls,
consequently many more boys than girls are placed for training under
our care, and the natural consequence is that we are apt to have male
converts in excess of female. In the earlier days of mission work in the
East it was often so, and this in some cases perceptibly retarded the
progress of the work. In some of the harder mission fields, the progress
would have been much greater if, from the very first, adequate attention
could have been given to women. Surely we ought to profit by that
experience in every new mission field taken up now.
[Illustration: “THERE ARE NO ZENANAS AMONG THE BURMANS, NO KEEPING OF
WOMEN SHUT UP.”]
What happens when the converts amongst the young men are considerably
more numerous than amongst the girls? The time comes for the young men
to marry, and they marry heathen wives, because it is unavoidable.
Generally speaking, if a woman is a heathen when she marries, she remains
so to the end of the chapter. There were in the earlier days, thirty
or forty years ago, many instances of this in Ceylon, the results of
which are seen to this day, and what we see is admonitory. I remember
one, a typical case, of an elderly man, a Christian teacher, whom I
knew intimately. He had a heathen wife. “There were none of these
Girls’ Boarding Schools when I was young, to train our Tamil girls,”
he would say, “and so I married a heathen,” and a great trouble it was
to him. She was agreeable enough to live with, but totally illiterate,
and a rigid Hindu. Everything was done that could be done for her, but
she was, as usual, impervious to all influences, and remained in the
Hindu faith till the day of her death. It was very seldom that a woman
accepted Christianity _after_ she was married, whereas a few months under
Christian instruction _before_ almost always inclined them firmly to the
Christian faith. In Jaffna, where we have our largest Girls’ Institution
in that mission, where there are always some eighty or ninety girls,
the Christian influence is so strong, and the minds of the young are so
impressible, that they practically all embrace Christianity within a
few weeks of their entrance. There are never more than a few new comers
unbaptised, who are only waiting that they may learn a little more, or
to obtain the consent of their friends and guardians; and it is the same
with all the institutions of the kind in our own, and the neighbouring
missions. If missionary experience has proved anything in the East, it
has proved that no work is more abiding or more remunerative than work
done for girls, from ten to fifteen years of age.
Another case in Ceylon was that of a native gentleman, a Christian of
good standing and respectable position. He married a heathen wife,
because Christian wives were not then to be found. I never knew him, he
died before my time, but I knew his family. They are now grown up and
in middle life. Under the mother’s influence they were brought up as
heathens, although the father was a Christian, and when the boys went to
school, they had to be dealt with as other heathen lads. Two of them were
happily converted and baptised into the Christian faith, after they were
grown up, but the rest of the family are all rigid heathens to this day,
and their children also. Experience in such cases amply proves that only
when the wife and mother is a Christian before marriage, can the family
be relied on as a Christian family. If not, you may expect to have all
the work to do over again in the next generation. This is woman’s nature
all the world over—
“If she will, she will, you may depend on it;
But if she won’t, she won’t, and there’s an end of it.”
The family depends more on the mother than on any one else for its
religious tone.
Besides that, we require, in Burma, female teachers for the girls’
schools that we need to establish everywhere, in the towns and villages
of the country, and we need Biblewomen to go from house to house teaching
the Word of God. The preachers and teachers whom we are seeking to train
will need Christian wives. Where are all these Christian girls? They
are not in existence. They have to be created. There is nothing for it
but to open these Girls’ Institutions, and commence with such material
as comes to hand. The method found, in all the missions in the East, to
be best adapted to secure the conversion and training of native girls
and young women, is a boarding school in connection with each principal
station where English missionaries reside, in close proximity to the
mission house, and under the care of the missionary’s wife or some other
English lady, where regular secular and religious instruction may be
given, without the continual drawback of irregular attendance, which is
found in day schools for girls. We make no attempt to denationalise them,
or to teach them expensive English habits. They live in the same frugal
way as they did at home, and have their food cooked and served up exactly
in the same style, squatting like tailors on the floor, and eating their
rice with their fingers, without the intervention of knife and fork, just
as they have always done. They follow their own fashion in dress, which
has this great advantage over European fashions, that it never changes
a hair’s breadth; and they spread a mat on the floor to sleep at night.
Daily there is Christian instruction, and family prayers, and they are
taken to Divine service on Sundays.
Under these conditions it is never long before a girl comes asking for
baptism. This result, provided these means are adopted, is just as sure
as the hopes of a woman’s conversion without them are precarious, in a
heathen land. Up to the present our Girls’ Institution is only in its
infancy, and we are only able to furnish one example to show what I
mean; but as this is the only case where the circumstances have rendered
it possible to test these methods in Burma, and it is a success, I may
briefly give the facts. We could find hundreds of examples in Ceylon.
Some two and a half years ago Colonel Cooke, then the Deputy Commissioner
of Mandalay, informed me one day that he had received, and forwarded to
the provincial government, a petition from the relatives of a certain
Burmese princess in Mandalay, asking for some charitable allowance for
her support. Though quite destitute, she was the niece of King Theebaw,
her father being one of the half-brothers of the king, and he was one
of those unfortunate princes put to death in the two dreadful massacres
that disgraced the reign of the last of the Burmese kings. The Deputy
Commissioner recommended the case to the favourable notice of Government,
on condition that the girl, then about fifteen years of age, should be
placed in the Mission boarding school, under the eye of the missionary’s
wife. This is the usual condition in such cases; and it was in order to
secure the proper charge of the girl, and a suitable education for her,
and to ensure that the twenty rupees monthly, allowed by Government, are
really spent on her, and not on somebody else.
She came, and has remained in the school ever since, going on with
her education, and receiving a Christian training, though no pressure
whatever has at any time been used to induce her to become a Christian,
nothing beyond what we give to all the children, and all the members of
the public congregation. There is indeed no necessity for any urging with
young people, when the Gospel has a fair chance. They themselves desire
it. At a Sabbath morning service, early in the present year, when the
invitation was given by the preacher to those who had been prepared for
Christian baptism, to come forward for that rite, she was the first to
leave her seat, and come quietly forward, and kneel down with the rest,
quite unexpectedly to the preacher, who was not aware that such was her
intention. Eleven new converts were received in all that Sunday and the
previous one.
The work of the Mission during those earliest years had to be done amidst
many drawbacks, but these I need not do more than mention, as I have
already said that I do not believe in calling attention to the personal
difficulties of the missionary, but rather to his work.
In addition to the feeling of unrest, and the danger of tumult throughout
the country, and especially in Mandalay, the focus of all political
influences, there was always the climate, with its enervating heat, to
contend with. For two months of the year more especially, the dazzling
glare and fierce heat of the sun, the parching drought, and the hot
winds, are very exhausting, and render it very desirable for Europeans
to take a holiday, and get away to the hills, a little time, for change
of climate; but no such thing was possible in Upper Burma. There are,
it is true, mountains up to five and six thousand feet elevation, where
the climate is delightfully cool, but they are out of reach, for want of
railways and roads, and no one knows yet where the proper health resorts
of the future will be. It requires years of experience to know which of
the mountain districts are free from the deadly fever malaria of the
jungle, and which are not; consequently there was no chance of a change
of climate.
Besides this, we cannot undertake pioneer work in a new country, where
there has not been the least attempt at sanitary arrangements, without
serious risk to life and health. The other missions have already their
roll of the dead and the disabled in Upper Burma, and it is considerable
in proportion to the number of the workers. The smallpox epidemic,
inevitable in a country up to that time without vaccination, attacked
two of our number, and one of them was a very serious case, but by God’s
preserving mercy they escaped; and typhoid fever, probably the result of
an impure water supply, came in its turn, and two others of our little
company—one of them the Rev. T. W. Thomas, a new missionary, who had but
just arrived—were brought nigh to the gates of death. These, with the
ordinary diseases of the country, such as fever and dysentery, befell us,
but a merciful Providence brought us all through, and no one has been
called away or permanently disabled.