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Full text of "Irene Petrie, missionary to Kashmir"

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CANADIAN Sf 0;;s AND 

ECUMENICAL iriSTITUTE 

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Toronto 5 - Canada 



dUN 1 1965 



IRENE PETRIE 



BY THE SAME AUTHOR. 

CLEWS TO HOLY WRIT j or, The Chro- 
nological Scripture Cycle, Fourteenth 
Thousand. Crown Svo, cloth, 35. 6d. 

TOKIWA, and other Poems. Crown Svo, 
cloth, 6s. 

THORA: Memoirs of a Nineteenth-Cen 
tury Woman, Crown Svo, cloth, is. 6d. 

LONDON: HODDER & STOUGHTON. 



I 



RENE PETRIE 



&HSSIONART ro KASHMIR 
BV MRS. ASHLEY CARUS-WILSON, B.A. 



WITH PORTRAITS, MAP, 
AND ILLUSTRATIONS 



FIFTH EDITION 



LONDON HODDER AND 
STOUGHTON jr 27 

PATERNOSTER ROW MCMIII 



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ISAIAH lii. 7 (LXX,), 



'40023 



TO MY CHILDREN 

MARTIN MACDOWALL, LOUIS CHARLES, AND 
ELEANORA MAR.Y 



PREFACE 

SOME years ago the general reader was captured 
by the autobiography of a Russian girl, well 
born, attractive, gifted, ambitious, and successful as a 
musician and artist. She confessed more frankly than 
many confess it that on setting out in life her most 
earnest prayer was : " O God, grant me happiness. 
Make my life what I should like it to be." She died 
young, leaving this testimony : " I am so unhappy. 
All is wretchedness and misery. I don't know whether 
I believe in God or not " ; and it is with a feeling of 
profound pity that one closes the record of her life. 

The story of another girl, with similar gifts, who 
was likewise ambitious, and across whose short life 
more than one deep shadow fell, is told here. Judging 
by hundreds of letters from people differing widely in 
character and circumstances, one impression left by her 
career upon all who knew her was stronger than any 
other. Many say that she was very clever, very winning, 
very noble ; but far more reiterate that she was before 
all things very happy ; ready, in fact, to exclaim with 
Browning's David, who stands as a type of the capacity 
for delight of the richly endowed mind in the vigorous, 
youthful body, 

How good is man's life, the mere living I How fit to employ 
All the heart and the soul and the senses for ever in joyl 



viii PREFACE 

The following words of two who knew Irene Petrie 
well may be taken as an expression of what all who 
knew her well felt : " She always gave me the idea 
of one satisfied. Her joy was full. We saw it in her 
face as a schoolgirl, and in later years. That happy 
face will ever be before us when we think of her." 
"That almost joyous cheerfulness and sweetness of 
spirit drew even strangers to her, and made her loved 
wherever she went." 

Her story is worth telling if only to unfold the secret 
of an unfailing delight in life, which is not always the 
lot of even the able and the fortunate, the upright and 
sincerely religious. 

What she did is worth telling also, and is far more 
easily told than what she was. Almost indescribable 
is the charm of personality that made her a strong 
influence both at home and abroad, caused one ac 
quaintance at least to characterise her as " my ideal 
woman," and led the historian of the Society with 
which she laboured as an honorary missionary to 
write : " India lost a woman missionary, probably the 
most brilliant and cultured of all the ladies on the 
C.M.S. roll, Miss Irene Petrie." 1 

Far different was her own estimate of herself, when 
in the supreme hour of her life she said that she was 
* only one of the least." Such an utterance forbids the 
language of praise, though one must try to convey 
the impressions her life made on other lives, using 
words other than one's own throughout. Statements 
that must seem inadequate to those who knew her 
may seem exaggerated to those who did not know 
her, so unready are we to believe in the potentialities 
of Divine grace working through a fully yielded soul. 

1 History of the Church Missionary Society \ vol. iii., p. 784, 



PREFACE ix 

It has not been easy for the o/ie survivor of her 
family to speak, in the earlier chapters especially, of 
much that lies now in the sacred hush of death. But 
because some would disparage missionaries as foolish 
visionaries, and others would throne them as beings 
apart, living without effort up to a higher standard than 
we need even inquire after, her home days cannot be 
entirely omitted. A well-known writer recently taken 
from us counselled, after the experience of a prolonged 
life, that as much should be told concerning Irene's 
early years, as many things mentioned that are typical 
of her condition and generation, rather than peculiar 
to herself, as would serve to show that she lived to all 
appearance the life that hundreds of other girls are 
living to-day, amid the same temptations and the same 
opportunities. Yet her going forth as a missionary was 
the outcome of no sudden impulse, made no violent 
wrench from that early life, but was rather the fruitage 
of its blossom, the full application of the principle on 
which she had always tried to act, of giving not merely 
her substance but herself to others in every possible 
way, and wherever the need was greatest ; and thus 
most truly, though most unostentatiously, selling all 
that she had for Christ's sake by reckoning it not 
her own. 

Of the forty-five months which elapsed between her 
departure from England in October 1893 and her death, 
five were spent at home, and three on the three journeys 
to and fro ; three were spent in travel during short 
vacations in India. The remaining thirty-four were 
months of incessant labour, of which four and a half 
were spent at St. Hilda's, Lahore ; four on the Jhelum 
and at Gulmarg, Kashmir ; and twenty-five and a half 
in Srinagar viz. eight in "the Barracks," five and 



x PREFACE 

a half in the Zenana House, and twelve at Holton 
Cottage. 

In this period of less than three years she mastered 
Urdu and Kashmiri, and made some progress in Hindi ; 
and she diligently instructed in the faith of the Gospel 
five different classes of people : children of Europeans, 
through Sunday schools ; Eurasians, especially women 
and children ; her own servants, mostly Mohammedans ; 
Kashmiri schoolboys, mostly Hindus ; and zenana 
women, Hindu and Mohammedan, of many different 
degrees socially and intellectually. Her musical and 
artistic powers were turned to account to secure friends 
and funds for the work in a variety of ways ; her pen 
spoke of it to many at home both in magazine articles 
and in private letters. And though she never allowed 
herself to be drawn into society to the hindrance of 
her work, the recollection of her intercourse with 
" station people " made a resident in India assert 
that looking only at her influence on her compatriots, 
one could never say that her life had been thrown 
away. Short as her career was, it was long enough 
to lead a former clerical secretary of the C.M.S. to 
write thus : " I was fully expecting that through God's 
grace working upon her great natural abilities, attain 
ments, and physical health, she would in a few years 
have become an inspiring missionary leader throughout 
North India." 

But just when " the hope of unaccomplished years " 
seemed brightest, the summons hence came, swiftly, 
silently, most unexpectedly, and (as another writes) 
"the sudden and pathetic close to that young and 
beautiful life deeply touched all who heard of it." 

" Our lost Irene, . . . alas ! that untimely death should 
cut her off in her self-devotion before the world had 



PREFACE xi 

reaped the full benefit of her powers," writes an able 
university woman, who had been her teacher at school, 
thinking of the fair head, the skilful hand, the active 
brain, the warm heart laid low in a desolate grave of 
outlandish Tibet. Oh, the pity of it ! the bitter dis 
appointment as well as the unspeakable sorrow, not 
for interrupted enjoyment but for baffled achievement ! 

The world which credits what is done 
Is cold to all that might have been. 

We think of other valuable missionary lives cut off, 
of George Pilkington dying at thirty-three, Harold 
Schofield at thirty-two, Henry Martyn [and Henry 
Watson Fox at thirty-one, Ion Keith Falconer at thirty, 
William Fremantle and David Brainerd at twenty-nine, 
Graham Wilmot Brooke at twenty-seven. The question 
of Iscariot rises to our lips, " To what purpose is this 
waste?" Then we remember that the Lord Himself 
died before He had accomplished the years of one 
generation, and yet He said, " I cast out devils and 
perform cures to-day and to-morrow, and the third 
day I am perfected." It is enough for the disciple that 
he be as his Teacher. Irene's missionary career was 
about as long as the earthly ministry of her Divine 
Master, and the recognised results of the living and 
dying of the young missionaries just recalled encourage 
us to believe that the oblation of her life will likewise 
not have been made in vain. 

" Let no one say that Irene wasted her brilliant gifts 
in a remote heathen land. She offered her all on the 
altar of love to Him for Whom she was a messenger," 
says one published obituary. " We looked forward to 
the great help in God's kingdom which would surely 
come from one so earnest and so richly gifted. And 



xii PREFACE 

now she has offered life itself; and for herself, what a 
blessed end to a lovely life ! " says a private letter ; and 
another correspondent most simply expresses the object 
of this record, " May what you are writing of your 
dear sister serve to light many a pilgrim homeward 
and to quicken the lingering ! " "A soldier's daughter, 
she has died upon the field of battle in the holy war 
against ignorance and superstition, and has received 
the crown of glory and honour and immortality," 
writes yet another, who had been her father's friend. 
Hers was one of three lives of European missionaries 
laid down for Kashmir, all too soon, men would say. 
William Elmslie sleeps at Gujerat, on the battlefield 
where a crowning victory secured the Punjab for 
Britain ; Fanny Butler was the first to be laid in the 
Christian cemetery on the Sheikh Bagh at Srinagar ; 
Irene Petrie rests below the stony desert, outside the 
weird Buddhist city of Leh, at the heart of the Hima 
layas, in Central Asia, than which the whole world 
hardly contains a more spiritually destitute region. 
So, in 1844, did the dear dust of the pioneer Ludwig 
Krapfs young wife claim for Christ what was fifty-six 
years ago a wilderness of heathendom in Eastern 
Equatorial Africa, where to-day are to be found 
hundreds of churches and thousands of Christians 
God grant that such history may repeat itself ere long 
on the northern confines of the Indian Empire ! 

I am indebted to the C.M.S., the C.E.Z.M.S., and 
many missionaries in Kashmir for information, and to 
many friends for loan of letters, etc. I have felt at 
liberty to condense freely letters and journals quoted, 
without always breaking up the text to indicate un 
important omissions, only taking care that the writer's 



PREFACE xiii 

statements are in no way misrepresented by such 
abridgment. Quotations of Holy Scripture are, as a 
rule, from the Revised Version. A short Glossary, 
taken from Craven's Urdu Dictionary, obviates perpetual 
explanation of terms familiar to those in any degree 
acquainted with India. 

I am indebted to Miss Alice Hughes for the frontis 
piece, and to Mr. Geoffroy Millais for several photographs 
of Kashmir. 

MARY L. G. CARUS-WILSON. 

HANOVER LODGE, KENSINGTON PARK, LONDON, W. 
May, 1900. 



TO THE EVER DEAR MEMORY OF 

IRENE ELEANORA VERITA PETRIE, 

OF THE CHURCH MISSIONARY SOCIETY, 
YOUNGEST DAUGHTER OF COLONEL MARTIN PETRIE, 

WHO GAVE HERSELF TO THE EVANGELISATION 

OF KASHMIR, APRIL, 1894, AND RESTED FROM 

HER LABOURS IN THE MORNING OF HER LIFE 

AT LEH, IN TIBET, ON AUGUST 6TH, 1897. 



How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of them 
that preach the Gospel of Peace. 



(Inscription on Tablet in St. Mary Abbots Parish Church, Kensington.) 



xiv 



IRENE 

The poet-painter's heaven-taught eye could see 

An angel, then a human face he sought 
Through which God's radiant messenger might be 

Shown to his fellows ; and the image caught 

In a child they called " the Sunbeam." So he wrought 
Two poem-pictures of the little maid, 

One as the blue-eyed playmate he had taught, 
One as his visioned angel ; and displayed 
On both one word, her name, Peace, as in Greek 'tis said. 

The prophet-painter's heaven-taught eye had seen 

That child's high destiny, when her he drew 
With bright hair flowing over robes of sheen 

Gilding the distant landscape's sombre hue ; 

And seven stars light's perfection in the blue 
Of heaven above her brow ; and in her hands 

The cross-clasped Book of highest truth she knew, 
And virgin Lily that unconquered stands 
Till purity and truth have cleansed all the lands. 

True artist, like true poet, is a seer ; 

He sees, and makes us see, the tender rays 
That lit a vanished past, and he can hear, 

As prophet, music of the coming days ; 

Reading a life-work in a child's rapt gaze. 
My eyes upon his painting, my heart goes 

With that fair child, grown woman, as she lays 
At God's feet all she is and has, for those 
Hailing her their Peace-Angel 'mid the Himalayan snows. 



CONTENTS 



PAGE 

PREFACE. . Vli 



CHAPTER I 
CHILDHOOD AND SCHOOLDAYS 

Birth Parentage Home Sunshine and Shadow Early Religious 
Life School First-class Honours Love of Art and Music 



CHAPTER II 
HOME LIFE 

Coming Out Foreign Travel Her Mother's Death Social Life and 
Influence Sunday School Teaching First in all England 
Temperance Work The Children's Scripture Union and the 
Factory Helpers' Union Classes in the College by Post 
Versatility of Character 18 



CHAPTER III 
THE CALL 

An Unexpected Announcement The Children's Missionary Maga 
zine and its Editor " Come with Me to China " The St. Mary 
Abbots Missionary Union Growth of Practical Interest in the 
C.M.S. The Mite-Givers' Guild Missionary Addresses Desire 
Ripening into Resolve Her Father's Death The Way 
Opened 40 



xviii CONTENTS 

CHAPTER IV 
GOING FORTH 

I'AGE 

Mitcham The Willows Valedictory Meeting Voyage in the Car 
thage Bombay Jeypore Agra Delhi Meerut Lahore . 54 

CHAPTER V 
A WINTER IN LAHORE 

The Punjab First Impressions of India Analysis of its Population 
The Eurasians St. Hilda's Diocesan Home Sunday School 
Classes Women's Bible Class G.F.S. Class Band of Hope 
First Mohammedan Pupil Urdu Study Social Distractions 
and Missionary Aspirations A Retrospect A Vision of the 
Goal Four Visits to Amritsar C.M.S. Missionary in Local 
Connexion Subsequent History of St. Hilda's . . 72 

CHAPTER VI 
KASHMIR 

Its Natural Beauty Its Ancient Civilisation Under Native Princes 
Under the Moguls Under the Sikhs Political Kashmir 
Geographical Kashmir The Kashmiris Srinagar Religious 
History Buddhism Hinduism Mohammedanism Rustum 
Gari and its Tradition A Generation of C.M.S. Effort List of 
Kashmir Missionaries The Medical Mission Elmslie and His 
Successors The C.E.Z.M.S. in Kashmir Dr. Fanny Butler and 
the John Bishop Hospital First Efforts to Reach the Zenanas- 
Hindrances Encouragements Needs 106 



CHAPTER VII 
A QUIET SUMMER 

Journey into Kashmir Encampment on the Dal Lake Introduction 
to the Work there, and Invitation to Share in It At Gunderbal 
and Gulmarg Urdu Study Renunciation and its Reward 
Correspondence with Home Friends and Influence on Them 
Annual Letter to the College by Post 134 



CONTENTS xix 

CHAPTER VIII 
FIRST WINTER IN SRINAGAR 

PAGE 

Welcome A Hard Winter Urdu Again The Zenana System Its 
Origin and Results The Aims of the Zenana Missionary- 
Daily Routine Sketches of Hindu, Sikh, and Mohammedan 
Pupils Srinagar Policemen The C.M.S. Hospital Kashmiri 
Christians English Sunday School The Leper Asylum A 
Christmas Party Another Letter to the College by Post . 161 



CHAPTER IX 
A SUMMER AT HOME 

Adventurous March through the Mountains Urdu Examination 
A Trying Journey Pleading the Cause of Kashmir in Public 
and in Private, in London and in the Country A Highland 
Holiday C.M.S. Missionary in Full Connexion Valedictory 
Meeting Penshurst A Last Glimpse Rome A Prosperous 
Voyage and Happy Return 196 



CHAPTER X 
SECOND WINTER IN SRINAGAR 

The Missionary's Daily Life Its Happiness and its Hardships 
Holton Cottage Alone among the Zenanas The new C.E.Z. 
House C.E.Z. Reinforcements Sheaves from the Hazara 
Sketches of Zenana Pupils of all Degrees "Have you many 
True Conversions ?" . .218 



CHAPTER XI 
WITH THE BOYS OF KASHMIR 

Educational Missionary Work A Group of Schools Their Masters, 
their Scholars, their Aims, and their Results An Eastertide 
Outing on the Wular The Niki Mem and her Pundit Pupils 
The Longest Shikari on the Jhelum 246 



xx CONTENTS 

CHAPTER XII 
THIRD WINTER IN SRINAGAR 

PAGE 

Dedication of St. Luke's and of All Saints' Relations between the 
Anglo-Indians and the C.M.S. Missionaries In the Zenanas 
The Story of Yetchgam The Last Christmas Kashmiri 
Examination The Last Easter " When the Fruit is Ripe " . 266 

CHAPTER XIII 
THE LAST JOURNEY 

Kashmir as a Base of Operations The Moravian Mission at Leh 
The Route from Srinagar to Leh Journal of the March 
Arrival at Leh " Like a Tired Child" In the God's Acre . 301 

CHAPTER XIV 
AN INSPIRING MEMORY 

Lamentation for her Death Inspiration from her Life The Inas 
much Society The Irene Petrie Memorial Fund Canada and 
Kashmir Seedtime Still A Prophetic Coin . . . .331 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 

IRENE PETRIE (OCTOBER, 1893) Frontispiece 

To face page 

IRENE PETRIE (MARCH, 1885) l8 

MAP OF KASHMIR IO6 

SRINAGAR : THE FOURTH BRIDGE, HARI PARBAT, AND IN THE 

DISTANCE KOTWAL AND HARAMUK Ill 

THE DAL LAKE AT GAGRIBAL 144 

THE MAHARAJA PASSING THE C.M.S. SCHOOL ON HIS STATE 

ENTRY INTO SRINAGAR l6l 

HOLTON COTTAGE . 224 

PUNDIT OARSMEN : THE FIRST SCHOOL FOUR AND THE " FANNY " 259 

ST. LUKE'S CHURCH AND THE C.M.S. HOSPITAL .... 267 

HIGH STREET, LEH 308 



xxi 



GLOSSARY 



Ayah, lady's maid. 

Bagh, garden, orchard. 

Bat, lady. 

Bawarchi, cook. 

Bazar, market. 

Bhajan, hymn. 

Bhisti, water-carrier. 

Chaddar, veil. 

Chapati, thin cake. 

Chnppar, oar, paddle. 

Chaprasi, servant, messenger. 

Charpai, bedstead. 

Chaukidar, watchman. 

Chota hazri, little breakfast. 

Choti, little. 

Coolie, porter. 

Dak bungalow, post-house; set up 
at all posting stages by Govern 
ment to accommodate travellers 
at fixed rates. 

Dali, basket, gift. 

Darzi, tailor. 

Dastur, custom. 

Dhobi, washerman. 

Ditnga, covered boat. 

Durbar, court, reception. 

Faqir, religious mendicant. 

Gari, carriage. 



Ghat, landing-place. 

Guru, spiritual guide, teacher. 

Hanji, boatman. 

Kafir, infidel. 

Khansaman, steward. 

Khidmatgar, butler. 

Maulvi, learned man (Mohamme* 
'dan). 

Mihtar, sweeper. 

Munshi, teacher. 

Pakka, complete, mature, first-rate. 

Parwana, order, pass, warrant. 

Puj'a, adoration. 

Pundit, learned man (Hindu). 

Pi'r, saint (Mohammedan). 

Purdah, curtain. 

Rais, nobleman, chief. 

Razai, quilt. 

Rishi, saint, hermit (Hindu). 

Sahib log, ruling people, British. 

Sari, woman's dress. 

Shikari, light, open boat. 

Syce or sats, groom. 

Thanadar, head constable. 

Tiffin, luncheon. 

Tonga, small, two-wheeled car 
riage. 

Wala, agent, fellow. 



xxiii 



CHAPTER I 
CHILDHOOD AND SCHOOLDAYS 

Fair seedtime had my soul, and I grew up 
Fostered alike by beauty and by fear. 

WORDSWORTH, Prtlude. 

A YOUNG mother was sitting by the fire in the winter 
twilight with her latest born, the Christmas gift, on 
whom she had bestowed the name of Irene, echoing the 
angels' song of peace on earth. Suddenly, sharp sorrow came 
to her in news of the death of one to whose care she had 
been committed in girlhood, and from whom she had received 
her education. Then fond hopes for the two months' babe 
in her arms blended with grateful reminiscence of a gifted 
woman who had found leisure, amid her professional work, 
for pleading, with a facile and skilful pen, the cause of the 
lapsed masses at home and of the unevangelised heathen 
abroad, in days when only a few knew or cared about the 
need of either. And even as the spirit of Mary Barber 
passed, a double portion of it seemed to fall on the uncon 
scious infant of her favourite pupil, when the mother's 
aspirations, memories, and regrets merged in fervent prayer 
for her child, which found words in a quaintly simple 
hymn, 

May'st thou grow to know and fear Him, 

Love and serve Him all thy days; 
Then go dwell for ever near Him, 

See His Face and sing His praise, 

1 



2 IRENE PETRIE 

The babe thus secretly dedicated to God even before she 
was received into the Church in baptism, grew up to fulfil her 
mother's highest hopes as the flower of her flock, grew up 
to devote herself with unflagging zeal to the needy at home 
and to the needier abroad ; and now (in the words of a 
living author, a near neighbour of hers) "she is receiving 
the reward of all her good and faithful service in the army 
of the Lord from the hands of the Master she loved so dearly, 
and for love of Whom she not only gave up home and ease 
and comfort and the companionship of those nearest and 
dearest to her on earth, but even life itself; and such a life 
so rich in gifts and accomplishments, so full of enthusiasm 
and energy, so surrounded by friendship and affection ! " 

IRENE ELEANORA VERITA PETRIE was the youngest of the 
three daughters of Colonel Martin Petrie, and was born at 
Hanover Lodge, Kensington Park, the only home she ever 
knew. Thence her father had taken as his bride Eleanora 
Grant Macdowall, and thither they had presently returned to 
bring up their family and end their days. We must glance 
at Irene's heredity and early environment, since it is now a 
truism that no character or career can be understood without 
ascertaining these two things. 

Colonel Petrie was of Scottish descent, son of Commissary 
General William Petrie, and Margaret, daughter of Henry 
Mitton, of The Chase, Enfield, of the same Norman stock 
as the De Myttons of Shropshire. General Petrie served 
in Egypt, Italy, and France during the Napoleonic Wars, and 
after his marriage settled at The Manor House, King's Langley, 
his son's birthplace. Later on he held appointments at 
Lisbon and the Cape of Good Hope, and lived during his 
last years mainly in Italy and Germany. Irene's father there 
fore spent most of his youth abroad, and his first few years 
in the army were passed in North America. Returning 
thence in 1855, under orders to proceed to the Crimea, he 



CHILDHOOD AND SCHOOLDAYS 3 

earned the title of " The Hero of the Vesta " by saving that 
vessel with all on board, when, already severely damaged 
by icefloes, she was caught in a terrific storm. The crew 
became utterly demoralised, and the rest of the passengers 
gave themselves up for lost, when the cool courage and 
mechanical skill and inventiveness of one young officer came 
to the rescue. He repaired the pumps, made the soldiers 
under his command work them, and calked the deck, the 
furious sea washing over him as he did it. So lacerated 
were his hands, that on reaching England he was put on 
the sick list, instead of going to the front. Soon afterwards 
he entered the Royal Staff College, and passed out as the 
first on the list. An appointment at what was in those 
days called the Topographical Department of the War Office 
followed, and here he wrote a standard work in three volumes 
on The Strength, Composition, and Organisation of the Armies 
of Europe, and another work on The Organisation, Composi 
tion, and Strength of the Army of Great Britain, which 
reached a fifth edition ; and for the probably unique period 
of eighteen years (1864-82) he was Examiner in Military 
Administration at the Royal Staff College. He exchanged 
to the 97th Regiment when the i4th went abroad; and his 
family lived in London continuously, seeing less of the world 
than many officers' children, but enjoying a constant inter 
course with both parents, which was doubtless the most 
valuable part of their education. 1 

Colonel Petrie married the youngest child of William Mac- 
dowall, of Woolmet House, Midlothian, and Louisa Helen, 
daughter of Sir William Dunbar, Bart., of Durn, the last of 
an old Banffshire family. William Macdowall was captain 
in the 33rd Regiment when the Duke of Wellington was 

1 These particulars of Colonel Petrie are taken mainly from The 
Dictionary of National Biography. A full account of the saving of the 
appeared in Good Words for April, 1899. 



4 IRENE PETRIE 

its colonel, and like Irene's other grandfather, served in the 
Napoleonic Wars. He was the only son of John Macdowall, 
of Woolmet, who had distinguished himself as a captain 
in the Inniskilling Dragoons during the Seven Years' War, 
and who was the younger son of William Macdowall, of 
Garthland and Castle Semple, head of the family which now 
represents the Mac Dhu Alan (or " Sons of the Dark 
Stranger "), who were once Kings of Galloway. The Dunbars 
of Durn were lineal descendants of the Earls of March and 
Dunbar. Patrick, tenth earl, had married the redoubtable 
c Black Agnes," daughter of Thomas Randolph, Earl of 
Murray, the most notable comrade-in-arms of Robert the 
Bruce, and their son married Princess Marjorie, daughter of 
Robert II., the Bruce's grandson. 

Irene's mother was born in Scotland and educated in 
England, as her father died when she was a child, and 
Mrs. Macdowall then came to London, and after her elder 
children had married and dispersed, moved from Montagu 
Square to Kensington Park with her youngest daughter. 
Afterwards Mrs. Macdowall, till her death at the age of 
almost fourscore years and ten, lived with the son-in-law, 
who had made Hanover Lodge his home. Her memory, 
as that of one singularly beautiful and beloved, and from 
early years a most faithful and humble Christian, was a potent 
influence in the lives of her descendants. They also 
cherished the memory of Sir William Dunbar, to whom she 
had been born when he had passed the allotted span of three 
score years and ten, and who had named her after the wife 
of Prince Charles Edward, in commemoration of his devoted 
allegiance as a young man to the House of Stuart. They 
liked to think that their great grandfather had dared to fight 
on the unpopular side of the legitimate king; and among 
familiar objects in their home were pictures and furniture 
rescued from the old house of Durn when it was looted by 



CHILDHOOD AND SCHOOLDAYS 5 

the soldiers of the Duke of Cumberland. They heard how 
the loyal subject had been loyal Christian also, and had 
left as his last testimony the words, "I die under the cross 
of Christ." 

The three little girls at Hanover Lodge, who never had a 
brother, thoroughly enjoyed their childhood. They were 
carefully kept out of the stress and fever of metropolitan life, 
and in their home there was an almost old fashioned quietude. 
Its rooms were not littered with gossiping newspapers and 
sensational novels of the hour, but lined with the sober 
russet of massively bound classics. Their mother had 
inherited an excellent library from her father, who, though 
a soldier and not a scribe, was a well-read and accom 
plished man, a friend of Sir Walter Scott and kindred 
intellectual lights in the Athens of the North ; while 
many really old books around them testified to love of 
literature in yet more remote forebears. In the evenings 
they sat by their father while he read Scott or other great 
fiction, or selections from many books that would not 
have been put into their hands then. Both parents taught 
them the history of their own days, as told in The Times, 
Illustrated London News, etc. Of the history of the past 
they were enthusiastic and by no means unbiassed students. 
It was no mere lesson to be learned before they could go 
to play, but a very real panorama of deed and conflict in 
which they took sides, and about the issue of which they 
excited themselves not a little. They honoured Wallace 
and Bruce as heartily as they detested Edward I., and 
believed that Bannockburn was the most glorious of battles, 
for Scottish blood outweighed residence in England. At 
any rate, they acquired the habit of looking beyond their 
own small concerns and trivial incidents in the lives of 
their neighbours for subjects of thought and talk. 

Londoner as she was, Irene learned to love nature and 



6 IRENE PETRIE 

to delight in animals and flowers. Hanover Lodge had 
its own small garden, and from the rugged elms beyond 
it, survivors of old Kensington Park, many thrushes and 
other birds sang. Part of every year was spent either at 
the seaside, and especially at Sandgate, when the pyth 
was quartered at Dover Castle, or at the vicarages of 
maternal uncles who held country livings in Wiltshire, 
Yorkshire, and Nottinghamshire. 

Another uncle, Major Gregory Lewis Way, had fought 
under Lord Gough in the Punjab, and his gallant conduct 
at the Battle of Chillianwallah had been specially mentioned 
in the despatches. He was married for less than four years 
to a beautiful and talented elder sister of Irene's mother. 
Widower for more than thirty years, and childless, he gave 
himself to the encouragement of many philanthropic works, 
and gathered together in his home, Wick Hall, near 
Brighton, such religious leaders as the Rev. W. Hay 
M. Aitken, Lord Radstock, Miss Catherine Marsh, 
Mr. D. L. Moody, and the founders of the Keswick 
Convention. The quick wit and keen insight into character 
of a former man of action blended with the devotion and 
benevolence of a recluse in one who stood out always as 
a type of the warrior saint, and he was Irene's only personal 
link to India. 

As a child, fair-haired Irene was called "the Sunbeam." 
The two words oftenest used to describe her as a girl in 
many letters of reminiscence are bright and sweet. "I 
thought hers was the happiest face I had ever seen," writes 
one who saw her once only, and the face reflected an un 
usually happy youth. But to understand what she became, 
one must know that its happiness was not unclouded. 

In its first decade the black cloud of death swept between 
her and her sister, Evelyn Martina de Mytton Petrie, who 
died at the age of twelve. She was a gentle and most 



CHILDHOOD AND SCHOOLDAYS 7 

engaging child, whose promise of intellectual gifts is indicated 
by the haunting music of some stanzas she penned, and whose 
life was as white and fragrant as the jasmine blossom always 
associated with her. That was a sorrow too deep for words. 
God only knew how each member of the suddenly bereaved 
family mourned in secret; and the extreme youth of the 
sensitive Irene did not save her from the most poignant grief. 
In 1897, within eleven weeks of her own death, she wrote 
concerning " our cherished sister," words which may be quoted 
as peculiarly applicable to herself also : " Happiness and 
brightness were characteristic of her, and there was an absence 
of conventional religious talk that made the occasional un 
veiling of her deep spirituality the more striking, and gave it 
a wonderfully attractive power. . . . That perfectly lovely 
little life always holds its central place in memory whenever 
one is reminded of the growing number of friends departed 
this life in His faith and fear." 

Almost as soon as Irene entered upon the second decade 
of her life clouds of quite a different kind began to gather 
on the horizon. The soldier's profession is notoriously not 
a lucrative one, but both her grandfathers were well off by 
inheritance, both her grandmothers were heiresses, and all 
the surroundings of her childhood suggested easy circum 
stances. And then came years of heavy loss and of 
growing apprehension of yet greater loss. The story of 
a gentleman taken ruthless advantage of because he be 
lieved others to be as honourable as he was himself is too 
complex and too incredible in some of its details, though 
too sadly true, to be told here ; and as her father freely forgave 
those who had wronged him most deeply, silence is best. 
But these adversities must be referred to, because, though 
Irene was too young to enter fully into them, they left an 
impress on her whole after-life, and this period of trouble and 
fear was to her a time of spiritual education in the highest 



8 IRENE PETRIE 

sense. Sydney Smith once said that England is the one 
country in the world in which poverty is reckoned a crime. 
Irene in earliest girlhood came face to face with the question, 
11 What would life be worth to me if we were actually poor ? " 
Once for all she learned the lesson of the uncertainty of 
earthly things; that riches take to themselves wings; that a 
man's life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which 
he possesseth. 

As soon as she was fifteen she began to keep a diary, 
a habit maintained to the last week of her life. It is a 
mere record of what she did from day to day, with rare 
adjectives and still rarer expressions of feeling, but it has, 
of course, helped greatly towards an accurate biography. 
In all its pages there are but three references to the shadow 
over her home, but these private memoranda of a healthy, 
high-spirited young girl, whose gifts and capacity for enjoyment 
made the desire to have " a good time " a peculiarly strong 
temptation to her at the threshold of life, are significant 
enough to be quoted: 

"January ist. The most unhappy New Year's Day I can 
remember." 

A few months later : " It is better to walk in the dark with 
God than to go alone in the light." 

On a never-to-be-forgotten day of averted calamity : 
" Psalm xlvi. i, ' God is our refuge and strength, a very 
present help in trouble.'" 

She was just grown up when the cloud rolled away, and 
her parents found themselves, not indeed in affluence, but 
in that condition of having neither poverty nor riches which 
the wise Agur took to be the happiest condition, since those 
who have neither the anxious responsibilities of wealth nor the 
harassing cares of straitened means are of all people most 
free to live their lives as they will and to turn all their powers 
to account. One fact illustrates her parents' character too well 



CHILDHOOD AND SCHOOLDAYS 9 

to be omitted. This sufficiency of means was in part the 
result, in a way none could have foreseen or imagined, of 
their disinterested conduct many years before in persistently 
refusing the Benjamin's portion which Mrs. Macdowall wished 
to bestow on the daughter who had been the comfort of her 
old age. 

The two shadows that fell on Irene's early days left her 
with no tinge of sadness, still less of bitterness, but with a 
deep sense of the seriousness of life, and of our stewardship 
for everything we own, since it is "our Lord's money"; with 
a peculiarly tender affection for both her parents, and a 
true-hearted sympathy for the unsuccessful and unfortunate; 
above all, with a childlike trust in God ; so that when success 
and popularity came to her they did not intoxicate her, even 
in the first glow of abundant young life. 

For " the amazing vitality of that child " was what struck 
people most ; about her there was none of the demure, 
self-conscious meekness that to the sentimental suggests 
the youthful saint, to the cynical the immature prig. 

But the above quotations from her diary are enough to show 
how deep were the early religious impressions, of which we 
must now speak. 

Using St. Paul's phrase, she might be described as serving 
God " from her forefathers." There is no story of a sudden 
conversion, no journal recording her walk with God kept in 
a secret place during the writer's lifetime, only to be printed 
after her death for all who care to read. Religious sayings 
never came glibly from her lips, and one remembers her 
childish recoil from some types of blatant and dogmatic piety, 
her precipitate flight from a noted "evangelist" of the 
" Plymouth " persuasion, who waylaid her with searching 
personal questions when he and she were fellow-guests in 
her uncle's house. Still water running very deep was the 
current of her inner life : she lived her religion, she did not 



io IRENE PETRIE 

talk about it ; her whole career was her testimony to the 
hope that was in her, and its best record is the worn little 
Bible in daily use from childhood, which she was reading 
through for ths eleventh time when her summons hence came. 
The neatness and care of the numerous marks on its every 
page are as characteristic of the writer as their intelligence. 

From infancy she responded to the thorough religious 
I instruction of her mother ; when still a child she came 
strongly under the influence of Dr. Maclagan, Vicar of 
Kensington, now Archbishop of York, and of his successor, 
the Hon. and Rev. E. C. Glyn, now Bishop of Peterborough, 
who prepared her for confirmation. When her diary begins, 
Dr. Maclagan had for some time been Bishop of '.Lichfield, 
but he frequently revisited his old parish, and all these visits 
are anticipated and chronicled in the diary with the ex 
travagant homage of a romantic child. Besides attending 
St. Mary Abbots on Sundays and week by week recording 
the gist of the sermons she heard there, she went regularly 
to Mr. Glyn's Friday afternoon Bible class for g;/ls, and to 
the Saturday devotional meeting, writing out full notes and 
answering all questions given. So quietly began her pre 
paration for taking hereafter every day several Bible classes in 
different languages. Worthy of note is her enduring affection 
for St. Mary Abbots, from the days she wrote in her childish 
diary, "The sweet church looked so lovely," and so forth, 
to the day, little more than a fortnight before her death, 
when she warmly acknowledged the last gift she ever re 
ceived, some photographs of it sent by an old schoolfellow. 
As is often the case, she reflected some characteristics of 
her place of worship. Its fine architecture and perfect music 
trained her aesthetic capacities ; the largeness of view and variety 
of interests inevitable in a church which had been a centre 
of religious life for eight hundred years encouraged wide 
sympathies and made her religion broadly intelligent and 



CHILDHOOD AND SCHOOLDAYS n 

deeply devotional, rather than partisan or controversial. Re 
pelled alike by the trivialities of the very High, by the 
crudities of the very Low, and by the aridities of the very 
Broad, she gladly sat at the feet of all who loved the Lord 
in sincerity. An attempt to name those from whom, in 
pulpit or printed page, she learned most, and of whom she 
spoke with most esteem, would bring together men of God 
as diverse as Bishop Westcott, Canon Body, Bishop Phillips 
Brooks, Professor Henry Drummond, Professor H. C. G. 
Moule, and Mr. D. L. Moody. 

The story of Irene's education suggests the thought that 
the temptation to live to ourselves which comes to us all 
comes very differently to different people. From the idle 
self-indulgence of the girl who said she was so glad they had 
introduced golf because it gave one something to do with 
one's mornings, Irene was saved by an ability and ambition 
that enabled her to succeed in more pursuits than some even 
attempt, and compelled her to strive always for the first 
place. Her special temptation was to use life to achieve and 
to win applause. Though she lived among books, she was 
neither bookworm nor omnivorous reader. But she worked 
steadily through a limited quantity of real literature, first of 
all as member of a reading society, joined when she was 
about twelve years old. Little and good was her lifelong 
rule for reading, and she used to say that the reform she 
would advocate would be the destruction of all second- and 
third-rate novels and magazines. Certainly for her those 
widely read productions were printed in vain. This preference 
for the best intellectual society was at once the effect and 
cause of her having (as one friend says) "a beautiful mind." 
She showed a curious nimbleness in possessing herself of 
the contents of the volumes that people about her were read 
ing, so that her knowledge of books extended far beyond 
those she actually perused; and important factors in her 



12 IRENE PETRIE 

general education, even before she went to school, were visits 
to the South Kensington Museum, and to picture-galleries 
and concerts, especially popular concerts at St. James's Hall 
and oratorios at the Albert Hall. 

Her first taste of success was through prizes won when she 
was fifteen for essays and illuminations in connection with 
a magazine for young people. So far she had been taught 
I by governesses and masters at home, her father also giving 
* her regular instruction, chiefly in drawing and mathematics, 
and her mother reading general literature with her. Her 
sister had been sent to a " finishing " school at Brighton ; but 
Irene protested that if she were thus separated from her mother 
she would run away. She was, however, so much attracted 
by the air and expression of some of the girls attending the 
Notting Hill High School that she asked to become one 
of them. It is second to none of the Public Day Schools 
for Girls that have wrought such a salutary revolution in 
female education, and novel as the idea was, her parents, 
instead of repudiating it, made acquaintance with the school 
and its head mistress, Miss H. M. Jones, and the result was 
that Irene enjoyed two most happy and profitable years there. 
Her six reports speak of steady growth in power of thought 
and highly satisfactory conduct ; and in each there is the 
monotonous entry: "absent never," "late never." Her 
first term was spent in the " Fifth Remove," and at its close 
she was at the head of the class, being " first with honours " 
in four out of the five examinations she took. She was at 
once promoted to the Sixth Form, a picked class in every 
sense, and was for some time its "baby." Here she took 
altogether twenty-eight examinations, passing " in honours " 
in twenty-one, and heading the list in eleven. She was 
working for the Cambridge Higher Local Examinations at 
school, and after leaving, completed her certificate in 1884. 
It tells that she won first-class honours in two out of her 



CHILDHOOD AND SCHOOLDAYS 13 

three groups, and gained " distinctions " in seven out of 
her ten subjects. She was one of three examinees in all 
England in her year who were " distinguished " in each of the 
three branches of the history group. Her examiners stated 
in their report that she promised to excel in literature. 
But beyond contributing occasional articles to magazines, she 
attempted little with her pen afterwards ; probably because 
she expressed herself most naturally in two other ways, as 
will be presently told. 

These things are mentioned to show that she took to 
India, besides religious zeal and knowledge of religious truth, 
a trained mind (and nowhere is it more needed than in the 
mission field), and that faithfulness in little things prepared 
her for being entrusted with a share in greater things. 
One remembers her yearnings to excel, her unsparing effort, 
her reaction of despondency when, on the eve of some 
examination, she asserted that she had no chance, her 
brilliant success, and delight in winning the good opinion 
of those she cared for, and then her immediate eagerness 
after some new endeavour. 

With several of her schoolfellows she formed warm and 
lasting friendships. And Miss Jones, who describes the an 
nouncement of Irene's death, seen casually in the newspaper 
at a foreign hotel, as one of the greatest shocks she ever 
had, writes of her thus : " She died fighting the battle with 
heathenism and idolatry. Her devotion and enthusiasm 
carried her beyond her strength. Dear Irene ! She was 
so clever, so noble, and so good! We feel that we cannot 
spare such women." 

Her class mistress, Miss Lewis, B.Sc. Lond. (now Mrs. 
G. T. Pilcher), who kindly gave her special help for her 
examinations out of school hours, says : " Irene's loss 
in the maturity of her powers was a great one. I 
was much impressed with her capacity when she was my 



14 IRENE PETRIE 

pupil. . . . Never have I had a pupil who assimilated ideas 
more rapidly; her work was so^accurate, so thorough, and 
so voluminous. . . . The same spirit of persistent ardour 
ran through everything she did; and being joined to a 
tenacious memory, gave her remarkable powers of acquisition." 

Such was the enduring impression Irene made on two 
ladies to whom she was one of several hundred keen, hard 
working girls whom they had taught years before. When 
she took a fancy to any branch of knowledge or of practical 
skill, her alert intellect enabled her to absorb information 
or to acquire facility in doing with unusual speed. But 
she never professed to be able to " grind " at an uncongenial 
subject, or to be one of the community of clever women. 
That she wore " lightly like a flower " any " weight of learn 
ing " she had is seen, for instance, from these words, written 
by Mrs. Thornton, wife of the Archdeacon of Middlesex, 
a near neighbour of hers : " I was one of those who greatly 
admired your dear sister. She was so sweet and so very 
unselfish and retiring that I don't think people generally 
gave her credit for all her cleverness, or for the power that 
was in her." 

Though her school life had brought her into sympathy with 
many modern ideas and movements, it had not demolished 
the romantic traditions of her childhood. Some years later 
we find her attending the service for King Charles the Martyr 
at St. Margaret Pattens on January 3oth, and gathering all 
the Jacobite friends and acquaintances she could discover 
round some relics that she had been asked to lend to the 
Stuart Exhibition. 

"What is worth doing at all, is worth doing well," was 
always her motto. There were, however, two pursuits to 
which she gave herself with such a passionate ardour, that had 
either claimed successfully her whole life, she must, in the 
opinion of more than one good judge, have made herself a 



CHILDHOOD AND SCHOOLDAYS 15 

name through it. To many they are mere accomplishments 
or even pastimes; to her they were arts, through which she 
tasted the supreme joy of striving after the unattainable ideal. 

She was just getting into her " teens " when she met in 
a country house Mr. Edward Henry Corbould, and received 
from him, given more in play than earnest, "an enchanting 
drawing lesson." Friendship quickly grew up between the 
enthusiastic child and the grey-headed artist, whose reputation 
dated from days when the Empress Frederick, in early girl 
hood, was his pupil. For his own pleasure he sketched Irene 
in her simple short frock, with her fair hair on her shoulders, 
and from this sketch developed an exquisite ideal picture 
of her as the Angel of Peace, which he asked her mother 
to accept. 1 He took a lively interest in her first efforts with 
the brush, and lent her fascinating "properties" from his 
studio. Henceforth she took up drawing and painting with 
indefatigable zeal. At fifteen and sixteen her diary abounds 

with such entries as : " Painted a lovely rose which sweet 

gave me." "Box of lovely flowers from . Tried to paint 

some of them." " Failed to paint a rose." She studied art 
diligently with Miss Anna Jones, recognising that a good 
artist must be made as well as born. 

One remembers her delight in frequent gifts of country 
flowers, and how she distributed them to sick or solitary 
acquaintances, and to the laundry-women whom she addressed 
during their dinner-hour ; how she decorated her home, 
where no hand but hers ever arranged the flowers, and 
reproduced the choicest blooms in the panels which she 
designed there, and in the houses of one or two friends, 
who highly appreciated this characteristic gift. She accom 
plished other good work in oil, but was perhaps most 
successful in water-colour landscape. In addition to using 
every opportunity brought by summer wanderings, she copied 
1 This picture is described in the poem on p. xv. 



16 IRENE PETRIE 

the Turners in the National Gallery, preparing thus for that 
most remunerative sketching in Kashmir which was the 
crown of her artistic work. She was also fond of painting 
on china, illuminating on vellum, and tracing out title-pages, 
etc., with quaint lettering and decorative borders ; and 
she executed some of her own floral designs in dainty 
bits of embroidery for wedding gifts. To her aesthetic sense 
of the fitness of things, rather than to mere soft delight in 
luxury or vain joy in ostentation, may be attributed her in 
sistence on becoming attire and surroundings whose harmony 
of form and colour should satisfy the eye. A dowdy garment 
or a slovenly and tasteless room was a real trial to her, and 
neither her intellectual ambition nor her manifold activities 
would ever have turned her into a strongminded woman 
of the useful but unattractive type that enjoys openly defying 
the graceful frivolities and small elegancies of her sex. 

Pictures of hers were exhibited more than once in London 
and elsewhere. But as time went on, she numbered other 
noted artists among her friends, and the high ideal thus 
fostered made her increasingly diffident about her own 
powers. A life-size portrait of her in oil, by Miss Kate 
Morgan, hung in the principal room of the Royal Academy 
Exhibition of 1890. 

And pencil and brush were not her first love. From the 
day that she trotted into the schoolroom, aged four, and most 
unexpectedly asked for a piano lesson, to the day, the week 
before she died, that she led the choral service in the gorge 
at Kharbu, she had the very soul of music. She was so 
musical that when tired physically, or depressed or over 
wrought mentally, she would play the " Moonlight " sonata 
through from memory as a tonic and refreshment instead 
of going to the sofa ; so musical that she got famished when 
there was no good music about her. Working with a perse 
vering intensity that only real capacity makes possible, she 



CHILDHOOD AND SCHOOLDAYS x? 

became a finished pianist, who could go on, hour after hour, 
without a note, through compositions she had not recalled 
for months fugues of Bach, sonatas of Beethoven, valses 
of Chopin as if she could never forget what she had once 
learned. Her best beloved instrument was the organ built 
for her mother in her girlhood. On both piano and organ 
and in theory of music Mr. Henry Bird was her teacher. 

She studied singing during seven years with Madame 
Louise Cellini, and so pure-toned and powerful was her voice 
that her instructress assured her it would have been well 
worth her while 'to become a professional vocalist. "We 
cannot realise that we shall never see her bright and happy 
face, or hear her sweet voice again," writes a London friend ; 
and a friend in Philadelphia speaks of her singing thus : 
" Irene's singing always brought before me Goethe's ' She 
sings as the bird sings ' a certain little toss of the head 
always brought to my mind the airy, happy grace of deer 
or bird. It was unlike anything in anyone else ; as she 
was unlike anyone else, her own individual, high, pure self, 
showing externally her glorious ideal" 



CHAPTER II 

HOME LIFE 

What is the meaning of the Christian life? 

Is it success or vulgar wealth or name? 
Is it a weary struggle, a mean strife, 

For rank, low gains, ambition, or for fame ? 
What sow we for ? The world ? For fleeting time ? 
Or far-off harvests, richer, more sublime ? 

Lines transcribed by Irene into her copy of the 
Life of Henry Martyn. 

THE year 1885 was a particularly happy one for Irene. 
On March i8th her mother presented her, and none 
of the debutantes who kissed the Queen's hand that day 
looked forward more radiantly than she to the joys of being 
"out." She ingenuously admits in her diary that she enjoyed 
her first parties "immensely," " found them very amusing," and 
so forth. Then at an age when the child's power of over 
flowing delight blends with the adult's power of appreciation, 
she went abroad for the first time, and travelled with parents 
and sister in Belgium, Germany, Switzerland, and Italy. 
Geography had been from early childhood an engrossing 
\ study ; and in her girlish " Confessions " book she wrote that 
concerts and travelling were her favourite recreations, and that 
her chief ambition was to go all over the world. It would 
be hard to say whether art or nature, cathedrals or Alps, 
picture-galleries or Italian lakes, gave her intenser happiness. 
The album of her first tour, strongly imbued, like all else 

18 




I 






From a photo by Byrne fb-^Co., Richmond.} 



[Facing p. 18. j 



HOME LIFE 19 

from her deft hand, with her individuality, adds to the usual 
photographs and maps marking routes, delicate water-colours 
by her own brush and dried ferns and flowers from many 
places. 

Did this enjoyable year beguile her into worldliness ? The 
conventional "worldliness" of going to balls and races and 
theatres lay indeed outside her scheme of existence, for these 
were questionable pleasures, best avoided and not hankered 
after in an already full life ; but the less easily defined and con 
demned worldliness of suffering the unquestioned recreations 
of travel, concerts, exhibitions, entertaining and being enter 
tained, to become almost insensibly one's sole occupation 
might possibly have entangled her, had not 1886 begun with 
a sorrow as great as it was sudden, On January 3ist, after 
only a fortnight's illness, and only a few hours of actual anxiety, 
her dearly loved mother passed into the silence. The organ of 
the Christian Women's Education Union, in acknowledging 
the helpfulness of her " calm judgment and wise counsel," 
says : " Hers was an eminently quiet life, felt to be a strong 
influence in her home for everything good." From the care 
fully kept record of her last words, one or two addressed to 
her youngest child must be quoted here : " Keep up your 
music and painting, and use them to the glory of God. . . . 
I hope you will be very happy, and have many pleasures, 
and think that I am with you in them. ... I hope you 
may have many Christian friends, and take up real work for 
God. . . . Always try to remember the one great object of 
life, and seek to influence others for Jesus. Count every 
day when you have not done so a lost day. . . . May my 
little one be kept very close to Jesus, and unspotted from 
the world." 

Almost twelve years later an intimate friend, who knew 
nothing about these last words, wrote thus concerning Irene : 
"Her course on earth was one that brought glory to God 



20 IRENE PETRIE 

and blessing to everyone with whom she came in contact. 
Her perfect unselfishness or selflessness seemed almost a 
silent reproach to us, as well as her unworldliness of character. 
She always gave me the idea of one satisfied satisfied with 
Christ, satisfied with the will of God, satisfied with the love 
of God." The influence of those quiet months of mourning 
will be referred to again later on. 

But although Irene was not "of the world" she was "in 
the world " always, even as we shall see in Kashmir. She was 
never convinced that true Christians should hold entirely 
aloof from ordinary social intercourse. Her father, who had 
all the qualities that could make a guest welcome or a host 
popular, greatly enjoyed society in the comparative leisure of 
his later years. There are good people whose time seems to 
be at the command of everyone except their nearest relatives ; 
but the claim for companionship of the bereaved parent who 
had been such a good father to her settled for Irene the 
question of accepting many invitations that he cared about. 
How much Irene herself was sought after may be inferred 
from sentences of reminiscence written by three different 
friends who often met her : " The lovely, sweet Irene ! I 
can so well think of the beautiful countenance, and what a 
happy time those days at Wick Hall were ! " "I always 
think of Irene as a sunbeam, and that in this world is in 
itself a great power of blessing." " Dear Irene was one of 
the rare characters who unite much gentleness, sweetness, 
and affection with brilliant talents." 

A magazine article by a writer who has since made her 
mark in historical fiction contains a sketch of Irene, entitled 
"a few personal glimpses of one who throughout her short 
life was a helper of women in the truest sense." The first 
of these may be given here. The occasion to which it 
refers was a picnic in Epping Forest one sunny day in leafy 
June, when her voice rang out in a spirited Jacobite ditty, 



HOME LIFE 21 

and swept even the severest Whigs of the party into the 
chorus of 

Speed, bonny boat, like a bird on the wing. 

Onward, the sailors cry ! 
Carry the lad that is born to be king 

Over the waves to Skye ! 

" I wish I could call up before the minds of my readers the 
picture of Irene Petrie as I saw her first, four years ago, in 
the midst of a merry gathering of friends, of which her youth 
and vigour and joyous, gifted nature made her the life and 
soul. The summer sunshine streaming round her seemed to 
find its reflection in her bright face and golden hair as she 
moved among us, equally ready to join with her quick wit in 
every game proposed, or to sing at our request to her guitar, 
or to withdraw into the background to talk to anyone who 
might seem 'out in the cold.' Well born, talented, and 
highly cultured, with an unusually large circle of friends, 
among whom her charm of manner made her a universal 
favourite, Irene Petrie truly had great gifts, and she not only 
enjoyed them gratefully, as coming from a loving Father's 
hand, but used them every one in His service." 

Again, one remembers Irene at some large " at home," 
leading the animated talk of a gay young group, or sing 
ing such a song as Gliick's "Che faro senza Euridice" or 
some majestic strain of Handel's with organ accompaniment, 
wholly unconscious of the admiration roused not by her 
voice only ; one remembers the maidenly dignity with which 
in her own house she eluded compliments and adulation, 
and placing herself beside some elderly or timid guest, 
brought all her lively fancy to the entertaining of one 
who might have been passed by as the most insignificant 
person present; one remembers her the l\/e of the whole 
party in a country house, organising games on a wet day, 
telling stories to the children, willing not only to play or sing 



22 IRENE PETRIE 

herself as happily to an audience of one as to a roomful 
of connoisseurs, but to show off someone else's playing or 
singing to the best advantage as a thoroughly skilful and 
sympathetic accompanist ; one remembers how many tempting 
invitations she found no time to accept, and how invariably 
she did find time to visit and cheer the friend living alone 
drearily on narrow means, the old lady who was rather 
deaf and therefore very dull, the invalid whose monotonous 
days were seldom enlivened by a bright young face. Her 
calling list abounded with people who had few callers; and 
she was always glad to have those asked to the house who 
could not ask again. " Being an invalid," says one friend, 
" my sister cared little for going out ; but she always 
enjoyed going to Hanover Lodge, for dear Irene made 
everyone who came into the house so happy. She never 
spoke about herself, she never seemed to think of herself 
at all. She always appeared to me to be one of the holiest 
and loveliest characters possible." 

With the tendency to hero-worship latent in all natures 
touched to fine issues, Irene delighted in the society of 
those to whom she could look up; but quick sympathy, 
unfailing tact, and feminine facility for making her companion 
feel cleverer than herself caused her to be much liked by 
many who were frankly unintellectual. This was partly 
because, as one phrases it, " there was no self-consciousness 
about her simple, sweet manner," and partly because, as 
another says, " she had a sympathetic manner which attracted 
you, and made you feel you could never forget her." 
The note of distinction in all she did never made her 
formidable to the least clever; and one does not remember 
her stigmatising anybody as a " bore " ; rather she called 
out of apparently commonplace people that which was not 
commonplace. "Toadies" and flatterers she abhorred, and 
those who tried to fawn oil her had a very short shrift ; but 



HOME LIFE 23 

she owned many real friends of quite humble station. She 
could always put a shy or a dowdy person at their ease, 
without appearihg to patronise them; but no one could be 
more haughtily unapproachable to an " uppish " or con 
ceited person. Even when she was a child the most 
presumptuous could not dream of taking a liberty with her. 
Lively and courageous, with a keen perception of character 
and an almost embarrassing sense of the ludicrous, she 
had little in common with the sentimental and rather weak- 
minded type after which some foolishly suppose enthusiasts 
for foreign missions to be moulded. 

This may be read by those to whom social success for a 
girl means what the world understands by a good marriage. 
It may even be read by those coarse-minded enough to 
imagine that a girl generally devotes herself to charitable or 
religious work because she has had "a disappointment," or 
because she has not been sought. Those who knew the 
buoyant and heartwhole Irene could never associate such 
thoughts with her. Others may as well be told directly that 
she was sought more than once. To play the part of Lady 
Clara Vere de Vere would have been impossible to her fine 
sense of honour, and the gossips were always baffled. She 
was sought but not won, for her taste was fastidious and 
her ideal high; and just turned twenty she wrote in her 
" Confessions " book that her " idea on the subject of matri 
mony " was that " no one should marry under thirty years 
of age." When she herself attained that age she was (in 
her own phrase) " married to her work as a missionary." 
Nobody took a livelier interest in the love affairs of her 
friends, or more unfeigned delight in their happy marriages ; 
but few girls can have given less thought to marriage for 
themselves. In her active life there could be no scope 
for solitary daydreaming, and even in the most intimate 
home talk the subject was never discussed. The only 



24 IRENE PETRIE 

reference to it, and that a remote one, which can be re 
called is a half- playful allusion to plans the three sisters 
had made for their future, when, like most children, they 
settled in the nursery to their own satisfaction what they 
would do and be hereafter. Irene was to marry the owner 
of a castle in the Highlands, some fairy prince in their 
own special land of romance. She quoted this after a long 
round of country visits, and only a month or two before 
she declared her missionary purpose. One recent visit had 
suggested that she might have to withdraw the above 
quoted " confession " ; possibly she divined this, since she 
said earnestly, after alluding to the nursery nonsense : 
"There was a time when a life of leisure for literature 
and art, and ample means as mistress of a spacious 
country house, seemed most desirable to me. Now I 
know that it could never satisfy me." 

Irene sometimes quoted this saying : " The church would 
not hold my acquaintance, but the pulpit would contain 
my friends." The acquaintance gradually promoted to her 
" pulpit " became very numerous ; she was known to an 
unusually large number by her Christian name ; and those 
whom she admitted to intimacy were not only numerous 
but curiously diverse, affection for Irene being apparently 
almost the only thing they had in common. Her character 
was many-sided, and each side seemed to draw a different 
type of friend to her. One thing that not only won but kept 
her friends was her generosity of disposition. She could and 
did denounce things and even people that she disapproved of 
hotly enough. But in her sunny nature there was not a trace 
of that chilling cynicism, that trick of petty disparagement, 
developed in harsh and disappointed souls, and affected by 
some shallow people who wish to be reckoned " smart," 

The long-necked geese of the world that are ever hissing dispraise 
Because their natures are little. 



HOME LIFE 25 

Many very different people have written that to know 
Irene was to love her; here are one or two other typical 
expressions of what her friendship meant to her friends : 
"To have known and loved Irene has been a wide 
education." "It is an honour to have known and loved 
dear Irene." "We cannot be thankful enough for the 
privilege of having known such an one." "Dear, glorious 
Irene ! I am proud to have known her as a friend." " I 
thank God that Irene called me her friend. I feel so 
unworthy of her, but the thought of her has always been 
an inspiration to what is good and holy, and should be so 
more and more." " She was one of those rare, beautiful souls 
who carry wherever they go an atmosphere of purity and 
goodness, and insensibly make all who come in contact with 
them better for their sweet influence. I shall never forget her. 
In her I have lost a good and noble-hearted friend, and all 
my life long I shall hold her in loving and tender remem 
brance." She was indeed, as these extracts show, one greatly 
beloved and one capable of loving in no common degree. Her 
power of attracting and radiating love made her life melodious 
and luminous, so that in the memory of all who knew her 
she abides as " sweet and bright Irene." 

"Remember," it has been well said, "that the love for 
yourself, which you inspire in others, is to be used by you 
to lead them to God." Great indeed is the privilege of 
one who, being the friend of many, finds a sacred though 
never formally recognised ministry in all friendly intercourse. 
Irene never preached either at or to people; nor was there 
in her manner any subtle suggestion of the thought, " You 
are only a worldling ; I am one of God's own." But very 
quietly and unostentatiously she continually sought to 
influence those least likely to be influenced for God by 
others. For a frivolous girl friend she wrote out the Bishop 
of Lichfield's " Plain Rules of Christian Life," which she 



26 IRENE PETRIE 

had made her own from childhood, instead of merely giving 
her a printed copy ; some friends she incited to Bible 
reading by giving a Revised Version, when an Authorised 
Version might have hinted in an offensive way that she 
doubted if they were Bible students already. 

Both at home and in Kashmir, as will be shown later 
on, she exercised a remarkable influence on those whose 
immediate surroundings were less religious than her own. 
"She did so adorn the religion she professed; and hers 
was such a happy nature," writes one ; while another, 
whose own outlook was mainly upon the most worldly and 
luxurious aspect of society, says : " I was very fond of dear 
little Irene. She was so sweet and bright, and a real, 
practical Christian." " She made goodness itself attractive," 
writes another; and the thought is poetically elaborated by 
yet a fourth London friend thus : " Like the perfume of 
an exquisite flower her memory will erer live in the hearts 
of all who knew her, and who, like myself, were attracted 
by the sunshine of her sweet face, and the true consistency 
of her life." 

So modestly and, as it were, unofficially did her char 
acter and conduct witness for God, that her religious influence 
may appear to have been casual. That it was by no 
means casual was shown by her answer to the direct 
question of an intimate friend : " I should as soon think of 
going out to pay calls without putting on my hat as with 
out offering up a prayer." 

This much, then, of what Irene was to acquaintances and 
to friends. What she was to her own cannot be spoken of 
here. No one ever loved home more than she, who gave 
as her " definition of happiness," " Being with those I love," 
and she has left her home for ever fragrant with her lovely 
memory. 

We have dwelt on the fact that the early life of the future 



HOME LIFE 27 

missionary appeared to be similar to that of hundreds of 
other girls. Reticence as to personal feelings and experiences 
was the tradition of her antecedents; so we can only infer 
from her after-career that she had fought the good fight 
and kept the faith throughout her youth. She must have 
fought the flesh, or she could not have become so unselfish ; 
she must have waged unceasing warfare against the spirit 
of the world, or she could not have become so unworldly ; 
and it was when she had approved herself in both conflicts 
that she was called to the front for that strife with heathenism 
which is in a special sense a strife against the devil himself. 

Again, she never claimed formal recognition as a Christian 
worker or as a philanthropist, but she lived habitually re 
membering that "in the kingdom of heaven there is no 
room for an idle person." These words occur in notes, 
kept in her diary for 1890, of an address given by the 
Rev. Armstrong Hall, who had been conducting a mission 
at St. Mary Abbots. 

The duty towards their toiling brothers and sisters of 
that large class of women who have health, leisure, good 
education, and sufficient means is not discharged by occa 
sional guineas to charities out of their superfluity, or legacies 
to societies out of what they can use no longer, by occasional 
opening of their houses for meetings, or by selling at 
fashionable bazaars, or by any giving which involves no 
giving up. It can only be discharged by living out 
altruism, not as a nineteenth-century phrase, but as a first- 
century principle. Of this Irene was fully convinced ; and 
her answer to the question, "What do you consider the 
noblest aim in life ? " was given in a favourite quotation ^ 
of hers, this strong sentence from Bacon's Advancement of 
Learning ; " The glory of the Creator, and the relief of 
man's estate." 

Long before she went to India she had learned " to scorn 



28 IRENE PETRIE 

delights and live laborious days," asking not " What bit of 
work should I most care to do?" but "What is least likely 
to be done by others if I do not do it?" She shaped no 
ambitious schemes, but humbly carried out Kingsley's familiar 
injunction : 

Do the work that's nearest, 

Though it's dull at whiles; 
Helping, when we meet them, 

Lame dogs over stiles. 

Her givings were not great, but they were numerous ; and 
she always gave herself with them, never grudging time, which 
is often less easily given than money. Nothing ordered from 
a shop could, for instance, have expressed such comforting 
sympathy as the wreath and cross she made with her own 
hands for one of the servants to place on her grandchild's 
coffin. 

Sunday school work she began earliest, and kept up 
most continuously. In October, 1883, she undertook a 
Sunday class and also a Wednesday evening Bible class 
of poor boys in the Latymer Road Mission. Of this her 
father was a trustee, having been one of its founders in 
1862. There she taught regularly for more than two years. 
She was then asked to take a class in the Sunday school 
for well-educated children almost the first of its kind in 
London which Mr. Glyn had formed in the St. Mary Abbots 
Vicarage Parish Room. For nearly eight years (January, 
1886, to July, 1893) Irene's place there was never vacant; 
and some- of her thirty-seven pupils were under her 
instruction for four or five years. 

In May, 1887, she went up for the annual examination 
in Holy Scripture and English Church History, etc., held all 
over the kingdom at different centres, for teachers, by the 
Church of England Sunday School Institute. She came out 



HOME LIFE 29 

"first in all England." In 1891 she took the newly in 
augurated special examination in the art of teaching for 
successful candidates in the general examination, and came 
out once more at the head of the list. > 

In July, 1884, she signed the pledge, being already a total 
abstainer in practice. Henceforth she took an active share 
in the work of the Church of England Temperance Society. 
From January, 1886, to July, 1893, she was treasurer to the 
Band of Hope of St. John's Church, and secretary to the 
boys' division of it. In 1890, as a well-instructed member 
of the National Health Society, she gave the children a 
course of blackboard instruction on "Alcohol and Health," 
ending with an examination. Here is a characteristic para 
graph from an article she was asked to contribute to 
The Temperance Chronicle for October yth, 1892, on 
"Intemperance among Women." After a picture of the 
child of wage-earning parents, who, straight from factory 
or counter, begins housekeeping entirely ignorant of cooking, 
she continues : 

"Another girl in a wealthy home 'finishes' her educa 
tion, and with no more serious duties than note writing and 
flower arranging, kills time for the next few years in adding 
to and displaying her outward attractions on all possible 
occasions. By the time she, too, has to face the real 
difficulties of life in a home of her own, her health, 
mental and physical, has suffered gravely from habits of 
superficial (as opposed to concentrated) thought, excite 
ment alternating with idleness and stagnation, late hours, 
sudden changes of temperature, dainty feeding, and slavish 
conformity to the fetich of fashion. How likely is she to 
succumb to the temptations of the morphia lozenge or 
the oft-repeated glass of champagne!" Turning to the 
question of preventive measures, Irene speaks of educating 
the children in habits of total abstinence, and putting 



30 IRENE PETRIE 

good and cheap non-alcoholic refreshments within the 
reach of all, and then says : " But we might use a third 
preventive measure, if we could bring together in large 
numbers for mutual help representatives of different planes 
in society, such as the two just described. Let the rich 
girl, realising that life was given her for more than mere 
amusement, and that privileges involve responsibilities, use 
her abundant means and leisure in self-culture and in 
mastering some practical knowledge of healthy homes and 
habits, that she may go forth to her less favoured sister, to 
share with her spiritual and intellectual privileges whereby 
both the motives and the interests of life may be elevated, 
and to help her, not only with kindly sympathy, but with 
tactful counsel and guidance as to her home life. , . , If 
such a vice as drunkenness is increasing among women, it 
is time, surely, to lay to heart again the ancient and fair 
ideal of the life of the true Homemaker, dedicated first to 
her God and then to the welfare of those around her." 

The Children's Special Service Mission appears in the 
biographies of many missionaries of the younger generation. 
Irene's love of Bible study and love of children inevitably 
made her interested in its ally, the " Children's, Young 
People's, and Schoolboys' Scripture Union." In May, 1885, 
she induced five of her Latymer Road boys to join it, and 
in 1888 formed out of her St. Mary Abbots class the 
nucleus of the " Kensington Park Branch." In all, fifty-seven 
children joined this, of whom about a dozen were cousins 
or child friends, others pupils in the St. Mary Abbots and 
Latymer Road Sunday schools, girls in her father's Sunday 
class, and members of the St. John's Band of Hope. To 
those at a distance she wrote every month; those within 
reach she invited about once a month in little groups, accord 
ing to their different circumstances, to her own study. There 
she prayed with them, showed maps and pictures illus- 



HOME LIFE 31 

trating their daily reading, and told about other members 
in distant lands. 

In March, 1886, she began to give addresses during the 
dinner-hour in the workrooms of a large shop in Kensington. 
This was her first effort for working girls. In 1889 she 
undertook, in connexion with the Factory Helpers' Union, 
to address the women in the West Kensington Laundry. 

Of all home missions, the one in which she was most deeply 
interested was that originated in 1866 by Mrs. Meredith and 
her sister, Miss Lloyd the Prison Mission, whose headquarters 
are at the Conference Hall, Clapham Road, and the Princess 
Mary Village Homes, Addlestone, Surrey, built on land given 
by Miss C. G. Cavendish, called after the late Duchess of 
Teck, and founded in 1871. Here some two hundred daughters 
of prisoners and others, all rescued from either criminal or 
vicious surroundings, are housed and trained, more than ninety- 
six per cent, of whom turn out well, and the " family system," 
tried for the first time in this institution, has been frequently 
copied since. The three ladies just named were dear friends 
of Irene's mother, and her father was for over twenty years 
a trustee and active helper of the Homes. Though as a 
rule Irene declined to take part in bazaars, which she regarded 
as very unsatisfactory enterprises, she was persuaded to 
organise the music for a large bazaar held in May, 1890, in 
the Kensington Town Hall, on behalf of Mrs. Meredith's 
work. With the help of her many musical friends she got 
up two good concerts and a band of eighteen stringed and 
wind instruments, played by first-rate amateurs, who met 
regularly for practice at Hanover Lodge. 

She was constantly serving others through her music. 
Her own performances, vocal and instrumental, were up to 
the professional standard; as was seen by her taking part 
twice in Madame Cellini's annual concert in St. James's Hall, 
singing once, and once accompanying the whole choir on 



32 IRENE PETRIE 

the piano jio easy task, as she had to transpose some difficult 
music, and play with a well-known professional at the organ. 

Not only at social gatherings, but at charity concerts in 
numerable, was her music in demand. But what pleased her 
more than any drawing-room or concert-hall plaudits was 
singing or playing to an audience of factory girls, or blind folks, 
or women whom Mrs. Meredith's Prison Mission was helping 
to a new life, or sick paupers at the Kensington Infirmary 
on Christmas Day, or toiling poor people at a temperance 
entertainment or in a mission hall, where through such a 
hymn as "I heard the voice of Jesus say" she could sing 
the Gospel to them. 

On a good many occasions she played for the 8 a.m. daily 
service in St. Mary Abbots. In 1889 the iron church of 
St. Paul's, erected for the overflowing congregation of the 
parish church, was replaced by a permanent building. After 
its "consecration, on the evening of St. Paul's Day, a service 
was held at which Mendelssohn's St. Paul was sung. Pre 
paring to take part in this had been a great joy to Irene, 
especially when she invited the choir to Hanover Lodge for 
a final rehearsal at her organ on January 23rd. The exquisite 
chorus " How lovely are the messengers " is for many 
inseparably associated with the thrilling tones of her voice, for 
it became her favourite musical contribution to the missionary 
meetings for which she organised choirs. 

While Irene was at school, a request made to her sister 
as a student at college to help another young student in 
the country led to the formation of some correspondence 
classes, which gradually developed into the College by Post. 
Its aim is to encourage cultivation of the mind for its own 
sake among girls no longer receiving regular instruction at 
home or at school who have little opportunity of obtaining 
professional tuition, and also to promote, not among girls 
only, Bible study on a definite system. Some five thousand 



HOME LIFE 33 

students have now been enrolled, who have been taught 
entirely through correspondence by over four hundred well- 
qualified honorary teachers. Miss G. E. Robinson, B.A., is 
its present Head. 

Irene's connexion with the College by Post was very close, 
from the days she as a schoolgirl helped to copy its original 
MS. papers, and later on taught some of its leading classes, to 
those in which she stirred up missionary zeal among all its 
students by her annual letter from the field. She gave much 
aid from time to time in the routine work, and on two or 
three occasions superintended the whole for a few weeks during 
her sister's absence. Her own most important class was one 
of the eight original classes formed in February, 1888, for the 
Chronological Scripture Cycle. Hers was the class through 
which that scheme (now embodied in Clews to Holy Writ) was 
tested in detail term by term, and her advice and suggestions, 
based on the answers written by some of the foremost 
students, were of the greatest value in revising the first 
editions of the Chronological Scripture Cycle papers. Fifty- 
two students passed through the class during the five and a 
half years she conducted it, and her zeal and thoroughness 
as a teacher produced a high standard of work. 

This chapter of the home life, which was both a prepara 
tion for and an earnest of future effort abroad, is illustrated 
by a series of thirty letters, ranging from January, 1888, to 
September, 1893, addressed to a student who was afterwards 
on the staff of the College by Post. The first welcomes 
her into the class, announces its plans, and continues : " I 
shall be most glad if our work together proves interesting 
and profitable, and much will be gained if we learn to 
love and value the Holy Bible more than we have done 
before, and if we find in it hitherto undiscovered treasures 
of knowledge and guidance in the Christian life. I hope 
we shall always remember the Sunday morning united prayer 

3 



34 IRENE PETRIE 

for a blessing on our work, which draws teacher and students, 
though far apart, together more than anything else could." 
The second letter suggests the daily committing of one 
verse of Scripture to memory. In a third letter, mentioning 
some helpful commentaries, she adds : " But after all, we 
may gain far more from prayerful and diligent study of the 
Word of God itself than from any books." Succeeding 
letters deal with questions as to difficulties in a way that 
indicates much research on the teacher's part for the express 
purpose of informing her correspondent. In one she suggests 
special subjects for prayer arising out of the reading. When 
the class passed in 1890, from the Old Testament to the 
New, she writes : " Delightful as the Old Testament has 
been, I suppose we are all glad to begin reading afresh the 
wonderful life of Him Who loved us and gave Himself for 
us. One longs that everyone who is influenced by the 
Chronological Scripture Cycle may know Him more perfectly 
than ever before." She sends each of the thirty members 
of the class a motto for 1891, illuminating it on vellum as 
a Bible marker for the foremost students, and writing it on 
card in a species of caligraphy at which she was skilful for 
the rest. A question as to the rejection of Christ by the 
Jews leads to a warm word of sympathy for Jewish missions, 
and in a letter dated November, 1892, she says of the mission 
field abroad : " The needs out there are indeed awful." 

In December, 1891, through an examination in Hygiene, 
Nursing, and First Aid to the Injured, subjects on which she 
had been for two years attending lectures, Irene won the silver 
medal of the National Health Society. In February, 1892, 
she undertook the Hygiene class in the College by Post, 
which she had till September, 1893. 

One of her students, who did not know her personally, 
says : " Her bright letters were always a help. We can 
feel so that her life, early brought to a close, is not wasted, 



HOME LIFE 35 

bat only poured out for the Master." A student, not in 
her classes, who saw her just once, writes: "The day I 
called ... is amongst the happiest recollections of my life. 
I felt so drawn towards your sister. ... My prayers have 
often been specially with her." Other students who had not 
seen or corresponded with her were strongly influenced by 
her. Miss Elsie Waller, Head of the College from 1894 to 
1898, writes: "Many of the teachers and students loved 
to read her letters, and liked them the best of all." "No 
letter from Miss Petrie," was the regretful exclamation of 
many on opening the Annual Letter for Christmas, 1897 ; 
and "when we read its news," says one student, "we all 
felt as if we had lost a personal friend." " We followed 
her missionary career with special interest," says another, 
" and welcomed the stirring letters she wrote from Kashmir." 
Yet one more, never in direct personal contact with her, 
writes : " For her, life was indeed worth living. If all of 
us who knew of her strive to follow her as she followed 
Christ, life will be beautiful for us too." 

Such were some of the enterprises that kept Irene inces 
santly busy during seven days of the week. For her Sunday 
included, besides two services and the Sunday school, instruc 
tion of a younger servant, hymn-singing to the venerable 
housekeeper, who could not get to church, and a long evening 
of strenuous Bible study. She never owned to fatigue, never 
wasted an hour, and never shrank from any task because it 
involved continuous trouble, but endeavoured to complete 
everything she undertook to the minutest detail. She always 
worked at full speed, with a vehement diligence that enabled 
her to achieve before others had finished planning. She 
turned rapidly from one thing to another, and gave to the 
matter in hand an attention as concentrated as if it were the 
only thing she ever attempted. Again and again, while 
others were gathering up their effects to retire to rest, she 



36 IRENE PETRIE 

would seize a pen, and dash off at breathless pace a 
shower of little notes as unreckoned addenda to the evening's 
doings. 

The ("amazing vitality" which had been remarked upon 
in her childhood resulted from health so good that, until 
she went to India, she was never off duty for a whole day 
through illness. This was partly, no doubt, because she 
was too busy to be ill ; instead of permitting trifling in 
dispositions to hinder her, she often threw them off by sheer 
force of disregarding them. Probably, however, she was not 
as robust as she believed herself to be. " She had," writes 
a College by Post colleague, " such a sweet, bright, eager spirit. 
Perhaps it worked a frail body too hard. But it does seem 
beautiful for her to have passed away in the work of bringing 
others to Christ." 

Hard work at home alternated with holiday travel, which 
she keenly enjoyed. The favourite summer outing was a 
series of visits to English and Scottish friends and kinsfolk, 
varied with an entirely primitive life in the remote High 
lands; when with a good map, sketching materials, and a 
satchel of oat-cakes, she would start betimes and tramp over 
moor and mountain, ideally happy, till nightfall. There were 
also tours in the Lake District, in Devonshire, Cornwall, 
and the Scilly Isles, a voyage off the west coast of Scotland 
in the brilliant Jubilee summer of 1887, and Continental 
travel, seeking nature at her loveliest and art in its highest 
expressions of painting, sculpture, and architecture. She 
walked across the Alps four times, said she loved the very 
smell of a railway train, and that next to the Bible, Bradshaw 
and Baedeker were her favourite books. Planning out our 
tour so as to diversify historic cities with wilds of the Alps 
and Apennines, and to get off the tourist track altogether 
sometimes, was a recreation for months beforehand, and 
she also delighted in devising tours for friends. One re- 



HOME LIFE 37 

calls her within the narrow limits of a lodging at Keswick, 
while the table was being laid for a meal, dropping on one 
knee at the sideboard and writing out a complicated 
programme for a Scottish trip a morning's work for most 
people. A friend had just come in, announcing that she 
was going North immediately; and while another would 
have been saying, " I would have done it had you given 
me time," Irene did it. 

Widely differing conceptions of Irene's many-sided in 
dividuality must have been formed by those about her. 
To some she seemed a highly cultured woman, never at a 
loss if the talk turned on books; to others she seemed 
to belong entirely to the world of sweet sound, most 
truly herself when contributing to a concert, or practising 
fart de tenir salon at a musical at home ; to others she 
was first of all an artist, keenest about pictures, and looking 
out on all sides for possible sketches ; others saw in her 
a church worker on the platform, giving a telling temper 
ance address to Band of Hope children or working 
men and women in the East End, or a missionary 
address not only overflowing with enthusiasm but well 
reasoned and well informed, or a Bible lecture or 
model lesson to Sunday school teachers that showed 
her aptitude for teaching. But to most people, after all, 
she was a popular girl in society, receiving friends with 
an enjoyment that made them enjoy, invariably saying the 
right thing, remembering the relatives and circumstances 
of even slight acquaintances, so that she could without fail 
make the sympathetic inquiry and give the appropriate 
introduction; never forgetting a kindness or leaving a token 
of goodwill unacknowledged, always finding time for the 
courteous note of thanks or of explanation that oils the 
wheels of intercourse; and attending to all the other social 
amenities as if she had nothing else to think of. 



38 IRENE PETRIE 

Her minute exactitude in all money matters, and her 
plodding accuracy and sustained effort in all she undertook, 
are qualities not always found in the brilliant and versatile. 
Highly emotional and ardently enthusiastic by nature, she 
became by habit a woman of business capacity and stead 
fast purpose. She not only had a remarkable power of 
carrying out what she willed to do, thrusting aside all 
intervening obstacles, but also a power of attaching people 
to her in a way that made them eager to fall in with her 
wishes. She always knew her own mind, and liked to order 
the lives of others. In a hundred small matters there was 
no appeal from her decision, yet those about her bent to 
her will quite unconscious how absolutely she ruled them. 

This attempt towards a faithful portrait has shown that we 
tell not of a faultless heroine, but of one whose character 
was to be slowly perfected by Divine grace. Sprung from 
warlike and enterprising forebears, leaders of men, and 
mistress to a large extent of her own actions from the time 
she lost her mother, Irene grew up keen to enjoy and to 
achieve, quick-tempered, strong-willed, imperious, full of 
restless energy, though never aught but lovable. 

As time went on there was a softening, though not a 
weakening, of this vigorous nature, as the words of three 
friends who knew her in the later years at home indicate : 
" What a beautiful life hers was ! It is well that those who 
had not the privilege of meeting her should hear of her 
sweet unassumingness and wonderful ability and devotion." 
"She was so quiet and gentle, her presence seemed to 
calm one." "Her sweet and victorious gentleness abides 
with me when I think of every time I saw her, and she 
takes her place among them so naturally when one thinks 
of the holy ones in Paradise." 

And those who knew her in Kashmir were, as we shall 
see, struck first of all by her patience, her humility, her 



HOME LIFE 39 

unselfishness, her habitual willingness to take the lowest place. 
Modified by the discipline of life, the very characteristics that 
might have been regarded as unworthy of a Christian were 
among the things that justified the strongly expressed antici 
pation that she would become "an inspiring missionary 
leader." 

That she accomplished so much in her short life was mainly 
due to the fact that hers was "a heart at leisure from itself" ; 
that she had neither thoughts nor words for her own particular 
fads or fancies or grievances ; but needed the whole of her 
time and her energy for others. To have exchanged such 
untiring activities for the uneventful, effortless ease which is 
some people's idea of the life beyond would not have been 
happiness to such an one as she. Kingsley surely is right 
when he says : "The everlasting life cannot be a selfish, idle 
life, spent only in individual happiness." That could not 
be the meaning of the statement that hereafter " His servants 
shall serve Him." 



CHAPTER III 

THE CALL 

Therefore, though all men smiled on him, though smooth 
Life's path lay stretched before, . . . 

... he turned from all 
To that untried, laborious way which lay 
Across wide seas, to spend a lonely life 
Spreading the light he loved. . . . 
The Brahmins' fables, the relentless lie 
Of Islam, these he chose to bear, who knew 
How swift the night should fall on him, and burned 
To save one soul alive while yet 'twas day. 

LEWIS MORRIS, Vision of Saints. 

THE story of how our Master calls His own by name 
and leads them out is* always instructive, especially 
when it contains nothing extraordinary, when the desire is 
uttered to God secretly in response to the call, and the 
servant rises up as a matter of course to obey it on being 
promoted from "tarrying by the stuff" to "going down to 
the battle " with the vanguard of the army. 

Most of Irene's kith and kin were greatly startled, some were 
grieved, even shocked, at the announcement of her missionary 
purpose. They felt, as a friend often at Hanover Lodge 
says, that she was one of the happiest and most charming 
of those they knew; and some are still asking in perplexity 
why she left the home which she loved so well. " I thought 
Irene more than charming," writes a Worcestershire friend 
"and that there was no position she would not grace. It 

40 



THE CALL 41 

seemed in one way a waste of her beauty and talent going 
to those far-off lands. But God knew better." Others were 
not altogether surprised. " When I was told of her departure 
for India," says a friend at Tunbridge Wells, "the vision 
recurred in a flash of Irene calling on me several years 
before, looking so pretty in her youthful freshness and 
dainty attire, and talking of a girl friend with whose parents 
she had recently stayed. I could see how she was yearning 
for her soul, and I realise now that even then she was 
thoroughly imbued with the missionary spirit." We must go 
back to her earliest days to understand how this came to pass. 
Ten diminutive books, whose woodcuts were antiquated 
enough to be fascinating, made her childish eyes familiar 
with the modest mission station, the hideous idol, the 
graceful Oriental listening to the preacher in the Indian 
bazar, the benchful of sable scholars in the African school. 
They were old volumes of the Children's Missionary 
Magazine^ founded in 1838, and therefore four years older 
than the C.M.S. Juvenile Instructor, now the Children's 
World. In 1848 Miss Barber became its editor for a long 
term of years, and formed in connection with it the still 
existing "Coral Fund," which produced at her death over 
;i,ooo a year. The many attractive missionary books she 
wrote have doubtless had a share in bringing about the 
present widening recognition of our duty to the heathen ;' 
but her school, already referred to on p. i, was pre-eminently 
her "own mission station." The contributions to her maga 
zine of one old pupil, signed " E.G.M.," show how Irene's 
mother delighted in " the encouraging records of the spread 
of the everlasting Gospel." Later on she took her own 
little girls to see another old pupil of Miss Barber's, who 
had become "residuary legatee" of her missionary zeal, and 
the lively Irene solemnly pronounced that this lady's house 
had " a missionary smell." 



42 IRENE PETRIE 

From her Irene received Little Tija> the story of a convert 
in India, by Mrs. Batty, a book that was read to her again 
and again by a nurse to whom she was greatly attached, 
the only child of the housekeeper already mentioned, who 
had been a much valued servant of her grandmother's, and 
who has now lived to see a fourth generation at Hanover 
Lodge. Her daughter, as a very young girl, entered its 
nursery when Irene was still in arms, and grew up into her 
devoted attendant and confidential maid, hardly separated 
from" Irene for a day till filial duty detained her from accom 
panying her young lady to India. Even when Irene could 
read she preferred to be read to; and Elliott read to her 
by the hour while she worked with needle or brush. On 
her thirteenth birthday a book called Childhood in India 
was presented to her, whose inscription "May this volume 
still further increase her interest in the country she has so 
diligently sought acquaintance with" shows that her future 
mission-field was already much in her thoughts. She was 
thirteen also when her godfather, Mr. Bosanquet, of Rock 
Hall, Alnwick (who has now given a daughter to the C.M.S. 
for Japan), sent her Mr. Eugene Stock's History of the 
Fuh-kien Mission. Elliott had finished reading this, and 
they were out walking together, when Irene said suddenly, 
" Promise me that you will come out with me to China as 
a missionary when I am grown up." 

She must have been one of the earliest members of the 
St. Mary Abbots Missionary Union, for her card of mem 
bership bears date, March 20th, 1879. It had been formed 
to encourage in the parish observance of the two annual 
Days of Intercession for Missions which were appointed in 
1872 by the Archbishops at the instance of the S.P.G. ; 
with results manifestly great both at home and abroad. 
Irene attended the quarterly meetings of the Union regu 
larly; and later on, after her Confirmation, we find such 



THE CALL 43 

entries in her diary as : " Went to a delightful missionary 
meeting." "To the zenana meeting. Enjoyed it very 
much." 

Many a child in a religious home hears enough about 
missions to rouse a romantic aspiration to be a missionary, 
which, however, fades into one of the childish things put 
away before the absorbing occupations of school, college, 
professional work, or society. In Irene's busiest schooldays 
there are no allusions to such meetings; but a fortnight 
after the entry, " Last day at the dear High School. Good 
bye to all the dear people," we read : " Cambridge results. 
What is the use of it all? Why should I be glad of the 
honours ? " Then a few weeks later still : " Valedictory 
zenana meeting. Very interesting." Then not another word 
on the subject till after the death of the mother who had 
almost idolised her, and who was dearer to her than any 
thing else on earth, for Irene one of those uprooting sorrows 
that reveal us to our own souls, and remove us from all life's 
distractions to consider life itself. She notes attending early 
Communion with her father and sister on the following Sunday, 
February ;th, 1886, and adds a reference from the Prayer 
Book version of Psalm xxxii. to the cry of the distrest, 
" Thou art a place to hide me in," and the Divine promise, 
" I will teach thee in the way wherein thou shalt go." This 
is a significant entry, for the desire to give herself to mis 
sionary effort was reawakened with power in her first sense 
of orphaned desolation, and coincided with new opportunities 
of knowledge and fresh stimulus to interest. 

That spring and summer she listened, note-book in hand, 
to two courses of lectures on India given by Mr. Stock to the 
members of the C.M.S. Ladies' Union; in May she was at 
the C.M.S. annual meeting for the first time; on November 
3oth at the C.M.S. meeting in the Kensington Town Hall. 
Her father had just joined the Kensington C.M.S. Committee 



44 IRENE PETRIE 

Writing some ninety letters to friends about a course of 
historical lectures on missions that was given in Kensington 
in January, 1887, was her own first bit of work for the C.M.S. 
Her careful study of English Church History and of modern 
missions during that spring appears in an article called 
" Lightbearers and Lightsharers," with " The mighty hopes 
that make us men " for its motto, which she wrote for the 
High School magazine of June, 1887, as her first attempt to 
bring the subject before intelligent young people. Here is 
one paragraph : " As the reign of Edwin, who hearkened 
to Christian teaching, was followed by a time of trouble 
and relapse, so in Madagascar the death of a first Radama 
was followed by confusion and persecution, till a second 
Radama, like another Oswald, once more invited missionaries 
to a settlement in his capital, whence, as from Lindisfarne, 
other workers may go forth. Again, we read of houses of 
prayer raised by Ethelbert, Edwin, and Offa. Less than 
twenty years ago their action was reflected in the offering 
of a church by the King of Mandalay. Crowther the native, 
presiding as bishop over the Church of West Africa, reminds 
us of Deusdedit, the first English Archbishop of Canterbury. 
In Aidan, the itinerating Bishop of Lindisfarne, we have 
the forerunner of Heber, also travelling between the stations 
of a great Church still in its infancy. . . . Again, we hear 
of ia small island, where, under Columba, young missionaries 
were trained. In Norfolk Island, washed by Pacific waves, 
we may now look at a similar work among lads, who will 
disperse to light torches of truth in many Melanesian homes. 
And do not these very islands remind us of that noble 
afmy of martyrs, which numbers not only Aidan, Edmund, 
Alphege, but Williams, Patteson, Hannington, and those 
who during the past year have in China sealed their faith 
with blood?" 

Her father and she took a large share in organising the 



THE CALL 45 

very successful C.M.S. Exhibition in Kensington in April, 
1889, and also helped in a similar exhibition at Bromley, 
Kent, in April, 1891. Her bright face became familiar to 
the frequenters of the Church Missionary House, and she 
grew more and more active as a member both of the 
Ladies' Union and of the Gleaners' Union. 

Effort for missions was no isolated thing ; it entered into 
all the interests of her life. Her influence as a Sunday 
school teacher led to the formation for the Vicarage Room 
School of a working party, which now supports a cot 
in the Cairo Hospital. On three successive Good Fridays 
she invited the "Sowers' Band" of the Latymer Road 
Mission to spend a missionary evening with her for hymns 
at the organ and bright talk, illustrated by maps, pictures, 
and curiosities; at her request Miss Laurence (formerly 
of Ningpo, now of Hakodate) came to address the whole 
Mission school in January, 1892, and great was Irene's 
delight at having "a real C.M.S. missionary" under her 
roof for two nights. Her musical gifts she turned to 
account in many ways. She was a useful member of the 
C.M.S. ladies' choir at Exeter Hall herself, and enlisted other 
friends with good voices, asking those who would probably 
not have gone to the annual meetings at all, unless she 
had proposed to them to help. On three occasions she 
organised a choir for the Kensington annual C.M.S. meeting. 

She had the pleasure of introducing to each other, when 
they were both about to offer to the C.M.S., her first in 
timate friends in the neld Miss Katharine Tristram, B.A., 
now Principal of the Girls' School at Osaka, Japan, and 
Miss Minna Tapson, now at Hakodate. They went out 
together in October, 1888; and one result was that Irene's 
own thoughts turned to the Land of the Rising Sun, her 
interest being further quickened by intercourse with Miss 
Margaret McLean, nine years a missionary there, and by 



46 IRENE PETR1E 

acquaintance with several of the agreeable and highly educated 
members of the Japanese Embassy in London, who were 
often at Hanover Lodge. 

Another result was a rapid development of missionary 
interest in the College by Post. Miss Tristram and Miss 
Tapson had both been on its staff, and so had Miss 
Constance Tuting, who went out in 1890 as a Zenana 
missionary, whom we shall meet again at Amritsar, and 
Miss Kate Batten, who went to Meerut in 1892 with 
the C.M.S. 

In 1892 Miss Agnes Andrews started in her Scripture class 
a " Mite Givers' Guild." It was at once taken up by Irene, 
and twenty-eight members of her class very soon joined it. 
Its object was to stimulate interest in and prayer and work 
for foreign missions, and its rules were as follows : 

1. Each member shall pray regularly for foreign missions, 
either generally, or for some particular branch. 

2. Each member shall give regularly, at least once a year, 
some offering of work or money to a missionary society, 
taking care that she does not offer to God that which costs 
her nothing in the way of time, effort, or self-denial. 

3. Each member shall take in, or borrow, and read regularly 
some missionary periodical. 

4. Each member shall contribute, if possible, to the Mite 
Givers' Guild packet. 

This packet went round to the members thrice a year, 
and contained contributions of missionary texts, arranged 
under suggestive headings; letters from the field; lists of 
books and periodicals recommended ; subjects for prayer ; 
answers to stock criticisms of missions, etc., etc., sowing 
in this way seeds of information and inspiration in the 
good soil of minds already concentrated on earnest, in 
telligent Bible study. Irene copied out for one number 
Tennyson's " Kapiolani " as a striking missionary tale. One 



THE CALL 47 

remembers her characteristic satisfaction in putting up together 
a letter from a Free Kirk missionary in Poona, sent by one 
student, and a letter from a former member of the class, 
now working at Poona with the Cowley Fathers. She felt 
strongly that missions should be a bond of union between 
all Christians. 

The one member of Irene's Scripture class who ever won 
maximum marks was Etheline Clifford Hooper. Her frail 
health obliged her to live at Davos for the last eight years of 
her short life, and there among her fellow-invalids she formed 
an earnest branch of the Gleaners' Union. "We in Davos 
need to use intercessory prayer much, as we are cut off 
from much active service," was a sentence in a letter from 
her, which, when she passed away, on October 28th, 1892, 
Irene repeated to the whole class, adding, "We who have 
come slightly into touch with this sweet life would like to 
catch some of its patience and whole-hearted devotion to 
the cause of Christ." 

Results of such effort are not to be given in figures. Only 
we know that Irene was one of several truly missionary- 
hearted teachers in the College by Post, and that a very 
large number of its former students are now in the mission 
field. 

Irene seems to have given her first missionary address 
in 1888, when on one of many visits to the widow of 
Captain Polhill-Turner, M.P., of Howbury Hall, Beds. 
Her two younger sons were among the famous " Cambridge 
Seven" who went out to China in February, 1885, and her 
eldest daughter, now Mrs. James Challis, wife of the acting 
Principal of St. John's College, Agra, was one of Irene's 
intimate friends. Irene's diary says : 

" April qth. Bazaar. Sold and sang. 

" April iQth. Gave missionary addresses to gentry, after 
noon ; to people of Renhold village, evening." 



48 IRENE PETRIE 

Addresses at Gleaners' Unions, Sunday schools, branches 
of the Girls' Friendly Society, juvenile drawing-room meetings, 
the " missionary week " at Marylebone, and the children's 
meeting at Islington College followed, and she lost no 
opportunity of teaching herself by reading and by hearing 
those who had been in the field. One observes Kashmir 
as the s-ubject of a meeting she was at in May, 1891, 
and Elmslie's Life among the books she specially recom 
mended to her students. Qualification for the field was 
her object in working for the National Health Society medal, 
though she did not say so. Not dreaming idly of what she 
would do out there, she did " the next thing " here quietly 
and faithfully, till her way opened, being, as Browning 
grandly puts it 

Sure that God 
Ne'er dooms to waste the strength He deigns impart, 

The months flowed on, happy in their manifold activities, 
which turned more and more into one channel, and deep 
in her heart, too sacred for utterance yet, lay her strengthening 
purpose. Her " sunbeam " buoyancy of disposition alternated 
with occasional fits of depression, not unknown to other high- 
strung and ardent natures whose powers are always in a state of 
tension. In such moments she would give strong expression 
to the fear that she was of little use, was doing nothing that 
would not be done as well if she were not in existence. 

Ah ! but a man's reach should exceed his grasp, 
Or what's a heaven for? 

says Browning through Andrea del Sarto, and this restlessness 
under present circumstances was the symptom that more and 
more to her the winning of souls for Christ stood out as 
the one object for which the life of a Christian is worth living. 
The final resolve was arrived at in October, 1891, during 
the last of a particularly delightful round of northern visits, 



THE CALL 49 

on which Irene and her guitar had been more than ever in 
request. At Rickerby, in Cumberland (a house which has 
just given a son to the C.M.S.), she met Mr. Robert Wilder, 
the founder of the Student Volunteer Movement at the 
Universities. There the clear call to leave the home life 
was heard and answered ; but she did not speak yet, not till 
February i4th, 1892, for which the entry in her diary is just 
this : " Told May." I had been describing some February 
Simultaneous Meetings in the provinces, and telling of one 
zealous young candidate for service, met under peculiarly 
interesting circumstances, who now sleeps in an Indian grave 
after a few months only of labour. She was sitting in the 
firelight that Sunday evening, just where her mother sat 
when she dedicated her in infancy to God, as she told that 
it was her heart's desire to be an honorary missionary of the 
C.M.S., saying: "I am willing to go anywhere, but the more 
I read the more I see that India generally, and the Punjab 
specially, is the place where the fight is hottest and the need 
of reinforcements greatest." After further talk, she drafted 
a letter offering to the C.M.S. But when a week or so later 
she told her father, his consternation and distress were such 
that she put the unsent letter aside for a time. To her he 
uttered no strong disapproval, still less forbade her to go, for 
he warmly sympathised with missionary enterprise. To a 
neighbour and very dear friend, however, he freely expressed 
no mere selfish reluctance to lose the light of his eyes, but 
a fear, justified by the event, that one who had been so 
cherished and guarded, who had never known hardship, 
whose energy was always greater than her strength, might 
soon fall a victim to trying climate and unremitting toil ; that 
a most valuable life, likely to be prolonged at home, would 
be prematurely cut short abroad. A sagacious doctor also 
said plainly that no one with Irene's delicate pink ana white 
complexion ought to go to India. 

4 



So IRENE PETRIE 

Irene can never have regretted the postponement of her 
purpose in deference to her father's views. For just three 
weeks after that memorable Sunday evening the first slight 
symptoms of what was to prove his last illness appeared. 
Eight months followed, during which we passed through all 
the stages of hoping for speedy recovery from a trifling 
ailment ; fearing the illness might be tedious ; apprehending 
that he would never again be his former vigorous self; 
that his days would be numbered ere he lived out the 
threescore and ten years; that his remaining time would be 
short and suffering. 

This deepening shadow lay over all the undiminished 
activities of that summer, and over our last family travel 
to Lakeland and the Isle of Man. We were at Keswick for 
the Convention in July ; and Irene sang in the choir, entered 
most heartily into the spirit of that wonderful gathering, 
attended over fifty meetings, enjoying that for " candidates " 
most of all, and greatly delighted in a renewal of intercourse 
with Miss Marsh. The ten days of prayer and praise and 
preaching ended, we spent a further quiet week in our cosy, 
white-washed, rose-clad cottage, recalling and laying up in 
store all that had been learned and heard as we wandered 
over the Cumberland fells. 

Irene hardly left her father during his last months of 
declining strength, and her music seemed to soothe and 
relieve him more than aught else. He fell asleep on 
November iQth, 1892. It was midnight on November 23rd. 
The drawing-room, which had so often resounded with music 
and laughter when he was the most genial of hosts, was 
dim and still, its air heavy with the perfume of masses of 
flowers beneath which he slept. The two sisters, each all 
the world to the other more than ever now, since they had 
no remaining near relative, clung to each other, thinking that 
early to-morrow the place which had known him would know 



THE CALL 51 

him no more ; and one of them silently realised that the going 
forth of the other would not be much longer delayed. 

To other people the home life promised to flow on as 
of old for the orphans, though more sadly and quietly. 
In the first five months of 1893 Irene spoke twenty times; 
for the Church of England Temperance Society, for the 
Scripture Union, and for the C.M.S., counting a course of 
seven lectures on Hygiene given to the students at the 
Missionary Training Home, Chelsea. She also helped in 
the choir for the February Simultaneous Meetings, and was 
one of three bracketed first in The Gleaner for " the best set 
of three Sunday school lessons with a distinct missionary 
bearing," which were published in the number for April, 
1893. The Gleaner for March announced a competitive 
examination on the 1892 volume, for which Irene had set 
the paper. It became the model for subsequent ones, 
and of her questions Mr. Stock said : "They are really 
splendid; like all good questions, suggestive and instructive 
before one finds the answers." 

" Content to stay at home as long as her Father willed, 
but ready to go forth immediately He made clear the way," 
is the true description given of her at this time by one 
friend. Another friend, to whom she confided her per 
plexity about leaving her sister quite alone, counselled her 
to wait for yet plainer guidance. How it came, she herself 
tells thus in a letter written that summer to a third in 
timate : " Last month May and I went for two days to visit 
Mrs. Carus- Wilson at her beautiful house at Hampstead. 
The two days became a week, and then a second short visit 
was planned, resulting in May's most happy engagement 
to her youngest son. . . . The wedding will (D.V.) be at 
the end of August. Directly afterwards they sail for Montreal, 
where he is Professor of Electrical Engineering at McGill 
University. . . . May and I propose to let our nous? for 



52 IRENE PETRIE 

a year or two, though I hope they will return and make 
this their home later on. ... I hope, if it can be arranged, 
to sail for India about October; for this change in May's 
life seems to open the way wonderfully to the mission field, 
where my heart has been for years." 

We met Professor Carus-Wilson for the first time on 
May 3ist. That day three months I became his wife ; that 
day five months Irene was at Gibraltar. A cousin, and 
two friends for whom she had a strong affection, said to 
her as soon as the engagement was announced, "Let my 
home be yours now, dear Irene." Or she could have lived 
on in the old home, with the devoted household and the 
encircling friends, dwelling, like the lady of Shunem, among 
her own people. But before the end of June she had 
taken steps towards leaving that home for ever. 

She went out with joy, her heart's desire granted. " I 
shall always remember," writes one, " how bright and 
happy she looked when I called on you just before you 
married, and she had decided to go to India." "How 
beautiful she looked upon your wedding-day," writes a 
College by Post colleague, who was at St. Mary Abbots then ; 
and the radiance of unselfish joy on the face of the first 
bridesmaid struck others also. "I only knew her through 
her letters," writes another, "and one little glimpse I had 
of her at Mrs. Cams -Wilson's wedding; but I have never 
forgotten that beautifully bright face the out-of-the-way 
brightness of it once seen, I should think, could never 
be forgotten." 

During the following week, quite unknown to me, she 
placed in the packing-cases which were going from the old 
home to the new home in Canada not only many common 
possessions which we esteemed as heirlooms, but many of 
her own special treasures. One little thought that this 
deliberate and' unostentatious act was her forsaking of all 



THE CALL 53 

that she had; that though she would be warmly welcomed 
in more than one far-off dwelling, and form more than 
one congenial friendship beyond the seas, she would never 
again have a home of her own, or more than passing inter 
course with any who had hitherto made her life. "But 
we know," she wrote to her sister on the day they parted, 
"that we shall meet again one day in the best Home of all." 



CHAPTER IV 

GOING FORTH 

Measure thy life by loss instead of gain : 

Not by the wine drunk, but the wine poured forth ; 

For love's strength standeth in love's sacrifice. 

H. E. HAMILTON KING, The Disciples. 

TWO sisters who had always shared each others' lives 
from day to day hitherto, continued to share them 
through the pen when half the circumference of the globe 
divided them. Their separation of exactly three and a half 
years is represented by almost two hundred long letters from 
Irene. Her journals and letters about her and to her supple 
ment these, so the task has been to select from this unusually 
complete record of a missionary's labours day by day. As 
her letters travelled in at least eight trains and steamers, 
visiting ten countries and four continents en route, the fact 
that not one failed to reach Montreal may be worth noting. 
We had left for Canada on September i3th, 1893; Irene 
sailed for India on October 27th. The intervening six weeks 
were crowded with a bewildering number of claims on her time, 
in addition to all the ordinary preparations of an outgoing 
missionary. For each bit of work that she was doing at 
home a successor had to be found, much legal and other 
business had to be transacted, and friends were importunate 
in their desire to secure a last interview. Letters and gifts 
poured in, and all were acknowledged, though she was driven 
to say at last, " I write to nearly everyone on postcards now." 

54 



GOING FORTH 55 

Mrs. Carus-Wilson wished to have her at Hampstead 
the whole time, lest she should feel solitary in the deserted 
home ; and as far as it was possible to do so she availed herself 
of this kind plan. Though she actually offered to travel to 
Wales to comfort a sick and lonely relative, she accepted of 
one-and- twenty urgent invitations to friends in the country one 
only, because it involved a task as well as a farewell. 

So one night was spent at Ravensbury Park, in order to 
address the people of Mitcham. The writer of the personal 
glimpses quoted from on p. 20 was present, and introduces 
the second of these " glimpses " by speaking of her call 
and preparation to go forth, continuing thus: "Still the 
preparation foremost in Irene's mind was that of gaining 
ever fresh fellow-labourers for her Master's harvest field; 
nor did she ever count any too feeble or too young to be 
worth the trouble to win. Another picture rises before 
me in which I see her, only a month before her departure, 
speaking to a very humble gathering of village school-children 
she had never seen before about the joy of the Master's ser 
vice, and the honour of sharing in it, no matter how humbly, 
or whether at home or abroad. So earnestly she spoke of 
the importance of their share in the work, and so simply 
of her own, that the childish hearts were kindled with the 
sense of fellowship, and roused not only to interest in God's 
work in heathen lands, but also to humble efforts of work 
and prayer for it, which have never since been given up." 

Miss Mary Bidder, writing to Irene from Ravensbury Park 
on October ist, four days after this meeting, says : " I 
cannot but trust that God will bring forth much fruit from 
your coming here. I can't tell you how cheered and thankful 
I feel about the work already." She goes on to tell how 
one girl, "immensely keen on helping in some way," ex 
claimed, " I do wish I was going out, too ! "' and how there 
was a general desire for the formation of a working party. 



56 IRENE PETRIE 

(Of that visible result of her visit we shall hear again.) 
Miss Bidder is representative of not a few of Irene's friends 
when she adds : " Our very short time together is a memory 
I shall always love to look back upon. It has given me 
quite a new and very delightful feeling of personal connection 
with the work abroad." Almost a year and a half later 
a friend, who had just been at Ravensbury Park, wrote thus 
to Irene : " What a blessing was your visit to Mitcham ! 
The interest you have excited, which is well kept up in 
the hearts of those girls, is wonderful." 

Three days after her visit to Mitcham, Irene fulfilled a 
long-standing engagement in London by giving a precis 
of Three Martyrs of the Nineteenth Century Livingstone, 
Gordon, and Patteson, by Mrs. Rundle Charles, to a literary 
club of which she was a member. " I got it all up in trains, 
so it has not really cost time," she says half apologetically, 
This was, in striking contrast to the Mitcham address, one 
more effort to bring the missionary subject before intelligent 
people quite outside missionary circles. It is not hard to 
stir up unsophisticated, religiously disposed people for the 
first time ; it is easy to throw fresh fuel on an already 
kindled enthusiasm. But she never shrank from the task of 
confronting cold criticism and generalities of condemnation, 
uttered as if there were nothing more to be said, by those 
who do not admit their real ignorance of missionary enter 
prise. That task is not only hard but apparently thankless ; 
yet as we note that the work of Christ abroad rests upon 
an ever-broadening basis of thoughtful and prayerful support 
at home, we cannot doubt that words spoken, not on set 
occasions only, but in many quiet talks by such as Irene, bear 
fruit, especially when they are emphasised by the life, still 

more by the death, of the speaker. "Miss ," says Irene 

of the leader of this club, " was very kind, but rather puzzled 
and disappointed in me, I think, and actually wanted a yes 



GOING FORTH 57 

or no answer to the question whether one would go to death 
(as I suppose Perpetua did) if offered the choice. I could 
only think of the man who asked Moody if he had grace 
to be burned, 1 and I begged her to remember that though 
many of the greatest saints have been missionaries, still there 
may be missionaries who are very average people, and should 
not in fairness be judged by a superhuman standard." 

While some friends were puzzled and even regretful, the 
discerning sympathy of others is well expressed by this letter 
from a well-known author : " I was writing to-day to con 
gratulate your sister, and I felt I should so much like to 
congratulate you, too, on the courage you have had to do 
the thing you felt called to do. I trust you will find even 
earthly happiness in the new life you are going to, but 
whether you do or not you are still to be much con 
gratulated. How happy they that are called and obey ! " 

Fifty-two College by Post students sent her a cheque 
to be expended in a medicine-chest and Urdu books, as 
a little tangible proof of their gratitude, laden with loving 
wishes for her success, and assuring her that the existing 
bond of prayerful interest and sympathy would not be broken ; 
and other tokens of affection from those she had taught and 
helped encouraged her. 

From October Qth to 23rd, she secured a fortnight's training 
at The Willows, whence so many women missionaries have 
gone forth. There she began Urdu, attended the Bethnal 
Green Medical Mission, bandaging the sufferers "so patient 
and grateful and plucky"; enjoyed "the perfectly lovely Bible 
readings of dear Miss Elliott " ; * and received much kind 
and wise advice from Miss Schroder, "who plans every 

1 To which the downright evangelist replied, " No ; but I believe it 
would be given me if I needed it " (a favourite anecdote of Irene's). 

2 Emily Steele Elliott, author of several well-known books and of some 
of our best missionary hymns. She died August 3rd, 1897, just three 
days before Irene. 



58 IRENE PETRIE 

day splendidly for each one here." Among friends made 
there were Miss Coverdale, whom we shall meet again, 
and Miss Hester Newcombe, " a saintly member of a family 
of four sisters, all missionaries in China," who perished in 
the Kucheng massacre, August ist, 1895. Irene threw 
herself into the Willows life as if she had nothing else 
to think of, yet even from that fortnight one whole day 
had to be snatched for her farewell to Kensington. 

Though her original purpose of offering to the C.M.S. 
eventually remained unchanged, she did not go out with 
that Society. In 1892 the eldest daughter of General 
Beynon had asked us if we could find among our friends 
one or two ladies willing to undertake "for one winter," at 
their own charges, work which resembled parish work at home 
among poor English-speaking people in Lahore. Miss Beynon 
had begun to organise this under the direction of the Bishop 
of Lahore ; and Irene interested in the scheme a fellow-teacher 
in the St. Mary Abbots Sunday School, who, being a widow 
and childless, was looking out for some useful occupation, 
and quickly arranged to go to Lahore. To Irene's relatives 
it seemed a good plan that she herself should go with Mrs. 
Engelbach for the winter to the friend whose enterprise sorely 
needed her aid, and use this opportunity of making some 
acquaintance with India before she offered to the C.M.S. 
for work that she would wish to undertake permanently if 
she undertook it at all. 

General and Mrs. Beynon took up the idea of her join 
ing their daughter eagerly, and she received the following 
letters : 

From Miss Beynon : " Your offer to join me at Lahore 
for the winter has been a great joy. . . . You will 
bring in the thorough, practical side, which I know would 
otherwise have been so sadly lacking. Good sound teaching 



GOING FORTH 59 

is just what we want for Lahore. ... It seems almost too 
good to be true, the thought of having you for a co-worker. 
... We shall never be able to spare you for the C.M.S. 
Not that I grudge anyone for missionary work amongst the 
heathen and Mohammedans, but I think you will see, as I 
do, before you have been long in this country, how very 
important the work of building up the Church is at this 
present time." 

From the Bishop of Lahore : 

" DEAR Miss PETRIE, 

"I must write a few lines to tell you how thankful 
I have been to learn from Miss Beynon that you are to 
be associated with her in the winter. . . . You may be assured 
of a very hearty welcome from me. I feel sure that nothing 
will help to raise the tone of our Anglo-Indian society more 
than the presence of ladies who have come out" from England 
to help our poorer people. Many who have hitherto not 
seen their way to do anything for the good of their neigh 
bours will have the way opened to them. . . . Hoping and 
believing that you will come to this work in the fulness 
of the blessing of the Gospel of Christ, 

" I remain, yours sincerely, 

" HENRY J. LAHORE." 

The Kensington Deanery Branch of the Gleaners' Union 
invited "all interested in missionary work" to the Vicarage 
Parish Room on October i8th, 1893, "to bid Godspeed to 
Mrs. Engelbach and Miss Irene Petrie." " It was Irene's 
wish that I should share her farewell meeting," says Mrs. 
Engelbach, " though I was only going to fill a gap for a 
few months, and she was going as an actual missionary." The 
room was so full that many stood throughout. After Miss 
Bland, a missionary for twenty years at Agra, had described 
India's needs, and Mrs. Engelbach had said a few words, 



60 IRENE PETRIE 

Irene, speaking as a member from childhood of the parochial 
Missionary Union, told where they were going, quoted and 
met the various objections to her enterprise which friends 
had raised, and urged the privilege of the work and our 
responsibility for it. Her audience (says the friend who 
wrote down these particulars) were not only impressed with 
her earnestness, but charmed with her sweet manner and 
voice, as well as with the excellence of her matter. " I had 
never heard her speak in public," says another who was 
present, " and she astonished me. It was beautiful." Then 
the Vicar, closely scanning the gathering, which included 
many who had come there solely from personal friendship, 
said playfully, "We don't often get the likes of some of 
you at a missionary meeting, and we will let you have it 
now we have got you " ; and so proceeded to press home 
the duty of all Christians to aid in the evangelisation of the 
world, and concluded by solemnly commending them both in 
prayer with the Aaronic benediction. Then Sunday school 
pupils, girl friends, and many who had known her from 
childhood, thronged her for good-byes, which, she says, " were 
overwhelming," till Lady Mary Glyn carried her off to the 
Vicarage for tea. Other friends claimed her for dinner, and 
so ended her present intercourse with kith and kin ; but 
the results of that farewell are far from being ended. 

She left the Willows on October 23rd "such a day of 
kisses and birthday books" and three breathless days suc 
ceeded. " It was easy enough to see what a wrench it was 
to her to leave the old home, though she did not break 
down," writes one with her at the end ; and the unforced 
liveliness of her letters during those last weeks in England 
shows how wonderfully she realised that " the Lord daily 
beareth our burden." She quotes in one of them the above 
revised rendering of Psalm Ixviii. 19, as a sustaining as 
surance; and her thought on starting is this: "God 



GOING FORTH 61 

grant that I may not hinder His use of His little, feeble 
'istrument in whatever way He sees best." 

Amid the Godspeed of neighbours, who describe her as 
"wonderfully bright," though she had had but two hours in 
bed the night before, she quitted Hanover Lodge early on 
October 27th. Many friends had collected at Liverpool Street 
station, whence she started for Tilbury, to see her off; and 
the mother and sister of her new brother, with one girl 
friend and Elliott, did not part from her till she was in her 
cabin, and waved their last farewells as the Carthage swept 
slowly down the river. Her "supreme comfort," when the 
homeland and all its familiar faces vanished, was the Lord's 
promise to His first missionaries, " Lo, I am with you 
alway." 

As she settled into the floating abode of the next twenty- 
five days, she wrote: "Psalm ciii. i, 2 is the main burden 
of my thoughts at this moment, even after the parting from 
beloved ones and the dear old home. The wonderful thought 
of hundreds of praying friends to-day, and the strong realisa 
tion that their prayers are being definitely answered, is almost 
overwhelming. I could never have believed that everything 
would have gone so easily and beautifully down to the tiniest 
details as it has done ; and the great peace He gives us, and 
the sunshine of wondrous lovingkindness with which I have 
been encompassed, teaches more plainly than ever that we 
should trust and not be afraid." She passes lightly over 
thirty-six hours of helpless misery in the Bay of Biscay, 
with : " So much for the c cons.' Now for the ' pros/ which 
far outweighed them. First, that I am here on board at 
all; the unwonted leisure makes it possible to realise more 
than ever what a wonderful privilege this calling is, and how 
graciously my way has been smoothed and made plain. Then, 
the sweet recollections of perfect home happiness, which, if 
it must now be a thing of the past, is a possession nothing 



62 IRENE PETRIE 

can deprive me of. Thirdly, the extraordinary kindness of 
my companions in every possible way." 

The two hundred and fifty passengers included over thirty 
missionaries, British, American, and Canadian, and with these 
there was delightful intercourse. One Sunday evening the 
service was read by a C.M.S. clergyman, and the sermon was 
preached by the veteran Presbyterian Dr. Valentine, for thirty- 
two years connected with the Edinburgh Medical Mission. " It 
was," she says, " like being suddenly transported to a Scottish 
kirk to sit under the dear old man, and to me this union of 
Christendom seemed an ideal arrangement." Miss Jenkins, 
M.D., of Lucknow, and Miss Bowesman, going to Lucknow 
after some years in the mission hospital at Madagascar, with 
Miss Thorn, an honorary missionary in Bangalore since 1875, 
shared her cabin. At Irene's suggestion a forenoon Bible 
class was started, taken by the missionaries in turn, and 
attended by between twenty and thirty passengers. Her 
own subject was St. Paul's work and teaching at Philippi, 
as illustrating modern missionary difficulties and encourage 
ments ; for she was taking the Acts and Epistles " as an extra 
Bible study to refresh one's memory as to Biblical methods 
of missionary work." Of course she contributed to the 
concert, helped in painting the programmes sold for the 
Sailors' Orphanage, and made many sketches; and of course 
not a few of the children on board were to be found buzzing 
round her paint-box and listening eagerly to Bible stories 
connected with the lands they passed. So the days went by, 
"painting, reading, writing, walking, talking, and wondering 
how some folks can have time for cards and yellow-backs." 

Her intense delight in the " wonderful sights " of the 
voyage, "far more interesting and beautiful than even I 
expected," finds expression at every turn : Gibraltar, " rising 
up like Arthur's Seat doubled"; Marseilles, "like Florence 
from San Miniato, but with even more striking hills sur- 



GOING FORTH 63 

rounding it," where she had to do most of the talking, and 
quoted John iii. 16 to the woman that showed them the 
new cathedral, who did not consider the text quite complete 
without adding " et sa bonne Mere" after "son Fih unique" 
November 6th was " a red-letter day of sights," culminating 
in Etna, " which stood out long against the golden afterglow, 
with the evening star set in its midst as a diamond in a 
diadem." Then, at Port Said, she got her "first glimpse of 
the East, with its utter squalor and gorgeous colouring, every 
figure a picture," and sunset was followed by an hour of 
crimson and golden afterglow on the Suez Canal. " I never 
knew what starlight was till now ; the sky is literally powdered 
with light." When they reached Aden, she spent three nights 
on deck, eagerly hoping to see the Southern Cross. " I fell 
asleep with Psalm viii., and woke to the golden splendour 
of an Oriental dawn with Psalm xix., to realise as never 
before what a giant among poets King David was." 

But all through the missionary predominates over the 
traveller. "We are in lat. 12 N. now, and it is sadly thrilling 
to think of the lands on each side where Christ is not loved." 
And bravely as she enjoyed and helped others to enjoy 
the voyage, pangs of loneliness were inevitable. After the 
concert she writes : " It is just a year since I sang at a 
concert. How strange it was to sit in the balmy air among 
all the new faces on shipboard, and look back over the 
great events of 1893 to that charity concert in Marylebone ! 
What an effort it was to keep the promise to sing then, with 
the presentiment of sorrow, realised only too soon after! 
That very night, as I watched by the dear father through 
the silent hours, a change for the worse set in. And now 
he has been resting ' at home with the Lord ' all these 
months, and we, who comforted each other then, are being 
separated farther every day, though each comforted by Him 
Who said, ' I will not leave you orphans, I come unto you.' " 



64 IRENE PETRIE 

The Carthage reached Bombay at 10 a.m. on November 
2oth, and Irene set foot on Indian soil " in the midst," she says, 
" of a strange, dark throng, with red turbans and white robes, 
shouting in many tongues. It was wonderfully picturesque 
and tremendously exciting ; but the first thing I noticed was 
saddening the heathen marks on the handsome, intelligent 
faces. Oh, when will our King reign ' from India even unto 
Ethiopia?'" At Bombay she stayed with Dr. Arnott, Head 
of the Government Hospital, which is reckoned one of the 
finest in India. "A drive of several miles brought us to 
Malabar Hill, first through the busy streets of the second 
city in our Empire, with all their strange new sights and 
brilliant colouring, and street names in English, Urdu, Hindi, 
and Mahratti ; then up the hill, past ' the towers of silence ' 
hidden behind splendid trees and foliage, among the branches 
of which the ghastly vultures were wheeling. Then we looked 
down upon the harbour, over a grand forest of palm-trees, 
and out to the mountains beyond. . . . We turned into a 
lovely garden, and stopped under a lofty portico, supported by 
white pillars, rising from among masses of maidenhair fern, 
eucharis, lilies, tea-roses, and stephanotis. A row of stately, 
turbaned figures appeared salaaming, among them an ayah 
with a lovely, fair babe of eleven months, all saying polite 
things which I could neither understand nor answer. 
They ushered me through a lofty hall, lifted a white purdah, 
and displayed a bedroom fifty by thirty feet in size, with 
eleven doors in all. The stateliest of the men began by 
pouring water into the basins and hanging my things in the 
wardrobe. My bewildered feelings were relieved by the 
appearance of a graceful Goa Christian ayah, who explained 
in good English that her mistress, having waited since day 
light for the belated Carthage passenger, had been obliged 
to go out, and would be back to tiffin at two. Would I 
like a bath, breakfast, dinner, or what? Finally she brought 



GOING FORTH 65 

a frosted silver set, with the very nicest tea I ever tasted, 
and oh, joy ! real cow's milk. During the next hour I 
thought it must all be a wonderful fairy-tale the fragrant 
smell of the East, the space, peace, quiet, rest, the song 
of birds, the voices of native servants in distant corridors, 
and, more than all, the sight when I stepped out on the 
broad verandah and looked across the gardens, away over 
the palm-trees, to the expanse of sea. Imagining the heat 
and foliage of July, the green and blossom of Mayday, 
and the freshness of Easter, would give but a faint idea of 
what I saw. Was I dreaming, and could it be true that the 
dear folks in London were shivering in fog at that moment ? 
The reverie was broken by a sweet voice, unmistakably 
Scottish, and my kind hostess appeared, giving the most 
charming of welcomes." 

As Irene had personal friends, or introductions to friends 
of friends, at many places on the way to Lahore, several 
weeks might have been pleasantly spent in sight-seeing, but 
for desire to get to work as quickly as possible. She left 
Bombay on November 2ist, with Mrs. Engelbach and the 
young widow of the Hon. Ion Keith-Falconer, that brave 
and able son of the late Earl of Kintore, who gave up the 
Professorship of Arabic at the University of Cambridge to 
lead a forlorn hope as a pioneer missionary in Arabia, and 
died at Aden on May nth, 1887. Mrs. Keith-Falconer, 
whom Irene had known in London, was travelling with her 
brother for health, and had come on board the Carthage at 
Ismailia. She journeyed with them to Lahore, and some ten 
weeks later joined Miss Beynon there for two months. 

They were ten days on the road to Lahore, seventy hours, 
or three days and nights, of which were passed in the train. 
Their halts were at Jeypore, capital of Rajputana, where they 
were guests of Colonel Jacob ; Agra, where Friday to Monday 
was spant with Miss Brownell, of the Female Education 

5 



66 IRENE PETRIE 

Society ; Delhi, where they saw something of the mission 
of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, and were 
warmly welcomed by Mrs. Winkworth Scott when her fear, 
founded on a not very explicit letter of introduction, that 
they were " only globe-trotters " was dispelled ; and Meerut, 
where they stayed with the Rev. J. P. Ellwood, of the C.M.S. 
As the train whirled them through the great plains, with their 
hedges of cactus, the maize fields fresh and green after the 
rains, the stony rivers, the great cities and teeming villages, 
Irene noted, first of all, the absence of the church spires so 
conspicuous in Britain. 

Jeypore was reached at 5 a.m. on the 23rd, and while 
the others rested, Irene, escorted by a Christian lad educated 
in Dr. Duffs school, set off, as she says, "for the funniest 
walk I ever had; along a good road, with gas lamp-posts, 
strange trees and birds on each side, and many kinds 
of animals driven by swarthy Rajputs, whose most im 
portant garment was a large towel round the head. They 
evidently considered a white lady out of a gari an extra 
ordinary sight." She met Colonel and Mrs. Jacob in 
the gardens at 8 a.m., and a long day was spent exploring 
a town rather off the tourist track, with only thirteen 
Europeans to its one hundred and forty-three thousand in 
habitants. "This is such an interesting place," she says. 
"Fancy meeting parrots, camels, squirrels, monkeys, and 
elephants in the streets. The late Maharajah was a very 
advanced man, who aimed at giving a European education to 
his people, and founded a school of native art and a grand 
museum. Here are gathered together curios from all parts 
of India and of the world, which are shown by an English 
speaking guide, who, in pointing out Hindu deities, re 
marked, ' They are still believed in by some of the people.' " 

At Agra they saw the renowned Taj Mahal in the light 
of the full moon. "How can I attempt to describe its 



GOING FORTH 67 

overwhelming grandeur and loveliness? . . . Realisation far 
exceeded expectation, great as that had been." After an 
account of the matchless monument which the Mogul Emperor 
raised to the lovely Nur Jehan, she continues: "We had 
all been sentimentalising about the beautiful devotion of 
Shah Jehan as a husband, but took rather a different view 
on realising that the Taj was built by forced labour, the 
families of unpaid workpeople being left to starve, and 
on hearing of chambers of horror in the fort where Shah 
Jehan would amuse himself by watching the less favoured 
wives being put to death when he tired of them." She 
also tells how the intelligent Tommy Atkins who was in 
charge of the visitors' book at the fort valued efforts to 
promote temperance among the troops, and spoke with 
much appreciation of the work of ladies, saying the soldiers 
would do anything for a lady who would work among them. 
She met at Agra Mrs. Challis, whom she had known as 
Miss Polhill-Turner, and on Sunday worshipped for the first 
time with Hindu Christians. "A congregation of some 
three hundred assembled, men on one side, women on 
the other. The service in Urdu was conducted by the 
Rev. W. McLean, of the C.M.S., and the native clergyman, 
the Rev. William Seetal. 1 'Jesu, Lover of my soul,' *O 
worship the King,' and other hymns, were sung with great 
fervour, and familiar chants were used. I noticed the 
prayer for the * Qaisar-i-Hind ' and for the ruler of this 
land. Mr. McLean said that nearly everyone present at the 
service was far more than a Christian merely in name ; 
and told of another service in the evening conducted 
entirely by native pastors, where the congregation squat 
on the floor, and sing bhajans. He looks forward to 
baptising a leading Hindu pundit on Christmas Day. . . . 

1 He was ordained in 1881, and was one of the Indian clergy who 
came to London for the Centenary of the C.M.S-, April, 1899. 



68 IRENE PETRIE 

I would like to show that native congregation at Agra to 
people who say missionary work is hopeless and a failure." 
Indefatigable pedestrian as she was, Irene no longer walked, 
as she had done at Jeypore. "It is strange," she writes 
from Agra, "to have suddenly become carriage folk; but 
in India I find there is no choice. Between the difficulties 
of sun and escort, walking, to my great grief, is well-nigh 
impracticable ; and carriages, like fruit and servants, are in 
expensive luxuries out here. Ladies could hardly walk 
through the crowded city bazars, which are most interesting, 
though in many ways saddening sights. People who talk 
of East London squalor, poverty, degradation, and need of 
sanitation, should come and look here; as for me, sitting 
in luxury in the midst of the street, I felt ashamed to think 
how little impression for good my sheltered life with all its 
surroundings had made. And turning from material to 
spiritual things, how much more dreadful and searching 
are these comparisons ! " 

At Delhi they were met by the Bishop of Lahore and 
the Rev. G. A. Lefroy, of the Cambridge Delhi Mission, 
who became Dr. Matthew's successor as Bishop of Lahore 
in 1899. " So far from scolding us for lingering on our 
way, the Bishop told us that he had himself been planning 
a picnic from Delhi to the Kutab, that we might use his 
one free day in becoming acquainted." No one who cares 
for either history or architecture could fail to be excited by 
a visit to the ancient capital of the Great Mogul. In a day 
and a half Irene saw much, but passing over enthusiastic, 
descriptions of mosques and mausoleums, temples, gardens, 
and palaces, one extract only from her journal shall be given : 
" In Delhi the impression of heathenism seemed more pain 
ful than in any other city I have seen. These swarming 
multitudes without God and without hope are an awful sight, 
and the impress of heathenism seems to be on their faces. 



GOING FORTH 69 

Longing to like them all, we almost shudder sometimes 
at the expressions of people who have grown up without 
Christianity. . . . The guide called our attention to a com 
motion in a narrow side street, and a Hindu funeral procession 
emerged from it a crowd of gaudily dressed figures, some 
carrying great bunches of feathers, some with instruments, 
singing and producing discordant noises, all dancing and 
jerking, even those who carried the string bedstead on which 
was the poor body tightly swathed in gay-coloured cloth. 
That was the most terribly sad sight we saw at all. What 
about the dead man, and the people who have cared for 
him, knowing nothing of our blessed Hope? How many 
more of such scenes must there be before they hear of it ? 
How shall they hear without a preacher ? Would that people 
at home who talk of the mistake of disturbing the heathen 
in their nice, simple faiths could see what we have seen in 
one week here ! " 

In Meerut they were entertained at the C.M.S. station, 
once the Commissioner's house in which the Indian Mutiny 
broke out. The hut where the ladies of the family were 
hidden on that dreadful May loth, 1857, is still shown. 
"Mr. and Mrs. Ellwood have been out twenty-two years," 
says Irene, " and their daughter announced her wish to be a 
C.M.S. missionary at last year's Keswick Convention, where 
I remember being greatly stirred by Mr. Ellwood's words. . . . 
Their home was an ideal resting-place : all simple, dainty, 
and refined, and the inmates so cultured and interesting ; it 
was a privilege to be with them." 

"November 30^ (St. Andrew's Day). Last year we 
were joining in the home intercessions for the work; 
to-day we are in the midst of the work. . . . After break 
fast we started with Miss Strcelin, of the Church of 
England Zenana Missionary Society, who has been in India 
twelve years, and actually lives all alone, and tries to 



70 IRENE PETRIE 

cope singlehanded with work that could easily occupy two 
or three of the good people at home who are so much 
wanted out here. First we visited the Christian Girls' 
School, where rows of tiny children of heathen parents 
sing bhajans, play kindergarten games, and learn to read 
and write. Two little brides of about ten were among 
them. Miss Stroelin interpreted while we talked to them 
and told them about our Kensington children, Then 
we went to a rich Hindu zenana, up steep stairs into 
a messy room, where some untidy children were playing 
with a lovely little bride of fifteen. She is Miss Ellwood's 
pupil, and has one of the sweetest and most pathetic faces 
we ever saw. Her mother-in-law, a huge and ignorant but 
kindly woman, took her rich trousseau out of a chest 
skirts and saris heavy with gold and silver embroidery, and 
glittering silks. 1 Then we went through a small, squalid 
court to a poor zenana ; then to a grand bungalow in Euro 
pean style, and were ushered by female servants in close- 
fitting pyjamas into a large sitting-room, where one would 
like to set a good English housemaid to work. Here three 
Begums (princesses in a small way), likewise in pyjamas, were 
gathered with books and crochet work at a table. They 
are daughters of an 'advanced' Mohammedan, and though 
the eldest is nearly twenty, they are not married, which is 
very unusual. Their stepmother joined us, and was very 
polite. She produced the photo of the Qaisar-i-Hind, and 
liked to hear that I had kissed her hand. ' Had it been 
at a big durbar that I had seen Her Majesty ? ' Tea was 
served for us in the hall, quite in the European style, our 
hostess's brother presiding. It was indeed a morning never 
to be forgotten." 

1 Two months later Irene wrote : "I have such a nice letter from 
MJSL Ellwood, telling how near that sweet little Hindu bride seems to 
Christianity. I fear persecution may be in store for her." 



GOING FORTH 71 

On December ist, at 7 p.m., a warm welcome from Miss 
Beynon to St. Hilda's Diocesan Home ended the journey 
of exactly five weeks from London to Lahore. " How grate 
ful we are," writes Irene, " for all the thoughts and prayers 
which have been so wonderfully answered in our safety and 
health all through, and in the many pleasures we have had. 
. , . Oh that we may be used in some little degree to do the 
will of God for this great Empire ! " 



CHAPTER V 

A WINTER IN LAHORE 

(DECEMBER IST, 1893, TO APRIL IQTH, 1894) 

Let thine eyes look right on. THE PROVERBS OF SOLOMON. 

INDIA must be recognised as being a continent rather 
than a country. Within its borders over a hundred 
different languages are spoken by races differing as widely 
in their character and history as they do in their colour ; and 
Britain, France, Spain, Scandinavia, Germany, Austria, Italy, 
Turkey, and Greece all together are of smaller extent than 
" British India," which contains provinces and peoples as 
various as those of all Europe. Rather more than half of 
this territory is under direct British rule ; the rest consists 
of states under native administration, in political subordination 
to the British Government. 

Historically and ethnographically the most interesting 
country in this continent is a region about the size of Italy, 
with a population exceeding that of Spain and Portugal 
together, which is watered by five great tributaries of the 
Indus, and called, therefore, the Land of the Punjab thaf 
is, of the Five Rivers. This was the " India " of Alexander 
the Great, and the limit of his victorious march eastward is 
now the limit of British conquest westward. Again and again 
the power holding the Punjab has become the dominant 
power throughout Hindustan. Peopled, as Lord Lawrence 

72 



A WINTER IN LAHORE 73 

said, by the bravest, most determined, and most formidable 
races British arms in India have ever met, it is still the great 
recruiting ground for the Indian army. It became part of 
British India in 1849, and eight years later its loyalty saved 
the British Raj in the terrible days of the Mutiny. To its 
ruler, Sir John Lawrence, Sir Herbert Edwardes wrote : 
" Delhi has been recovered by you and your resources " ; 
and Lord Canning, Viceroy of India, wrote : " Through Sir 
John Lawrence Delhi fell, and the Punjab, no longer a 
weakness, became a source of strength." 

On another occasion Sir H. Edwardes (whom Lord Roberts 
calls one of the greatest of Indian soldiers) said that the 
Punjab was conspicuous for two things : the most successful 
government, and the most open acknowledgment of Christian 
duty on the part of its governors. About nine years before 
it was conquered for Britain, plans to conquer it for Christ 
were made, not by religious enthusiasts at home, but by 
Anglo-Indian officials of the highest rank, military and civilian, 
acting, of course, as individuals and not officially ; and in 
response to their appeal the C.M.S. inaugurated a mission 
there some years later. The Mutiny was quelled by the 
swords of men who were not ashamed of their faith in Christ 
and their desire to propagate His Gospel among those they 
ruled; and history contains no more notable illustration of 
the Divine assertion, "Them that honour Me I will honour," 
than the loyalty of those parts of India where missions have 
been most successful, and of those native forces which con 
tained Christian soldiers. The pertinence of these facts to 
our story will presently be seen. 

Notes on Indian Life, with Reference to the Land of the 
Five Rivers^ and specially the Ancient City of Lahore^ and the 
House therein Known as St. Hilda 's, is the heading of a MS. 
of eighty pages written by Irene's flowing quill in December, 
1893, for those to whom every detail of her new life was 



74 IRENE PETRIE 

of interest. What is peculiar to a foreign land strikes the 
newcomer's eye, while the resident is apt to forget that the 
untravelled Briton has never heard of it ; and as knowledge 
of the mere externals of life in India demolishes some current 
criticisms of missions at once, the C.M.S. often publish the 
letters of missionaries who have only just arrived. Irene 
begged us to discriminate first impressions from deliberate 
conclusions ; but she was a keenly observant traveller, quick 
in gleaning information from well-informed residents, and 
the following notes have the crisp suggestiveness of a frotti, 
if not the detailed accuracy of a finished picture : 

" Speaking generally, one may say that the country is very 
big, the people innumerable, the plains very flat, the rivers 
very sandy, the voices very shrill, the crows very comical, 
the cooks very clever, the mosquitoes and vendors veiy per 
tinacious, and the snake stories told to newcomers very 
blood-curdling. It is just as unfair to call the brown natives 
black as to call the climate unconditionally a c beastly ' one. . . . 

" I wish you could see the hoopoos I meet out walking, 
they are the sweetest little things; or the old camel taking 
a midday snooze in the road with crows sitting on his 
hump. The crows, minas, and sparrows are very friendly, 
and hop all over the verandah and into the house. The 
parrots are shy, and it is only when I am hidden behind my 
purdahs that I hear their swift flight upwards to the crack 
between the wall and the rafters over my study door. I 
hear much going on, and imagine the nest in progress, and 
sometimes when I pop out quickly there is a glimpse of a red 
beak, two little yellow eyes, and the top of a green head, then 
a swift flash of emerald wings, and my friend has gone for 
refuge to the top of the highest tree in the compound. . . . 

" Two impressions which are received in every part of India 
as yet seen are the strangeness of being in the midst of a 
subject race, and the small value set upon time by the natives. 



A WINTER IN LAHORE 75 

Fancy being greeted always with salaams and salutes, and 
hearing commands and not requests made to those who serve, 
and that by the kindest and best sahibs. Fancy a post-office 
where about a quarter of an hour was spent over the handing 
in of one small parcel. The servant sent with it in the 
morning had been kept waiting two hours, and told to return 
it at last because the sender's list of contents and value was 
not written on the right piece of paper ! . . . 

" The thing of all others which has struck us in our travels 
is the wonderful missionary work. The impression of 
heathenism is far sadder than I expected ; degradation and 
hopelessness are written on so many faces. But even as a 
new arrival one realises that here is a miracle indeed, when 
one contrasts the faces of the native Christians with the 
faces of heathens and Mohammedans. Our Lord's promise 
that His disciples should do works greater than His own 
is being fulfilled here and now, but Ziegenbalg and his 
co-pioneers who first attempted the task were giants of faith. 
To me there has been the interest of seeing what was already 
familiar through reading; to Mrs. Engelbach it has all been 
an introduction. She is specially struck with the culture of 
the missionaries themselves, and wishes the home world to 
be told that it is those who could have anything at their 
taking at home who come out for this work." 

The enterprise Irene was about to aid has been little 
mentioned outside India, and its character and claims call 
for some preliminary explanation. Notes of an address given 
by her at a conference of the Young Women's Christian 
Association in London during the summer of 1895 are of 
much use in enabling one to comprehend it. 

In India the distinction between European and native is 
less sharply defined than might at first appear. There are many 
strata in both the imported and the indigenous population : 
Kipling's " Pagett, M.P.," who spends a winter in India and 



76 IRENE PETRIE 

then thinks he knows all about everything ; officials military 
and civil, who are there for a short term of years only ; 
other officials and missionaries, who give the best years of their 
lives to India ; " country-born " folk who, though of purely 
European descent, have never been out of Asia for one, 
two, or even three generations ; Eurasians, from those with 
only a dash of Asiatic blood to those with only a dash 
of European blood ; and so on, at last, to the " pakka " 
native. Among natives again must be discriminated those 
educated in Europe; Christians, Parsis, members of the 
Brahma or Arya Samaj and others who are in close touch 
with Europeans and European thought ; Mohammedans 
and Hindus,, with book religions and traditions of culture ; 
and pure pagans, such as Santals, Gonds, and Kois, who 
doubtless represent the aboriginal peoples and cults of 
Hindustan. 

Almost insensibly these strata blend into each other ; and 
short as her whole time in India was, its conditions made 
Irene personally acquainted with every one of them, except 
perhaps the last. Some may live in India for years and 
know only two or three of them well. Her main concern 
was, indeed, evangelistic work among Hindus and Moham 
medans. But both in Lahore and in Srinagar her relation 
to Anglo-Indians was, as we shall see, a close one. She 
learned to appreciate the special difficulties of Anglo-Indian 
life the almost inevitable enervation of character through 
the ease and luxury which a trying climate involves, the 
subtle danger that daily contact with non-Christians will 
lower the standard of conduct and duty, and foster a 
hardening sense of superiority in those who look down on 
Hindus and Mohammedans oftener than they look up to 
Christians living lives higher than their own. She was also 
taught that every European must in one sense be a 
missionary, must either aid or hinder the progress of the 



A WINTER IN LAHORE 77 

Gospel. And with pastoral work for the strata between 
Anglo-Indians and natives she had much to do. 

The Eurasians, so called because of descent partly European 
and partly Asiatic, are now a large class, which includes people 
of some wealth and influence; and missionaries testify that 
" some of them are doing magnificent work for Christ." Their 
importance is understood when one realises that whether 
British occupation of India is or is not permanent, the 
Eurasians must always be an integral part of its population ; 
but they are a community in special danger of being over 
looked. Closely related to both Anglo-Indian and native, 
they stand aloof from both, and the "mot" of the caustic 
old Indian who said, " God made the white man, and God 
made the black man, but the de'il made the brown man," 
represents too common a notion of them. Certainly any 
truth there may be in it is a reproach to the white man 
chiefly. Alliances between the two races are far less common 
than in days when communication with home was difficult, 
and now the community grows mainly by natural increase 
of the Eurasian population itself. 

"More and more," Irene writes in her Annual Letter to 
the College by Post of November, 1895, "is one impressed 
with the needs of those whom the Bishop of Durham has 
called ' our own poor in India,' that is, our fellow-Christians, 
whether of British or Oriental race, many of whom in spiritua/ 
privileges are poor indeed compared with Christians at home. 
I have been told in various parts of India what a glad 
welcome would be given to well-qualified ladies from home, 
coming out not as members of missionary societies, conversant 
with Eastern languages, but as church-workers, aiding the 
clergy in parochial visiting and honorary educational work, or 
with such good societies as the Girls' Friendly Society or 
the Young Women's Christian Association." 

Irene was never so exclusively associated with any one 



78 IRENE PETRIE 

form of Christian work that she could not regard others with 
intelligence and sympathy. Most earnestly she deprecated 
emphasising in such work differences of race and social 
grade, of church and party, Let all Christians, she pleads, 
strive together for their common faith, not only teaching but 
living Christ in the presence of those who do not acknow 
ledge Him. 

The Hon. Emily Kinnaird and other friends had asked 
her (and not in vain) to interest herself in the Indian work 
of the Young Women's Christian Association. Roughly 
speaking, it labours, untrammelled by considerations of 
Church order, for all who come between Anglo-Indian 
" society " and the non-Christian Hindu. 

For these strata St. Hilda's Diocesan Home^ working on 
strictly Anglican lines, had likewise been founded. Its 
name was due to the first Bishop of Lahore, Thomas 
Valpy French, who went with C.M.S. to Agra in 1851, and 
was consecrated in 1877. He had said that in his opinion 
the great Abbess of Whitby was the forerunner of all our 
valuable ladies' missions in Syria, the Punjab, and Japan, etc. 1 
Under his successor, Dr. Matthew, Miss Beynon began to 
organise work among Eurasians. In February, 1893, she 
wrote to Irene's sister from an hotel in Lahore, saying : " The 
work is opening out in every way. ... I am longing to hear 
of a coadjutor, and I am afraid my father will not sanction 
another winter alone in Lahore. ... No one has offered to 
join me yet." A month or two later came Mrs. Engel- 
bach's offer through Irene, and then Irene's own offer, and 
in October accordingly St. Hilda's Diocesan Home was 
opened at Lahore to be (so its original prospectus says) " a 
place of residence for honorary lady workers, auxiliaries to 
the parochial clergy, among Christians, whether European, 

1 See Life, vol. ii., p. 322. 



A WINTER IN LAHORE 79 

Eurasian, or native," the pioneer, it was hoped, of other 
similar homes in India. 

Lahore, the political capital of the Punjab, is on the Ravi. 
Its fine Anglican cathedral was completed by Bishop French 
in 1887, and east, south, and south-east of it are sandy roads, 
well planted with trees. Along these, each within its own 
rates and compound, are the European bungalows which 
constitute the civil station. Clustering round the strong fort 
overlooking the river are the crowded native quarters, and 
away to the north and east of the cathedral, which lies 
south of the native city, stretches the Naulaka district, 
inhabited by a large and growing European and Eurasian 
community, mainly employed on the railway. 

The St. Hilda's work was among this community, and 
also among the very poor Europeans and Eurasians of 
the Anacully district near the fort, who live among the 
natives and speak a jargon. " Many of the railway folks 
are well-to-do," says Irene, "and the children are very 
nice, but almost too good. Some Latymer Road liveliness 
would be welcome among them. We are warned that the 
chief difficulties will be in the limpness and touchiness of 
the people. However dark they are, one must never 
appear to be aware that they are not of lily and rose 
complexion. . . . One girl, who might be quite ' twelve 
annas to the rupee,' and whose mother was a pakka native, 
remarked, when the wonders of London were described, * It 
must be so nice not to see any natives about.' Fancy my 
effort to keep a straight face as I remarked that in London 
I had been one of a good many natives who were about." 
Concerning their religious condition Miss Beynon wrote thus 
in her letter of February, 1893: "There are some eight 
hundred belonging to the Church of England, and a large 
number of Roman Catholics ; a very small percentage attend 
any place of worship. I have never had the slightest rebuff, 



8o IRENE PETRIE 

and they seem quite ready to receive one as a friend ; and 
gradually, as their confidence is gained, we hope to introduce 
and carry on the various organisations of a well-ordered 
parish at home, modified to Indian requirements." 

St. Hilda's was a pretty one-storeyed bungalow in the 
European suburb, about a mile due east of the cathedral. The 
Bishop provided the house and some of its furniture out of a 
special fund ; the expenses of its upkeep were to be divided 
equally among its inmates. These were three in number : 
Miss Sahib (that is Miss Beynon), Mem Sahib (that is Mrs. 
Engelbach), and Choti Miss Sahib (that is Irene, also 
playfully called the "Baby"). On February nth they were 
joined by the Hon. Mrs. Ion Keith-Falconer. Irene was 
sacristan to the tiny chapel, where daily service was held 
at noon, with special requests for prayer and thanksgiving. 
11 As to the household," she writes, " it seems a great pity 
\hat Canada and India cannot make a sort of sandwich 
or exchange. There the rule of independence, high pay, 
and brisk work seems to hold ; here a very little work for 
a very little pay and many salaams to fill all gaps is the 
plan. Both this house and this household are reckoned 
small, and yet the house covers an area of about fifty by 
seventy feet, and there is quite a village of servants and 
their families in the compound. The khidmatgar and his 
son, a dark lad of fifteen, who waits as page, wear close- 
fitting white trousers, huge white turbans, and cloth tunic 
coats with white folded girdles. On their fingers are large 
silver rings set with turquoises. The bawarchi serves many 
small, dainty dishes. Waiting at every meal is the in 
variable rule, and for the simplest breakfast they spin out 
four courses, changing the plates between each with awful 
solemnity and precision. The mihtar squirms about the 
floors with a long, -soft broom and no dustpan ; the dhobi 
washes the clothes very well; the syce minds the horse, 



A WINTER IN LAHORE 81 

and when we drive out acts as a sort of steersman, shouting 
'Save yourself!' to any obstruction in front; the chaukidar 
minds the house. He appears on the scene in the evening 
with bare legs and a long stick, patrols the verandah through 
the night, choking and coughing professionally to let us all 
know he is there ; he also sweeps the hall and milks 
the cow. Would any of the unemployed in England like 
to come out here and cough professionally for ten hours 
out of the twenty-four for a salary of from ^4 to ^5 per 
annum, inclusive of board wages ? The only female servant 
is the ayah, who makes our beds and brushes our frocks. 
Frequently, though not permanently, the darzi, at a wage 
of half a rupee a day, sits in the verandah, making 
and mending our clothes, pushing instead of pulling his 
needle. What an extravagant household for three ladies ! 
the reader may say. But consider that the wages vary from 
about 4 to ;IQ a year, and that this includes everything 
they get. In many cases they keep not only themselves 
but their whole families on it. 

" The day is spent thus : At 6.30 the ayah is heard at 
my study door with chota hazri. Morning service at the 
cathedral or quiet reading of English and Urdu Testa 
ments precedes our 9 o'clock breakfast, followed by a 
morning's work indoors or out of doors, and our noon 
service. From 12 to 2 are the calling hours. The 
newcomers have to call on the old residents, and the 
limit of time for first calls prescribed by this sensitive Indian 
society is five to ten minutes. A c country-born ' Anglo- 
Indian once consulted me on starting for London as to 
whether it would be correct to ' call all round the station ' 
on arrival. Fancy starting with a card-case at Hounslow, 
and going steadily on to Epping Forest ! At 2 comes tiffin, 
then a lesson from the munshi ; at 4.30 tea, at which 
there is often a guest ; at 6 evensong in the cathedral, often 

6 



82 IRENE PETRIE 

followed by a district visitors' or other meeting. At 8 we 
dine, at TO we have prayers, and we are soon lulled to 
sleep by the chaukidar's cough and stick-tapping." 

Their work was of a kind that Irene was already familiar 
with. She became superintendent of the railway Sunday 
school, which met in the little Eurasian church under the 
charge of the Rev. J. W. B. Haslam, took the senior 
class herself, held a training class for four young teachers, 
and drew up a complete scheme of lessons for the winter. 
The Sunday school was small at first, but they intended by 
regular visiting to increase it. "We only get at the awfully 
respectable ones yet," she writes on December 2ist, "but 
hope to work outwards from them to the non-churchgoing 
class, who do not even know when Sunday is. ... Looking 
for someone else in the district, I stumbled on such a nice 
Christian couple from Madras, pakka natives. They asked 
me in; I saw the C.M.S. almanac on the wall, and found 
they and I had quite a number of common C.M.S. friends." 
They also found one old man whom Marshman had baptised ; 
he remembered Carey, the pioneer missionary of North India, 
who died in 1834. One great ally was the widow of an 
Athole Highlander, who spoke broad Scotch, though almost 
a pakka native. " Miss Petrie gets on splendidly in the 
railway Sunday school," Mrs. Engelbach wrote home. Her 
original class of eighteen rose to "two classes with about 
thirty pupils in all, such nice young people." 

On Mondays her ministry was to a very different type 
of need. "The matron of the lunatic asylum," she says, 
"begged me to come and read the Bible to the poor old 
European patients there, saying they were all almost heathen, 
no means of grace of any sort being provided, and Sundays 
being made exactly like week-days, so that she now felt 
quite ashamed in a church. I had such a touching little 
gathering, and they were grateful. One poor old thing had 



A WINTER IN LAHORE 83 

been there ever since the Mutiny, having lost her reason 
through shock then." Week by week, henceforth, " the poor, 
grateful old lunatics" had a large share of Irene's tenderest 
sympathy. 

Every Tuesday afternoon she held a " Ladies' Bible Class " 
for Eurasian women, who took it in turns to have it at their 
houses. Of this she writes : " All have been very pleasant 
about the proposal ; how many will come or continue is a 
question, but we do so long to get hold of these people and 
help them. Many hardly ever go to church, and their lives 
seem too often to be aimlessly drifting. They have not even 
the wholesomeness of work, as all keep servants. . . . One who 
gladly promised to attend said, later on, she hoped I would 
not be vexed at her non-appearance. But she was a Roman 
Catholic, and her priest refused absolution if she came to the 
Protestant Bible-reading. . . . We are simply appalled with 
the activity of the Roman Catholics out here. They induce 
many Protestant parents to send their children away to their 
hill schools, where they offer a free education, and profess not 
to interfere with their religion. It is high time we got to 
work ; hitherto the Methodists have been far more active than 
the Anglicans." At the first class, on January i6th, she 
proposed to the three present to pray for larger numbers, 
and a fortnight later there were eleven. Week by week 
she reports " a very nice class." When she bade them fare 
well, three months later, a dozen pupils filled her carriage, 
as she drove away, with lovely roses to express their appre 
ciation of her teaching ; and looking back she says : "It 
has been one of the most encouraging of my bits of work." 
" I have seen tears," says Mrs. Engelbach, " in the eyes of 
the Eurasian people when they spoke of Miss Petrie's visits 
to them, showing they were really grateful and thankful for 
what she had done." 

On Wednesdays she had a class for members of the Girls' 



84 IRENE PETRIE 

Friendly Society, to whom she gave a series of addresses on 
the heroes of the Bible. Her practical interest in this out 
lasted her stay in Lahore, for till the end of September 
she sent them monthly notes on the life of St. Paul no 
mere pious generalities, but carefully thought out hints as to 
the subject matter and special teaching of their daily readings, 
showing them what to look for in the Scriptures and how 
to think and pray as they read. Nearly six years afterwards 
a member of the class, writing to a clergyman in India, says : 
" I knew Miss Petrie personally, as she was for a short 
time an associate of our G.F.S. and held Bible meetings 
for us, and endeared herself to the girls. I feel sure her loss 
is keenly felt." 

On Saturday, besides the teachers' preparation class, she 
held a Band of Hope meeting, which began with twenty-six 
children and soon rose to fifty-one. Mackay of Uganda and 
Dr. Lansdell's Central Asian travels were among the subjects 
she talked to them about, and after the lesson she gave them 
"a much needed lesson in romping, poor, little, tame, quiet 
things. 

There was actual missionary work to be done without 
crossing the threshold. Two of the servants came forward 
as inquirers, and Miss Beynon began a class for them at which 
the khidmatgar, a convert from Mohammedanism and an 
excellent servant, showed the reality of his own faith in 
Christ by sitting side by side with the low-caste mihtar, and 
explaining his difficulties. This khidmatgar had a wife, bap 
tised rather prematurely with himself and quite uninstructed 
Every day Irene taught her and the ayah's daughter, a bright 
damsel of twelve. Her frequent allusions to Umda and 
Munira, "who is a darling, with such a sweet little face," 
show the delight she took in this first seed-sowing. On 
leaving Munira in Mrs. Engelbach's care after three 
months she writes : " The child knows nearly thirty texts, 



A WINTER IN LAHORE 85 

including the Lord's Prayer, and can read a little. She really 
seems to understand what prayer is, and the leading facts 
of the Gospel. But I fear the next thing I may hear will 
be that she is betrothed to some Mohammedan. The ayah 
told me she had been weeping about parting with me." 
Mrs. Engelbach supplements the story thus: "The first she 
tried to draw to Christ was our ayah's child, for whom she 
used to print a text clearly, explaining it to her as well as 
she could in her broken Urdu. I remember seeing that child 
pick up the paper when it had fallen on the floor and kiss 
it because it had God's Name on it. We must believe that 
the seed thus sown will yet bring forth fruit." But declining 
an offer from the two " Mem Sahibs " to send her daughter 
to school, the mother left Miss Beynon's service that summer, 
and nothing has since been heard of them. 

Bodily as well as spiritual needs appealed to Irene: one 
day she is doctoring Umda's baby for a dreadful boil ; another 
day dressing her little boy's wounded leg, Munira acting as 
hospital assistant. After giving instances of native treatment, 
she adds : " Certainly one could write some blood-curdling 
tales for the National Health Society here. The most 
wonderful thing to my mind is that any of the natives are 
left alive." 

During her twenty weeks at St. Hilda's she paid about one 
hundred and fifty visits in the district, and took nearly eighty 
Bible classes, and on leaving she could say : " Though there 
is often much that one is sorry for in the lives and general 
standards, spiritual and intellectual, of the English-speaking 
poor, I have found work among them both encouraging 
and satisfactory. Quiet perseverance in quiet work would, I 
believe, be a condition of great success in this as in other 
undertakings." 

Here is one typical day: "January 30^. Attended 
Miss Beynon's men-servants' class (as a listener and learner 



86 IRENE PETRIE 

at a lesson given in Urdu). Gave Munira and Umda their 
lesson. Drove to Lunatic Asylum for Bible reading. Paid 
another visit. Back for tiffin. Took women's Bible class at 
Naulaka; went on to the Mission College, where, to my 
horror, I found forty ladies, mostly clever people, gathered 
for the Bible reading I had been asked to give. Miss 
Beynon and Mrs. Engelbach had invited a musical party for 
the evening, and, as you can fancy, I was glad when the last 
guest had gone." 

The inmates of St. Hilda's combined with their church 
work a good deal of pleasant intercourse with their fellow 
Anglo-Indians. For Miss Beynon's relationship to not a few 
of those who had made the recent history of the Punjab 
rendered her circle a large one, and her colleagues had a warm 
welcome into it. We catch glimpses of calls and invitations 
innumerable ; of a scarlet-liveried chaprasi arriving on a camel 
with a summons to the Government House ball ; of a young 
officer in the Punjab Light Horse bringing invitations to tennis 
and his regimental ball, and claiming Irene as a kinswoman. 
And endeavouring to exercise in Lahore society that inde 
scribable influence which a good and clever woman, tactful 
and agreeable, can always exercise to counteract the tendency 
to find all life's interest in gay and costly clothing, gossip, 
and amusement, might have seemed no unworthy aim to 
one accustomed to life in London, and not formally pledged 
to any society or any kind of work. 

The Commissioner for Gurdaspur, in a letter lamenting 
that " her bright and active life had been taken so early 
from human view," says : " I met Miss Petrie first at 
Lahore, and was charmed with her musical talent." Concerts 
for an object are always popular and well patronised 
at a great Indian station, so of course Irene's fresh and 
perfectly trained voice was in request. She was greeted with 
" a burst of applause and an encore " when she sang at one 



A WINTER IN LAHORE 87 

arranged by Mrs. Engelbach for the cathedral organ fund; 
and on at least one occasion, when she dined out and had not 
brought her guitar, the hostess sent all the way to St. Hilda's 
for it. Nevertheless, there is no mention of her singing again 
in public, and as a rule, in spite of their remonstrances, she 
seems to have seen her colleagues off to dinner or concert, 
and settled down to a long evening with her Urdu books. 

Four dated extracts from letters will best express her own 
thoughts on the matter. December 2ist: "Showers of cards 
are left on us, but I really can't take in all these new friends yet, 
and I do want to get all the time I can for Urdu." December 
25th : " I do not want to spend a lot of time on society. I 
could do that at home, without coming all this way for it." 
January 2$rd : " I do not want to be drawn into very much 
society, pleasant as it is." January 3ist : "My aim is to get 
entangled in society as little as possible." 

The sketch of her home life shows that this aloofness sprang 
from no mere disinclination for society, nor was it the result 
of indifference to the occupants or enterprises of St Hilda's. 
In the same month of January she writes : " This is such a 
happy place ! " and " To be with two such delightful companions 
is wonderful." One of them told a meeting in London, five 
years later, that she " had thrown herself into the work with 
splendid energy " ; and wrote in a private letter : " Irene 
simply surprises me by keeping so bravely bright and energetic, 
when she must be feeling often the great change in her life 
and surroundings." Seldom as she went out, she was always 
ready to entertain the guests at St. Hilda's, though she did 
it sometimes at the cost of great weariness after an arduous 
day when they stayed so late in the evening that she says 
at last, not only of natives but of " sahib 16g " : " In India 
the belief seems to be that time is of as little account as 
silver in the days of Solomon." 

But her eyes were fixed on a distant goal ; the desire to 



88 IRENE PETRIE 

enjoy herself or to distinguish herself was wholly merged now 
in the desire to devote herself. She never sat in judgment 
on others, but she continually sat in judgment on herself, 
and the verdict was always the same: "My vocation in 
the face of this needy heathenism is to qualify myself for 
real missionary work as quickly as possible." Again and 
again in her letters she seems to say with the greatest of all 
missionaries, as she looks on the heathen, " I long after you 
all," and her harshest expressions are used concerning what 
she calls " the senseless and unworthy race prejudice." She 
grows indignant over Anglo-Indians who regarded the natives 
with scorn, in the spirit of the beardless subaltern, who, at a 
durbar, followed into the room a very great raja, ruler over 
millions, grumbling, "Who is this nigger going in before 
me ? " Hers was no romantic notion imbibed at home that 
picturesque heathen would be more interesting pupils than 
humble compatriots; she had learned to know something 
of the natives, even of the promising "inquirer" who turns 
out a thief; yet she describes them as " people whom one 
learns to like greatly in many ways." 

" I do long," she writes on Christmas Day, " to be a real 
messenger here; but as yet can do so little and have done 
so little." Then, after reference to Eurasian work, she con 
tinues : " My own longing, which seems more burdensome 
every day, is after these poor brownies, who know nothing, 
and from whom as yet, and for many a long day to come, 
I am utterly cut off. Fancy seeing the poor ayah really ill, 
and not being able to manage to tell her I am sorry. And 
worst of all, to feel she has no part in our Christmas joy; 
and one cannot wish her or any of the other domestics, 
except the khidmatgar, a happy Christmas. Every day is 
so dreadfully short ; and even now, when outside work is not 
in full swing, I don't get the real grind at the Urdu books 
I long for. ... I must go on learning, and try and get hold 



A WINTER IN LAHORE 89 

of the language, for I do long to be the real missionary article 
some day." 

Each fresh experience in India strengthened this yearning ; 
and we can well understand that the one social incident 
at St. Hilda's over which she was really keen was an 
"at home" with "a missionary exhibition" for attraction. 
The account of it may be prefaced by extracts from three 
letters written towards the close of that winter. Dealing 
with the general relation of Anglo-Indians to missions, she 
throws some light for us at home on the offhand disparage 
ment of them by the "cousin who has been in India," 
and the disappointing indifference to them of the returned 
globe-trotter, who appears neither to have found nor even 
looked for missionary enterprise in India. 

"The Lahore atmosphere, with few exceptions, does not 
stimulate missionary enthusiasm. Indifference among English 
people out here is, to my mind, far more depressing than 
the dark ignorance of the untaught natives, and that is 
saying a good deal. That they ever become Christians at 
all, considering the difficulties in missionary work, and the 
worse difficulties which stumbling-blocks caused by English 
' Christians ' must put in their way, is the real marvel, and 
shows that Christianity is no human thing. The English 
newspapers here, which are eagerly read by English-speaking 
natives, of whom there is a constantly increasing number, make 
one's heart ache, even though they contain ' patronising ' 
articles about missions occasionally." 

" I think it will have been a great advantage to have known 
the social as well as the missionary side of life in India. 
Certainly one sees how real many difficulties are. The climate 
alone limits life in many ways. When urgent work is waiting, 
an earnest missionary would not willingly give time or 
strength to society or social paraphernalia ; and yet even those 
who are well-disposed to missions are bursting with sharp 



90 IRENE PETRIE 

criticisms if there is anything of the hermit or the dowdy about 
the unfortunate missionary, who has probably put in so much 
wearing work that there has been no strength or time left for 
pleasant small talk or Truefitt hairdressing. Then the well- 
disposed society persons would like to help missionary work ; 
but they don't know much about it, and they have not the 
energy to make themselves acquainted with it, and theie are 
so many dinner parties, and then they get fever, and then it 
is time to move on, and a new home is started somewhere else. 
Add to all this the fact that, though India is a very free and 
easy place in many ways, there is a fearfully despotic Mrs. 
Grundy, whose mandates check many a would-be explorer in 
unfashionable regions." 

"The limpness and indifference to what lies outside their 
own lives is the great drawback with the English-speaking 
people of all hues, as a rule. Yet if they could be roused they 
might make excellent missionaries, knowing the language, and 
being acclimatised." 

So we turn to her record of one unpretentious effort to rouse 
them. " February 22nd. I went off early to fetch some spoils 
brought from Mandalay by the husband of one of my women, 
who was at its capture in January, 1886. . . . We then set to 
work, getting our exhibition ready, and soon the drawing-room 
was transformed : on one side, India, with Persia, Afghanistan, 
Burmah, and Tibet; then Japan, a corner brilliant with 
draperies and curios; then Africa, China, and Palestine; a 
stall of missionary literature for sale, from the beautiful Bible 
Society depot ; and a table of C.M.S. literature for giving away, 
instead of a plate for receiving contributions, as we wished to 
have a human collection of interested people rather than a 
few rupees. At 4 p.m. our guests arrived, between fifty and 
sixty in number ; and after food for the body in the wide hall, 
got food for the mind in the exhibition, and then passed into 
the dining-room for a meeting. The coloured " Plea for 



A WINTER IN LAHORE 91 

Missions " and a set of big maps were on the walls, and I 
had printed a huge scroll with Mark xvi. 15. Every seat was 
filled railway people, my Sunday school class and G.F.S. 
class, and our society friends being all well represented. 
Getting curios from the last brought them to the meeting. 
Mr. Haslam, who, like some others, had been rather a 
wet blanket when I first mooted the idea, presided, and 
did his part really well. Dr. Arthur Lankester (who had 
come over from Amritsar, where he is Dr. H. M. Clark's 
colleague) gave a first-rate address. . . . Our guests seemed 
greatly interested, and we were all delighted with the way the 
meeting went off. It had been my pet plan, and the other 
ladies were so nice, congratulating me on its organisation. 
Now we hope the whole thing will have a practical outcome." 

A well-known member of the C.M.S. who met the Bishop 
of Lahore at Lambeth Palace in June, 1894, wrote down at 
the time notes of conversation with him concerning St. Hilda's, 
in which the following sentences occur : " He admires im 
mensely Irene's intense earnestness and enthusiasm and 
energy. He entirely agrees with her in all her views 
as to 'society.' The society part and the missionary work 
cannot go on together ; people have neither time nor strength 
for both." 

Over against these words and this whole narrative must be 
set the record of her somewhat different but not inconsistent 
attitude to society at Srinagar, and its influence. 

It was not until she was on the point of leaving Lahore 
that Irene was able to make an opportunity for seeing the 
missionary work carried on in that city by the ladies of the 
Zenana, Bible, and Medical Mission. One sentence in the 
following account seems to explain the ignorance of missions 
shown by the average Anglo-Indian. 

"On April i8th I accompanied Miss Healey to the city 
in a jinricksha, along a beautiful road bordered with rich 



92 IRENE PETRIE 

plaintain groves. What a contrast it was to leave the green, 
airy suburbs where all the Europeans live, and passing 
through the city gate, to walk up the hot, narrow pathway 
between the tightly packed houses of mud and brick ! Many 
people in the station of Lahore never enter the city at all, 
and we did not see another white face till we were outside 
again. The houses, which have tiny rooms as a rule, are 
two or three stories high, the men's quarters being below, 
the women's upstairs such poky, narrow, steep stairs ! An 
open drain runs down the middle of each roadway, but as 
there is plenty of flowing water in it, the sanitation of the city 
is considered fairly good. The ups and downs of the streets, 
its white houses against an intensely blue sky, and talkative 
crowds in their picturesque dresses, recalled Lugano to me; 
but here, instead of campanile, domes and minarets closed 
in the view, with the short, thick, carved spires of the Hindu 
temples. Miss Healey and I went into two schools, in each 
of which nearly a score of small boys and girls, all Moham 
medans, were learning writing, reading, arithmetic, and 
Scripture, under the direction of a native teacher. Miss 
Healey had short prayers and gave a Scripture lesson. Several 
brought sums to me to be corrected ; and in one school I 
examined them in Genesis, with whose stories they seemed 
very familiar. We spent some time in a poor zenana, where 
an attractive group of red-robed women gathered instantly, 
and listened attentively to the teaching. The work is always 
growing, and a great work it is, though it must be a quiet one 
at present, for the difficulties that lie between these women 
and open profession of Christianity are terrible. . . . 

"On April igth I again accompanied Miss Healey, 
this time to visit my munshi's sweet little wife and 
pretty daughter. I quite fell in love with the former, who 
has a gentle face and manner, and a look of suffering, 
for she is lame, and must be nearly always in pain. She 



A WINTER IN LAHORE 93 

reads well, and is, Miss Healey thinks, a Christian at heart, 
in bigoted Mohammedan surroundings. I taught her, ' The 
beloved of the Lord shall dwell in safety by Him ; He 
covereth him all the day long, and he dwelleth between 
His shoulders,' which has been a favourite text with my little 
Munira, and read Psalm xxiii. to her." 

According to the official regulations of the C.M.S., "what 
ever a missionary attempts for the good of others during 
the first year or two years must be subordinated to his 
main work of acquiring the native language." Irene there 
fore gave all available hours to the study of Urdu. ' This 
mixed or composite dialect, literally " language of the 
camp," otherwise called Hindustani, has resulted from 
a fusion of Hindi with Persian and Arabic, and is now 
the lingua franca of India. Dr. Cust classifies it as one 
of the " conquering " languages of the world, since it is 
superseding many local dialects, though for an increasing 
number of the best educated Hindus it is being super 
seded itself by English. The fact that it is mainly an Aryan 
tongue, written, as a rule, in a Semitic character, curiously 
commemorates the Mohammedan conquest of India. 

Here are some dated glimpses of Irene at work upon it. 
December i2th: "Trying to master Urdu will be a real 
struggle up Hill Difficulty, I foresee ; and it is melancholy 
to be told that few missionaries can do much teaching before 
they have given two years of daily study to the language. 
Most societies arrange that the first year is spent entirely 
on it, so at any rate I am very happy in the opportunity 
of doing a little work at once among people who do not 
need more than English. But I am tempted to wish 
that I could beg or borrow from somewhere a love for 
linguistic study, such as comes naturally in musical study. 
However that may be, there is such an inducement to 
grind at Urdu as one has never had for any study before 



94 IRENE PETRIE 

in the helpless and useless state of being tongue-tied 
amid this spiritual starvation. Our munshi is a bigoted 
Mohammedan, but himself suggested that we should read 
the Testament, so I am working at St. John's Gospel. Please, 
readers, pray that light may shine out of darkness for him." 
On January i5th the stories told her by an American 
Presbyterian of work among villages intensified her longing 
after " these poor native women." The early morning hour 
she gave to reading the trying Persian character ; by lamplight 
in the evenings she worked at Urdu in the Roman character, 
which is, happily, being used more and more in India. 
Almost from the first she made undaunted efforts to talk, 
" which is like getting one's mouth full of water in the first 
attempts to swim " ; and reports exultingly by February 6th : 
" I am glad to say I am getting some liking for Urdu." By 
April loth she was able to join in the prayers and follow 
most of the speeches at a C.M.S. meeting. 

She never reconsidered her purpose of being a missionary ; 
the only question was : Where, and with whom ? and this 
was not settled at once. Going back to her first Christmas 
in India, we read of the arrival of a huge mail. " Never 
were letters and cards so appreciated," she says ; " it seemed 
as if one were watching and praying and praising beside 
the dear ones. I have far more than I ever expected to 
make happy the first Christmas away from all the people 
and places and things best loved." On New Year's Eve 
she wrote the one surviving fragment of private journal : 

" c Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days 
of my life.' December ^ist, 1893. Less than an hour left of 
this eventful year. Among all the things I can and do regret, 
as regards my personal life, I can and do give thanks for 
the lesson of trust to which all has pointed. He has taught 
us that we may trust the dear ones who have passed beyond 
the veil to the loving keeping of His home. He has shown 



A WINTER IN LAHORE 95 

how sufficient could be the strength for work, during the 
first six months of 1893, with their endless round of activities, 
and during the even greater pressure of the months of stirring 
excitement and upheaval in our lives. He has shown how 
He could cheer days of sorrow and loneliness and perplexity 
with His good gifts of friends to help and sympathise. . . . 
To me He has shown in countless ways how literal is the 
promise to hear and to answer prayer ; how He registers 
the desires, and how He can grant them. 

" Three years ago : ' Lord, show me Thy will.' Two years 
ago : ' Lord, help me to love Thy will.' One year ago : 
' Here am I, send me.' And He said, ' Go.' For it is 
His will that labourers should be thrust forth, and He can 
find a use for even the least of these. 

" He has shown how He can guide through every difficulty 
and danger. Shall I not carry the lesson of trust into 1894 
in His presence. Drudgery, perplexity, difficulty, loneliness, 
are certainly ahead, perhaps much else; but who shall 
separate us from the love of Christ ? . . . Oh to yield to 
Him so that His will may be done, and that He may be 
magnified even through me ! ' They that know Thy name 
will put their trust in Thee ; for Thou, Lord, hast never failed 
them that seek Thee.'" 

Thus did Irene keep her eyes, there as here, undazzled by 
all the allurements of the world, according to her mother's 
dying prayer ; and just a fortnight after she wrote those 
words she had, all unconscious of it, a vision of her goal 
in the fulfilment of a longing cherished from earliest years. 
She had always passionately loved mountains, a fact possibly 
connected with her parents' tour in Switzerland shortly before 
her birth. In her childhood the thought of the loftiest 
summits in the world, whose names she carefully learned, 
and whose appearance she often asked her uncle Major 
Way to describe, enthralled her with a strange fascination,. 



96 IRENE PETRIE 

In girlhood her answer to the question, "What place do 
you most want to see?" was, "Palestine, and then the 
Himalayas." 

On January i3th, after the 8 a.m. service, she went on 
the roof of Lahore Cathedral, and " looking north, through 
the clear morning air, saw the line of the glorious snowy 
Himalayas, with the early pink light on them." On 
March 8th she had a yet finer view from the roof of the 
Zenana House at Amritsar, of their outworks the Pir Punjal 
range, lying athwart the northern sky "over one hundred 
miles off, yet far more striking than the Alps from Berne," 
which famous view she had been fortunate enough to see 
in perfection. The vision drew her on till she found her 
appointed task in the great valley over which the Himalayas 
mount guard, and in one of their remote fastnesses she lay 
down to rest when that task was accomplished. 

Though she had no desire for a large circle of general 
acquaintance in India, she cultivated many missionary friend 
ships, which became a source of much pleasure, and four times 
visited Amritsar. This city, which is thirty-two miles from 
Lahore, and about the same size, is for the natives the com 
mercial and social capital of the Punjab its heart, while Lahore 
is its head. As Benares is the sacred city of the Hindus, 
Amritsar is the sacred city of the Sikhs, of whom later on Irene 
was to have many among her pupils, and the C.M.S. naturally 
made it their headquarters when, as we have told, they were 
asked to evangelise the Punjab. A group of C.M.S. men there, 
some closely associated with Kashmir, must now be intro 
duced. The Rev. Robert Clark, M.A. Cantab., Secretary 
to the Punjab and Sind Corresponding Committee of the 
C.M.S., went out in 1851, and had almost completed half a 
century of notable service when he died in May, 1900. 
She had known his wife in London, and corresponded 
with his daughter as a College by Post student. The Rev. 



A WINTER IN LAHORE 97 

T. R. Wade, B.D. Lambeth, went out in 1863. His first 
wife had been a friend of Irene's mother ; and she, just six 
years of age, had attended, as her first missionary meeting, 
a Zenana gathering in her mother's drawing-room, at which 
Mr. Wade had spoken when home on furlough. She met 
him again in London in 1888. Dr. Henry Martyn Clark, 
M.D., C.M., Edinb., an Afghan by birth and adopted son 
of Mr. R. Clark, has been a C.M.S. missionary since 1881, 
and is now at the head of the largest medical mission in 
the world. The Rev. Imad-ud-din, D.D., a man of good 
family, whose ancestors had been for generations among the 
leading Mohammedans of the Punjab, became famous as 
a maulvi and faqir, and in order to win back to Moham 
medanism a friend who had been baptised, began to study 
the Christian Scriptures, with the result that, after being a 
devoted Mohammedan for thirty years, he has become, since 
1866, not only a devoted Christian, but one of the ablest and 
most influential champions of the Christian faith in North 
India. In 1884 Archbishop Benson recognised the value of 
his theological and controversial works by conferring the 
degree of D.D. on him. He was the first Indian to receive it. 
On December 2yth Irene found herself in what she 
describes as "the most picturesque city of Amritsar. Its 
busy, narrow streets are shut in by high houses, mostly white, 
with beautiful lattice work. The varying heights of the build 
ings and strong effect of light and shade under the deep blue 
sky reminded us of Italian cities, especially Venice. We 
halted at the gateway leading to the sacred place of the Sikhs, 
and were conducted first to a shed, where brown laddies 
exchanged our leather boots for enormous cloth slippers. We 
were then allowed to traverse the white marble causeway 
leading across the celebrated lake, the ' Umrit Sara ' (Water of 
Immortality), to which from all parts pilgrims seeking healing 
for their bodies come to bathe. Exactly in the centre of the 

7 



98 IRENE PETRIE 

lake, on a tiny island, is the exquisite Golden Temple, where 
the chief guru and his six hundred assistants read the Granth. 
Since the guru Nanak wrote it and founded the temple in 
protest against prevalent forms of Hinduism three hundred 
years ago, this book has been the principal object of reverence, 
if not of worship, to the Sikhs. A solemn porter with a 
silver mace admitted us, showing, as he did so, the ancient 
oak doors, inlaid with ivory on one side, and faced with 
silver on the other. Some of the outer, walls are of 
white marble, inlaid ; within, the temple is a mass of rich 
colouring and gold, panels of ornament alternating with 
tablets on which extracts from the Granth are carved in 
Punjabi. At one end of the hall is a small charpai covered 
with rich silken draperies, among which the book is hidden. 
Offerings of flowers are laid on them. We were not allowed 
to step on some of the carpets in front of the book, though 
we might go round behind, and be close to the guru who 
was waving a soft brush of finest white silk to keep the 
flies off. We climbed by narrow steps to an upper story, 
whence we could look down to the hall below and listen 
to the group of musicians who were singing and producing 
discordant sounds from quaint-looking drums and fiddles. 
Going higher up still we emerged upon the roof, which was 
covered with gold plates. ... I was arrested by hearing the 
sacred Name ' Yesu Masih ' in one of the golden galleries ; it 
was the Rev. Donald Mackenzie (C.M.S.) preaching a Christian 
sermon within the very walls of the temple to his guide a 
former mission school boy and a respectful group of listeners. 
The tolerance and courtesy of these Sikhs gave a pleasing 
impression; but their religion of a book must indeed be a 
cold and empty one. Mr. Mackenzie persuaded the old 
guru to unwrap the sacred volume and read some of it aloud 
to us. All the Sikhs present stood round in dead silence, 
as the coverings were lifted and the intoning proceeded. 



A WINTER IN LAHORE 99 

When it ceased they made profound salaams, and then the 
musicians again performed. We recrossed the marble cause 
way to a second temple on the shore of the lake, to which 
the Granth is nightly carried in solemn procession to be 
put to bed," 

They then visited the noble C.M.S. Hospital and the 
Zenana House, where they met Miss Tuting, a former College 
by Post colleague, and saw Miss Jackson's class of eighty 
widows doing beautiful embroideries. Some five hundred 
children are in the C.E.Z.M.S. Schools; and the ladies also 
itinerate in the villages round, gathering about them women 
to whom the Gospel story is absolutely new. 

Irene paid a second visit to Amritsar on February loth to 
give an address upon Japan to members of the Gleaners' 
Union in Mrs. Wade's drawing-room. The audience included 
many native Christians wearing pretty chaddars. A letter from 
Miss Tapson and a New Year's card from a Japanese whom 
we had known in his Cambridge days, who was now a lord- 
in-waiting to the Crown Prince, illustrated her address; and 
she found it " strange to point to Lahore on the map as just 
midway between the Sunrise and Sunset Isles of the Sea." 

This time she went to the splendid Alexandra School, where 
daughters of Christians, mostly professional men, receive a 
first-rate English education, up to a High -school standard ; 
and St. Catherine's Hospital, which is the centre of a grand 
work for the women and children. " On the way," she says, 
" I saw many interesting things : a sacred bull, standing 
right across the road, helping himself to whatever he wished 
for in the shopfronts ; a big Hindu caravanserai, with tank 
and temple attached ; and a group of Central Asians in 
furry coats, to whom Mr. Wade talked in Persian. Miss 
Hewlett herself, 'the St. Hilda of the Punjab,' received 
me, and took me round St. Catherine's. She comes across 
all that is most sad in the lives of the women here. . . . 



ioo IRENE PETRIE 

Modified purdah seems much the safest plan for many of 
these poor things. . . . Then Miss Annie Sharp took me to 
her Blind School, where a touching group were squatting, 
knitting mats and making baskets. She is gradually collecting 
a library for them in Moon and Braille type. 1 The morning 
ended with house to house visiting and preaching in a 
Sikh quarter. Sometimes in the Mohammedan quarter they 
get no welcome; but the Sikhs are more courteous. We 
went into several mud houses, up the narrowest steps I ever 
saw, to the roof, a perfect swarm of women following and 
appearing from all the neighbouring roofs. Miss Sharp let 
me say John iii. 16 to them after her address; and they were 
much like the Athenians in the way they received the message. 
As we drove again through the narrow, swarming streets a 
distribution of vernacular tracts was made to many who 
eagerly asked for them. At 4.30 Mr. and Mrs. Wade 
fetched me, and we drove to the house of Dr. Imad-ud-din. 
The grand old ci-devant maulvi welcomed me with the 
Padre and Mem Sahib very politely, and in the drawing-room 
we found all the family assembled for the betrothal of 
his daughter. Mr. Wade read i Cor. xiii. and prayed in 
Urdu, all joined in the Lord's Prayer, and then the bride 
groom presented the engagement ring set with rubies and 
emeralds, and was presented with a diamond ring and silk 
handkerchief. Mrs. Imad-ud-din held a very private reception, 
and showed off a small grandson to the ladies. She still 
keeps purdah. I could not, to my regret, combine a native 
evangelistic service with fulfilling my promise to Daisy and 
Lily Wade of a farewell game. I danced to a whistled 
tune with each, having already initiated them into the ' Chop 
Waltz 'and the 'Three little Pigs.' Dear little bodies, they 

1 They Shall See His Face : Stories oj God's Grace in Work among the 
Blind and Others in India, by S. Hewlett, fully describes this much 
needed and most satisfactory work. 



A WINTER IN LAHORE 101 

whispered in such a confidential way, * Most ladies who come 
here don't do this sort of thing.' " 

Irene's third visit on March 8th was for the distribution of 
prizes by the two Mem Sahibs of St. Hilda's to the Zenana 
Mission School girls. Miss Tuting writes of her eagerness 
in watching them, and in spelling out the texts on the walls. 

She saw yet another school on her fourth visit on 
March 3oth, the beautiful Middle School, where seventy 
Christian girls of humble parentage are trained as teachers. 
The object of this visit was to confer with Mr. Clark about 
her own future plans. 

On January i5th, when she had been six weeks at St. 
Hilda's, she had written: "The Bishop and Miss Beynon 
want me to stay here out and out, and are beginning to 
wish to know my intentions, more than I can tell anyone 
at present, not knowing them myself." A month later, fresh 
from her second visit to Amritsar, she says : " It was splendid 
to get an insight into real work, and made me long to work 
among the pakka natives more than ever. In my as yet 
small experience, C.M.S. is still the ideal society, so far as 
ideality can exist. I wonder if I shall ever join it?" On 
February iyth she lunched with the Bishop, and though 
one omits many of her portraits of the living, one may 
insert her portrait of him. "The Bishop is delightful. 
He is a little like Bishop Westcott in the face, and 
spirituality and charity strike one as two prominent character 
istics, as well as plenty of kindly common sense. To him 
I said : * I wished for missionary work before coming to 
India ; I wish for it more than ever now.' His advice was : 
'C.M.S., if you are free to join them.' Both the Bishop 
and Miss Beynon are very nice, and delightfully kind about 
it all, and tell me not to hurry a decision, and say how 
sorry they will be to lose me, but that if my heart is in 
the native work, C.M.S. is the best outlet." 



102 IRENE PETRIE 

The day she wrote this (February 27th), Mr. Wade was 
writing to her : " I am sure the C.M.S. would gladly welcome 
you as an honorary worker, and would offer you any kind of 
work to which you would feel most drawn. Speaking for 
myself, and so far as I know the minds of others, we should 
all be delighted to have you. You ask for my advice. Do 
everything in concert with the Bishop and your present 
friends; we are all members of one great army out here. 
Missionary work should be life work ; if God calls us to it, 
we should wait till He calls us from it before we give it up." 

On March 2nd she wrote to Mr. Clark, formally offering 
to the C.M.S. He replied: "I have read your letter with 
joy and thankfulness to God, Who has put it into your heart 
to desire to help forward His cause among the heathen. I 
am sure that the Committees both in London and in India 
will gladly accept you, and will endeavour to find such work 
for you as will best meet your wishes and utilise your special 
gifts. . . . But I sympathise with St. Hilda's and its workers in 
Lahore. God needs many good workers among Europeans 
and Eurasians also, who will teach the pure, simple word 
of God without additions or any alterations." 

She then wrote to the C.M.S. headquarters in London, saying 
at the same time in her weekly letter : " I shall be very sorry 
to say good-bye to the nice friends of the past months, and 
should not do so if there were not good prospect of the 
St. Hilda's work being well carried on. ... My own spirits 
are certainly on the rhe, as C.M.S. plans mature." The 
educational work at Amritsar attracted her strongly; but 
taking Mr. Clark's advice, she came to no hasty decision. 

Those to whom the initials " C.M.S." are entirely familiar 
must forgive a momentary pause upon their significance at 
this point for the information of others. The Church 
Missionary Society is the younger of the two great Anglican 
societies, and during its hundred years of existence has 



A WINTER IN LAHORE 103 

become the greatest missionary society in the world, both 
in the extent of its operations and the amount of its annual 
income. Its full title, " Church Missionary Society for Africa 
and the East," reminds us that at its foundation in 1799 no 
Anglican was preaching to the heathen in either Asia or 
Africa. These continents have ever been its chief concern, 
but it has some work in Canada and New Zealand, labouring 
always among natives only, and not among our own country 
men also. In one hundred years it has sent out just over 
two thousand European missionaries, of whom exactly half 
went during the first eighty-two years, and half in the last 
eighteen years of its existence. Between twelve hundred 
and thirteen hundred of these are now labouring, and the 
natives whom they have won to the faith now number more 
than a quarter of a million. These figures will not appear 
large when we compare them with the accounts of men and 
money given to religious and philanthropic work at home, 
or with the number of still unevangelised heathen in the 
world, or with the fact that only one-seventh of our own 
fellow-subjects are even nominally Christians. Of the three 
hundred and fifty millions that Queen Victoria now rules> 
sixty millions are Mohammedans and two hundred and forty 
millions heathen. 

Lahore has the reputation of being the hottest city in India, 
and after March a blaze of fierce sun and burning winds 
from the sandy plains render it unbearable. So in April 
St. Hilda's was broken up for the summer ; Miss Beynon went 
to England, the two Mem Sahibs to Simla. In December 
Mrs. Keith-Falconer became Mrs. F. E. Bradshaw, Mrs. 
Englebach working at S. Hilda's for a second winter. Irene, 
on April 2 5th, the very day that the C.M.S. Committee in 
London were accepting her as "an honorary missionary in 
local connexion," crossed the frontier into Kashmir, little 
realising that she was entering a country that would be the 



104 IRENE PETRIE 

scene of all her future work. Before following her thither 
we must glance at the subsequent development of St. Hilda's. 

The step which Bishop Matthew took in making that 
institution an integral part of his diocesan organisation had 
been anticipated by his predecessor ; for in 1883 Bishop French 
dedicated to her work as a Zenana missionary, by a solemn 
prayer from the pulpit, the daughter of Sir Henry Norman, 
thus expressing his own conviction on the subject of definitely 
consecrating to their appointed tasks whole-hearted Christian 
women. During the winter 1892-93 Miss Beynon reconnoitred 
the ground ; during the winter 1893-94, when Irene joined 
not only as an ardent but as a trained and indefatigable 
worker, the institution passed through its experimental stage. 
Later on, under the wise guidance of the Bishop, who drew 
out a regular rule of life for its inmates, it became firmly 
established as St. Hilda's Deaconess House. 

Since Dean Howson, more than thirty years ago, urged upon 
an unwilling Church the importance of organising women 
workers, carefully selected women have been ordained as 
" deaconesses " by the Bishops of several English dioceses. 
Precedent for this was found not in the religious "orders" 
of mediaeval monasticism, but rather in the feminine diaconate 
of the Apostolic Church, of which we catch glimpses in the 
New Testament. In India such deaconesses are needed even 
more than at home. Here the clergy may reckon on much 
regular help from residents, who become district visitors, 
Sunday school teachers, etc. There, as " station folks " 
become less and less stationary, their help must be most 
casual and intermittent. Meanwhile, the pastoral work of the 
Church among the poor English, the Eurasians, and the native 
Christians is ever growing. Hence the scheme of ordaining 
women, after two or more years' training and probation, for 
three kinds of work parochial, educational, and missionary 
and the developing of St. Hilda's as "a residence for the 



A WINTER IN LAHORE 105 

deaconesses and probationers, and a centre of deaconess 
work." 

On November i7th, 1896, the Bishop of Lahore ordained 
its founder as " Deaconess Katherine Beynon." She was the 
first to be so set apart in India, and the only other as yet 
ordained is Deaconess Ellen Lakhshmi Goreh, author of the 
well-known poem " In the secret of His presence how my 
soul delights to hide," and daughter of the famous Brahman 
convert of Benares, Padre Nehemiah Goreh. She is working 
under the Bishop of Lucknow with a second deaconess from 
England, and another English deaconess has lately gone to 
the diocese of Lahore to work in the Cambridge Delhi 
Mission. It is hoped that a permanent Deaconess House 
at Lahore may commemorate Bishop Matthew. The enter 
prise is yet in its infancy, but gives every promise of vigorous 
growth, since it is part of that larger movement of our 
day which claims that women seriously taking up any career, 
after definite training, should be recognised not as mere 
amateurs but as professed and professional workers. 



CHAPTER VI 

KASHMIR 

The light shineth in the darkness ; and the darkness overcame it not 
(JOHN i. 5, R.V., margin). 

Thick darkness shall be driven away (IsA. viii. 22, R.V., margin). 

THE stupendous chain of mountains that forms the back 
bone of the Old World, dividing the windy plateaux of 
Central Asia from the burning plains of India, is most appro 
priately named the Himalayas that is, the " Abode of Snow." 
About the middle of it, fed by this snow, rise two mighty 
rivers the Ganges, to which Bengal owes its extraordinary 
fertility, and the Indus, whence the whole peninsula takes its 
designation. One of the five great tributaries of the Indus is 
the Jhelum or Jehlam, which, before it pours into the Punjab 
through a series of gorges, waters a remarkable alluvial plain 
lying to the north-east of that land. This fair oasis in the 
very heart of the rugged Himalayan system is a unique feature 
on the earth's surface. Legend tells that it was once a 
huge tarn, where dwelt a man-eating monster called Juldeva. 
Kashaf, a holy rishi, after a thousand years of prayer pre 
vailed with Vishnu to drain the Lake ; the waters gushed out 
through the Baramula Pass, the monster perished, and the 
newly reclaimed Vale, taking the saint's name, was hence 
forth known as Kashmir. 1 Three lovely lakes are found in 
it to-day the Wular, forty miles in circumference, the Dal 

1 See Major-General Newall's Highlands of India* 
106 



KASHMIR 107 

(pronounced " dull "), six by three miles, and Manasbal, about 
the size of Grasmere. Legend apart, it is highly probable 
that they are relics of one original lake, occupying an area 
of at least 1,500 miles. These mirror-like lakes and the 
Jhelum, with its many canals, form a sort of arterial system 
to the Vale; and the loops and windings of the river, as 
it placidly meanders through fields and hamlets, are said to 
have suggested the pattern of the celebrated Kashmir shawls. 
It is navigable from Islamabad to Baramula. 

Kashmir is divided from the Punjab by the Pir Punjal 
range, which is from 9,000 to 15,500 feet high ; and from 
Tibet by the Western Himalayas, averaging 18,000 feet. 
Everest, the highest peak of the Himalayas (29,000 feet), lies 
far away to the south-east; but from Kashmir can be seen 
Nanga Parbat (pronounced " Nunga Perbut "), one of the most 
imposing mountains in the world. The area enclosed by these 
two ranges is about a hundred by fifty miles in size, and 
lies 5,200 feet above the sea. About half of it is as flat as the 
Norfolk Broads ; while the portions towards the mountain 
bases are not unlike the hilly parts of Surrey in configuration. 
Roughly, it is in the same latitude as Jerusalem, Gibraltar, 
and California. 

The marvellous beauty and great fertility of the land which 
Orientals fondly speak of as " Kashmir, equal to Paradise," 
made it in olden times the prey of ruthless conquerors, 
and bring thither an ever-growing number of tourists and 
holiday-makers to-day. The poet and the historian, the 
traveller and the sportsman, have sung its praises again and 
again. All that need be done here is to point out in its 
past what will explain the character of its people and their 
religious condition in the present. 

Many mission fields are without annals because they had 
no written language till European missionaries gave them 
one. But Kashmir possesses a civilisation more ancient 



io8 IRENE PETRIE 

than our own, and a history five thousand years long, which 
may be divided into three periods. The first, from 3000 B.C. 
to A.D. 1341, was a romantic period, when it was ruled by 
native princes. This begins with a mythical golden age, 
when Kashaf peopled the Vale with a pure race, and built the 
original of the magnificent Temple of the Sun at Martand, 
whose ruins command what is probably the finest view in 
the whole world. There are chapters in this history which 
read like tales of mediaeval chivalry. A line of rois faineants 
ended in a high-souled queen, Kotereen, whose first husband, 
a Tibetan, deposed her father and ruled in her right till 
his death. Her prime minister then forced her to marry 
him, whereon she stabbed herself, leaving him to rule as 
the first Mohammedan sovereign of Kashmir. 

This opened a second and very different period, from 1341 to 
1819, the Mohammedan period of subjection to foreigners and 
frequent civil wars. From 1587 to 1753 Kashmir was a part of 
the Mogul Empire the only part which is not now under the 
direct rule of the Empress of India. The two most notable 
Mogul Emperors were both closely associated with Kashmir : 
Akbar, whose reign (1555-1605) almost coincides with that 
of Queen Elizabeth, conquered it ; Aurungzebe, whose reign 
(1658-1707) almost coincides with that of Louis XIV., 
was the father of Lalla Rookh, heroine of the poem by 
Thomas Moore which familiarised Kashmir to the general 
English reader of a past generation. It was Jehanghir, 
Akbar's successor, who made for his bride, the renowned 
Nurmahal, three lovely gardens on the Dal Lake the 
Shalimar Bagh, Nishat Bagh, each enclosing a palace, and 
the Nasim Bagh. They were the Balmoral of those of 
Victoria's predecessors whose capital was Delhi. The Mogul 
rule was followed by nearly seventy years of misery under 
the oppressive deputies of Persian conquerors. 

In 1819 the third and latest period was inaugurated 



KASHMIR 109 

through the conquest of a Sikh, Runjit Singh, " the lion of 
the Punjab." Sikh rule, latterly under British influence, has 
been the lot of Kashmir for the last fourscore years : 
for after Runjit's death in 1839 (when four queens and 
five Kashmiri slave girls were burned alive on his pyre), 
Golab Singh, the descendant of an old Dogra family, won 
confidence as mediator between contending parties in the 
distracted land. He was already Raja of Jammu, and in 
1847 Lord Hardinge made him Maharaja of Kashmir; in 
fact, when the Treaty of Amritsar closed the first Punjab War, 
he purchased the throne out of the plunder he had carried 
off to Jammu from Runjit Singh's treasure in the fortress 
of Lahore. His dominions included the basin of the Jhelum, 
still connoted geographically by the term Kashmir, whose 
capital is Srinagar; Jammu, the residence of the Maharaja 
during most of the year, which lies on the south slope of the 
Pir Punjal range, about two hundred and thirty-five miles due 
south of Srinagar; and a region beyond the Western Himalayas 
to the north-east of the Vale of Kashmir, the basin of the 
Upper Indus, consisting of the three provinces of Gilgit, 
Iskardo, and Ladakh. Into that region, whose capital is Leh, 
Chapter XIII. will take us. Politically the whole territory ruled 
by the Maharaja is called Kashmir, and forms a country 
nearly equal in extent to England and Scotland together, 
with a population (1891) of about two and a half millions. 
Kashmir is the most northerly of the native States which 
acknowledge the Qaisar-i-Hind as suzerain, and commands 
the great trade routes into Central Asia. Hence control of 
it is a matter of vital political and strategical importance 
to Great Britain. 

Golab Singh died in 1857, and Colonel Urmston prevented 
the immolation of his five widows as suttees. His son 
Runbir Singh reigned from 1857 to 1885, when the present 
Maharaja, Pertab Singh, succeeded. He had only been on 



no IRENE PETRIE 

the throne four years when much of his power was trans 
ferred to a State Council, of which he is president. Laws 
made by this Council have to receive a final sanction from 
the Government of India through the Resident in Kashmir, 
a change which is working slowly but steadily towards the 
wellbeing of a land that has suffered much at the hands 
of its rulers. 

Turning again to geographical and historical Kashmir, the 
alluring Vale which has been coveted and conquered by all 
its neighbours in turn, we find representatives of many tribes 
and many tongues within its borders to-day. What has been 
the result of its history for the handsome, olive-skinned race 
who are its own people ? They are a cheery, civil, plausible 
folk, witty in repartee, industrious as farmers, and most artistic 
and skilful, as their embroideries and handicrafts in metal and 
papier-mache show. Unburdened with anxiety for the morrow, 
and free from the crush of competition, they lead a natural 
animal life, with as few cares as they have hopes. The well- 
deserved reputation of the women for beauty has caused them 
to be kidnapped for harems in all parts of India \ the children 
are most winsome, and the parents seem fond of them and 
kind to them. But to a fine physique the Kashmiris add few 
manly, and to a quick intelligence few moral qualities. It is 
characteristic of them that while the women do all the hard 
work, the men produce the fine embroideries, and that their 
arts are of a kind that call for little muscular effort. The 
Persians have a proverb that from a Kashmiri you can never 
experience anything but sorrow and anxiety. Mrs. Bishop, 
who has kindly words for so many of the remote races she 
has visited, describes the Kashmiris as " false, cringing, and 
suspicious." Mr. E. F. Knight says that they are incorrigible 
cheats and liars, cowardly to an inconceivable degree, for a 
Kashmiri will receive a blow from a man smaller than himself 
and not dare to return it. Irene says : " They are the 



KASHMIR in 

most entirely unpatriotic people one ever knew. They 
will always have a sneer at their own countrymen. I gave 
a darzi some bags to make for my pupils' reading-books 
the other day. These were cobbled in such a style that I 
told him I should be far too ashamed to think of giving 
such things away. 'I thought they were only for Kashmiri 
16g,' was his excuse." So little public spirit have they that 
they have been seen quietly watching the ravages of a 
fire, without making any effort to prevent it spreading. The 
Zenana missionary who tells this, also tells that once when 
she was impelled to say, " O dear Kashmiri women, why 
won't you wash ? " they looked at her wonderingly, and 
replied, "We have been so oppressed that we don't care 
to be clean." That explains all. Used abominably for 
generations, they use each other abominably; and so where 
Nature is fairest one sees sadly illustrated the pregnant phrase 
of Wordsworth, " What man has made of man." 

Only one-third of the Vale is said to be under tillage. 
Properly cultivated it could easily support four millions. Its 
actual population is estimated (in the absence of census 
returns) at from one-third to one-quarter* of that number. 
The mass of the people live in its numerous and thickly 
clustering villages. Islamabad, over fifty miles up the river 
from Srinagar, contains eight thousand people, and is the 
only town of any size besides the capital. 

Srinagar (pronounced "Sreenugger "), "the City of the 
Sun " or " the Holy City," stands in size twenty-second among 
the cities of India. Its population is variously estimated at 
from 120,000 to 140,000 that is, it contains from 20,000 to 
30,000 less than Lahore and Amritsar j or to compare more 
familiar places, it is rather larger than Brighton, and less 
than half the size of Edinburgh. Old maps sometimes call 
it "Cashmere," a name ambiguous enough already. It is 
said to have been founded by Provarsen, a half fabulous 



ii2 IRENE PETRIE 

native prince who conquered all India. Poets sang its praises 
as " the City of Roses " ; and in the distance it is very striking. 
Seven quaint bridges of deodar logs, on the cantilever 
principle, span the sluggish coils of the Jhelum, and the 
approaching tourist is attracted not a little by its four- or five- 
storied houses with protruding, carved balconies and its lovely 
baghs. But the gaudy ugliness of the Lai Mundi Palace 
and other modern public buildings, and the crooked and 
flimsy structure of its dwellings generally, proclaim a race 
degenerate from the builders of the imposing and symmetrical 
temples whose ruins suggest that Kashmiri architects were 
once under the influence of the Greek occupiers of the 
Punjab. Moreover, the resident in Srinagar has to confess 
that from its picturesque canals arises a massive and un 
relieved stench, which is never forgotten by those who have 
once inhaled it. 

Here is Irene's description, written in November, 1895 : 
"Let me take you in imagination a little voyage in our 
shikari up the great river Jhelum, where it forms the main 
highway through this capital city of Srinagar. Just now it 
is reflecting golden poplars and crimson chenar-trees on its 
banks, with more distant mountain ranges on all sides covered 
with fresh fallen snow, which look dazzling as the last autumn 
sunshine lights them up against the blue sky. . . . Srinagar, 
with its water-ways, palaces, bridges, and graceful, fair- 
skinned inhabitants, suggests Venice, though Venice much 
dilapidated. But from Venice there are no such views as 
one may see here on a clear autumn day. It is perhaps 
the dirtiest city in the world ; and most of the houses look as 
if they could not survive the next flood or earthquake. The 
shining pinnacles and tall minarets belong to Hindu temples 
and Mohammedan mosques, and we may search the city in 
vain for a Christian church." 

Much has been done in the last ten or twelve years for the 



KASHMIR 113 

material progress of Kashmir. Our soldiers are disciplining the 
hitherto nondescript army of this outpost of the Empire ; our 
statesmen are reforming abuses, reorganising the Post-office, 
the Public Works and Forest departments, and the State 
finances. The land settlement effected by Mr. Lawrence and his 
coadjutors is greatly and permanently benefiting the oppressed 
peasantry. Merchants from more than one European country 
are developing trade and manufactures ; British engineers are 
making roads and bridges, providing pure water, draining 
land; not only facilitating commerce, but averting the awful 
floods of the past, and the still worse disasters of famine 
and plague, which ought to be unknown where the soil is 
so fertile and the climate so fine. But carriage of supplies 
across the frontier was formerly so difficult, uncertain, and 
expensive that whenever heavy rain and cold during October 
disappointed them of the rice harvest there was dearth. The 
famine of 1876-78, in which from one-third to two-fifths of 
the Kashmiris were swept away, was directly due, according 
to Sir Lepel Griffin and Dr. Downes, to the maladministra 
tion of corrupt native officials ; and visitations of cholera have 
been wholly the result of outrageously defying sanitary laws. 
Irene longed " for an army of health missionaries to follow in 
the wake of the Gospel missionaries and teach practically 
that cleanliness is next to godliness." 

And what of the life which cannot be lived by bread alone ? 

Two hills, rising sharply out of the plain and visible far 
across it, form the landmarks of Srinagar, which stretches 
towards them from the river winding through its heart. The 
Dal Gate, at the south-west extremity of the Dal Lake, lies 
between them. Hari-Parbat, the smaller one, three hundred 
feet high, is crowned with a fort built by Akbar, and below it, 
says legend, Juldeva lies, like Enceladus beneath Etna. 
The Takht-i-Suleiman ("Solomon's Throne"), the larger one, 
over a thousand feet high, is a queer, isolated, conical peak, 



H4 IRENE PETRIE 

the " Arthur's Seat " of Srinagar, steep but not difficult of 
ascent. From its summit one gets the best view of the 
city, rising from the rich alluvial plain, with its network of 
canals, set in fields of rice and maize, amid clear streams, 
shady chenar groves, and luxuriant gardens. The girdle of 
mountains, whence flow a thousand fountains and brooks, 
rises beyond; their lower slopes dark with pines, deodars, 
or cedars, their brows gleaming with perpetual snow, 
Haramuk (16,000 feet), Kotwal (14,000 feet), and Mahadeo 
(13,000 feet) being their most conspicuous heights. Here 
one realises why the poet sang of the Vale as " an emerald 
set in pearls." The Takht is crowned by the oldest re 
maining temple in Kashmir, a building which epitomises 
the whole religious history of the country. 

About 250 B.C., when Rome and Carthage were beginning 
to grapple together in the Punic Wars, Asoka introduced 
Buddhism into Kashmir, supplanting a primitive serpent 
and nature worship. His son Jaloka built the original 
temple here, and gathered Buddhist priests to it in con 
vocation about 200 B.C. About 250 A.D., when Cyprian 
and Origen were moulding the theology of a Christian 
Church still in the fires of Imperial persecution, the temple 
was rebuilt and dedicated to Mahadeva, that is, Siva; for 
about the time of the Fall of Jerusalem Hinduism had been 
introduced into Kashmir, where it flourished for more than 
a thousand years. Pupils flocked to its most famous schools 
and professors there, and pilgrims visited the scenes of many 
of the favourite tales of Hindu heroes and gods. Before 
Hinduism, Buddhism vanished away, slowly but utterly, un 
less the rishis of Kashmir may be regarded as survivals of it. 
Irene met one of these whose only occupation was enlarging a 
tomb which his father had spent fifteen years of his life in 
digging out of a deep mountain cavern in expiation of the 
crime of murdering his wife. She heard of another given 



KASHMIR 115 

wholly to prayer and fasting, who was visited by the 
Maharaja and others on the Moslem holy day. These 
anchorites recall the hermits of the Thebaid. 

About the time that Wycliffe was inaugurating the Lollard 
movement in England, Mohammedanism was being estab 
lished in Kashmir, and the fanatical zeal of Sikandar 
Butshikan (Alexander the Iconoclast) was demolishing not 
only the idols but many of the most massive temples of 
Hinduism. Islam claimed the Takht as a sacred place, 
since it owed its name to the tradition that "the flying 
throne of star-taught Solomon" was set on it once, Adam, 
Noah, and Mohammed all figuring in the complicated legend 
of an umbrella which there sheltered the Wise King. 
Nothing remains of the Buddhist temple, only fragments of 
the old Hindu temple ; and when the Sikh rulers of Kashmir 
in our own century wrested the Takht from the Moslem, 
it was a mosque which they restored with plaster and white 
wash, and re-dedicated to Siva, still the favourite Hindu 
god in Kashmir. Every day now a priest appointed by the 
Maharaja, who is a devout Hindu, climbs the Takht with 
an offering of milk and rice and flowers, and mutters a prayer 
round the shrine of the idol within. 

In India as a whole, according to the 1891 census, there 
were almost 189,000,000 Hindus and almost 54,000,000 
Mohammedans. Five centuries of Islam triumphant in 
Kashmir have reversed this proportion there, and it now claims 
at least three-quarters, Dr. Neve thinks fourteen-fifteenths, of 
the population, the " masses " of Kashmir. The minority of 
Hindus form its "classes," being nearly all of the Brahman 
caste. The inferior castes were either driven out of the 
country or forced to accept Islam. Its conquest has been 
(so to say) avenged in this century on the Mohammedan 
many by the Hindu few, for they form the official class, a 
large number of them being employed in the State service. 



n6 IRENE PETRIE 

They are all called pundits, a word whose significance 
may be likened to that of " clerk " in the Middle Ages. In 
the abstract, though not where breaking of caste is concerned, 
Hinduism is more tolerant than Mohammedanism ; but in 
Kashmir, where they have neither Government nor officials 
to back them, Mohammed's followers dare not display their 
wonted intolerance. Moreover, the ordinary Kashmiri is more 
of a saint-worshipper than a true Moslem ; he can repeat 
the Kalima, and knows the names of the six great prophets ; 
but in calamity he turns to his pir to help him. His shrines 
are often on former Hindu sites, and the Hinduism of his 
ancestors appears beneath the veneer of Mohammedanism. 
Below both is the aboriginal nature-worship, dying hard 
before more formulated creeds. 

There is yet another chapter of the religious story of the 
Takht. Conspicuous on an outlying spur of it, known as 
the Rustum Gari, beneath which nestles the village of 
Drogjun, rises now a cruciform building whose tale will be 
told presently, where the worshippers of Christ gather daily. 
Its spire points to heaven at a lower elevation than the top 
of the domed Hindu temple, and it does not actually crown 
the Rustum Gari. Round the summit of that secondary 
height runs a fence, above which no one may build, for 
the Kashmiris believe that he who lives on Rustum Gari 
will rule Kashmir. Nearer than aught else to this fateful 
summit stands the group of mission buildings, consummated 
by the church, predicting that even as the idolatries of the 
ancient world dropped into the darkness of oblivion before 
the uplifted Cross of Christ, so must the gloomy creed of 
Islam and the blind and often revolting rites of Hinduism 
fall when the Kingdom of God comes with power in Kashmir. 

No political excitements, no startling tragedies, no extra 
ordinary results have called public attention to missionary 



KASHMIR 117 

work in Kashmir. Taking it as a typical C.M.S. station, 
we shall find, ere we have proceeded far, that its short history 
is an instructive commentary upon the popular notion that 
ardent pietists at home, knowing nothing of far-off lands, 
raise large funds which societies spend in providing snug 
berths for mediocre people who would have little chance 
in their own country, and whose well-meaning efforts for the 
heathen are mostly misdirected and futile. 

Both the brevity and the precision of our story will be 
aided by beginning, for convenience of reference, with a 
complete list of all the missionaries who have laboured there. 
Those of the C.M.S. are in ordinary type, those of the 
C.E.Z.M.S. in italics, those who have died in capitals, 
those no longer there in ( ), and those in local connexion 
are marked *. 

MISSIONARIES TO KASHMIR. 

1865-72. WILLIAM JACKSON ELMSLIE, M.D. Edin. (C.M.S.). 
1874-75. (Dr. Theodore Maxwell, B.A., B.Sc., M.D., Lond.) 
1877-82. (Dr. Edmund Dowries, M.D., F.R.C.S., Edin.) 

1882- Dr. Arthur Neve, L.R.C.P., F.R.C.S., Edin. 

1883- Rev. James Hinton Knowles and Mrs. Knowles. 
1886- Dr. Ernest F. Neve, M.D., F.R.C.S., Edin. 
1888- Miss Elizabeth Gordon Hull. 

1888-89. FANNY JANE BUTLER, L.K.Q.P.S. (C.E.Z.M.S.). 

1888-91. (Miss Rainsford.) 

1888-93. (Miss Elizabeth M. Newman.) 

1890- Rev. Cecil Earle Tyndale-Biscoe, M.A. Cantab. 

1891- Mrs. C. E. Tyndale-Biscoe (m. Nov., 1891). 

1891- *Miss AmyJudd(Urs. R. V. Greene, m. July, 1896). 
1891-92. (Miss Huntley, M.D.) 

1891-92. (Miss M. K. Webster.) 

1892- Mr. Robert Venables Greene. 

1893- Miss Annie Coverdale (in local connexion, 1890-91). 
1893- Miss Catharine Newnham (transferred to C.M.S., 1900) 
1894-97. IRENE ELEANORA VERITA PETRIE (C.M.S.). 

1895-96. (Miss May Pryce-Srowne.) 
1896-98. (*Mzss Kathleen Howatson.) 
1897-99. (*Miss Rudra [Mrs. Sing/t\). 



n8 IRENE PETRIE 

1897- *Miss Foy. 

1897- Miss Bessie Martyn. 

1898- Miss Mary Nora Neve (in local connexion, 1891-96). 

1899- Rev. Cecil Edward Barton, B.A., and Mrs. Barton. 

1899- *Miss Stubbs. 

1900- Miss Minnie Gomery, M.D. 

MISSIONARIES STATIONED ELSEWHERE AND OTHERS, WHO HAVE 
HELPED IN KASHMIR TEMPORARILY. 

1864, etc. Rev. R. Clark, M.A., & Mrs. Clark (C.M.S., Amritsar). 

1865. Rev. W. Smith, (C.M.S., Benares). 
1865. Rev. A. Brinckman (S.P.G.). 

1865. Rev. W. G. Cowie (afterwards Bishop of Auckland). 

1870. Rev. W. T. Storrs, M.D. (CM S., Santal). 

1871. Rev. T. V. French (afterwards Bishop of Lahore). 
1875-81. .Rev. T. R. Wade (C.M.S., Amritsar). 

1892. Rev. H. E. Perkins (C.M.S., Bahrwal). 

1896- Mr. G. W, Tyndale-Biscoe. 

1899- Mr. A. B. Tyndale, M.A. Oxon. 

1899- Rev. C. 1'E. Burges, M.A. Cantab. 

A preliminary journey to reconnoitre the field was made 
in 1854 by the Rev. R. Clark, a Cambridge Wrangler (see 
p. 96), and Colonel Martin, of the 9th Native Infantry. He 
had lately given anonymously ten thousand rupees to 
found the Punjab Mission, and in 1855 became an honorary 
C.M.S. missionary at Peshawar. Golab Singh was quite 
willing that they should preach in his dominions, saying 
that the Kashmiris were so bad already that the padres 
could do them no harm, and he was curious to see if they 
could do them any good. 

About twenty years after officials of the Punjab had 
given funds for starting the mission there (see p. 73), its 
Lieutenant-Governor, Sir Robert Montgomery, together with 
other distinguished generals and civilians of high rank, feeling 
that the time had come to evangelise Kashmir, collected 
^1,500, and appealed to the C.M.S., promising to provide 
annually all the expenses beyond the missionary's personal 



KASHMIR 119 

allowances, if the C.M.S. would establish a mission and send 
out a man. Mr. Clark paid two more visits to Srinagar in 
1862 and 1863 ; and in 1864 his wife, a fully qualified 
medical woman, opened a dispensary, attended by as many 
as a hundred patients daily, and a mission school was com 
menced. Baptism of a convert from Islam soon followed, and 
at once indifference gave place to hostility; the governor 
of the city himself organised a disturbance, and all sorts of 
opposition and outrage ensued. An order forbidding foreigners 
to remain in Kashmir for more than the six months of summer 
was strictly enforced, and extended to converts, and it became 
evident that the one possible door into this closed country 
was a medical mission that is, teaching combined with healing, 
not merely to attract hearers, but as a necessary embodiment 
of the spirit of that religion whose Divine Founder was, as 
Livingstone used to say, "the first medical Missionary." 

Meanwhile, a committee which the missionary-hearted 
Punjab officials had formed were corresponding with the 
Edinburgh Medical Mission about a distinguished young 
graduate, who, through prayerful consideration of the Saviour's 
twofold command to preach and heal, was offering to go out 
as a medical missionary. He was the son of an Aberdeen 
"boot-closer," apprenticed to his father in childhood, whose 
ability and ardour for study were such that, while toiling in 
his humble calling he rose at 3 a.m. to read, and won both 
the M.A. of Aberdeen University and the M.D. of Edinburgh. 
This " indomitable Scot," who will always be remembered as 
one of the most devoted and able medical missionaries who 
ever lived, became a pioneer in three senses. He was the 
first missionary to Kashmir ; and the first medical missionary 
sent out by the C.M.S., 1 which now has sixty-one medical 

1 Not counting three or four ordained C.M.S. men who happened to 
have and to use medical knowledge, and the isolated experiment of 
sending out Dr. Harrison to Yoruba in 1861 for a short time. 



i2o IRENE PETRIE 

missionaries on its roll, and thirty mission hospitals ; thirdly, 
he was of Presbyterian education. C.M.S. agents must, of 
course, be members of the Church of England, but here were 
exceptional circumstances. Only a doctor could hope to pro 
claim the Gospel in the land whose first missionary afterwards 
wrote of it as " poor, perishing Kashmir, for whom I could weep 
all day " ; no Anglican doctor was forthcoming ; friends of 
the C.M.S. on the spot wished this man to be their missionary, 
and guaranteed all the expenses of the mission; and he 
cordially promised to observe all the practices and rules of 
the Society. So he was sent. Under equally exceptional 
circumstances the C.M.S. has since sent out one other mis 
sionary of Presbyterian education, an engineer by profession ; 
and among all its pioneer missionaries, none are held in 
higher honour to-day than the two Scottish laymen, William 
Elmslie, of Kashmir, and Alexander Mackay, of Uganda. 

In May, 1865, Elmslie opened a dispensary in the verandah 
of his rough bungalow at Srinagar, and laboured for five 
summers there. During four winters he was at Amritsar, 
for every October he was turned out of Kashmir with his 
converts, who had to leave their wives behind, since no 
women were permitted to quit the country. The Maharaja 
offered him four times the salary he received as a missionary 
if he would become court physician and cease to preach 
Christ, whereon he wrote home : "It gladdens my heart to 
be able to give up some worldly advantage for Christ's sake. 
Our Father's promise is better than the Maharaja's cash down." 
Then the Maharaja opened an opposition hospital, and sur 
rounded the dispensary with a cordon of soldiers to prevent 
patients attending and to take the names of those who 
insisted on doing so. But the superior skill and kindness 
of the missionary doctor were so obvious that it continued 
to be thronged. Several were baptised, and more were won 
to a faith that they dared not publicly confess. Three 



KASHMIR 121 

clerical coadjutors baptised Elmslie's converts, and became 
the first of many volunteers who have helped forward the 
work in Kashmir, though never formally on its roll of mis 
sionaries. They are named on p. 118 ; and we may note here 
that one of the three had been an officer in the army, and 
was now an honorary missionary of the Society for the Pro 
pagation of the Gospel. Elmslie also found an assistant in 
Qadir Bakhsh, whom we shall meet later on, and gained the 
confidence of the Kashmiris generally by his ministrations 
to the victims of the terrible visitation of cholera in 1867. 
In 1870 failure of health compelled him to go home. 
There he prepared a Kashmiri-English Dictionary, which has 
been of the greatest value to his missionary successors. He 
had many offers of lucrative employment in Britain, but wrote 
to Mr. Wade : " I am willing to return to Kashmir. The 
missionary life is the only one worth living. It is the only 
one that can be called Christlike." 

During his absence Dr. Storrs carried on the work, and 
in 1871 Mr. Clark revisited Kashmir with the Rev. T. V. 
French and a native doctor, John Williams, of Tank. From 
the diaries of the shrewd and scholarly French l we learn that 
the two things that struck him in Kashmir were the new 
temples, showing how devoted a Hindu the Maharaja was, 
and the perfectly beautiful features and forms of both men and 
women, suggesting Greek blood in the present dwellers by 
the Jhelum, on whose banks Alexander the Great fought 
Forus two thousand two hundred years ago. His record is of 
" heavy preaching amidst much opposition," of " insults almost 
insupportable," of " violent abuse and scurrilous attacks of all 
kinds." He wrote to the Resident, protesting it was hard 
that in a state existing by the protection of a Christian 
government every form of religious teaching should be 
"licita" except the 'Christian. He was pelted with dirt as 
1 See Life, vol. i. f ch. xii. 



132 IRENE PETRIE 

he preached, and had to get behind a pillar to escape stones. 
' Came home sadly heartbroken ; the stone of their heart is 
worse than the stones they threw at me," is his entry. 

In the spring of 1872 Elmslie returned, no longer alone, 
for he had married the daughter of the Rev. Wallace Duncan, 
whose wife, Mary Lundie Duncan, has now provided three 
generations of children with an evening prayer in her "Jesus, 
tender Shepherd, hear me." In July another awful outbreak 
of cholera crowded the hospital newly opened in a native 
house. " He has just had his eleven hundredth patient and 
finished his seventieth operation in a month," wrote Mrs. 
Elmslie ; and through his devotion to the stricken people 
opposition was being overcome. He begged hard, but without 
success, for permission to remain during the winter, in spite 
of the order about foreigners. Then, utterly exhausted by his 
arduous toil, he started on October 2ist upon the weary 
journey over the mountain passes. He walked till he could 
walk no more ; then his young wife put him in her dhooli, 
and went on foot across the snow herself. He reached 
Gujerat dangerously ill, and three days after, on November 
i8th, 1872, he died there. There was an unnecessary but 
characteristic suggestion that he had been poisoned by one 
of the enemies made by his outspoken condemnation of the 
prevailing tyranny. The day after he was buried a letter 
arrived from the authorities rescinding the order which had 
cost Kashmir the life of one of its best friends. His widow 
afterwards became the friend and colleague of " A.L.O.E." 
(Charlotte M. Tucker) at Batala. 

In 1874 the Edinburgh Medical Missionary Institution 
supplied a successor to Elmslie in Dr. Maxwell. The 
Maharaja permitted him to build a small hospital on a fine 
site because he was nephew to the renowned General John 
Nicholson, who was killed leading the victorious assault on 
Delhi. Assisted by Mr. Clark and by Qadir Bakhsh, he 



KASHMIR 123 

worked for two summers with much encouragement; then 
his health failed, and he returned to England. The Rev. 
T. R. Wade became both clerical and medical missionary till 
the arrival, in May, 1877, of Dr. Downes, formerly a lieutenant 
in the Royal Artillery and assistant-engineer in the Staff 
Corps, who resigned his commission in order to become a 
missionary. He obtained final permission to remain for 
the winter by stirring public opinion on the subject through 
the newspapers, and during six years, without any colleague or 
trained assistant or nurses, conducted the medical mission, 
seeing sometimes as many as three hundred patients in one 
day. Mr. Wade stayed on with him for a while ; and during 
the famine of 1878 both ministered to multitudes of sufferers 
and gathered four hundred waifs into an orphanage. By 
means of his own liberal gifts and the gifts of his friends in 
England Dr. Downes provided for the needs of about 
seventy in-patients ; and when failure of health drove him 
home, he handed over a firmly established enterprise to Dr. 
Neve, who arrived in the spring of 1882, followed in 1883 
by the Rev. J. H. Knowles, transferred from Peshawar. 
They are now the two senior missionaries in Kashmir. 

The year 1886, when the C.M.S. Mission attained its 
majority, was a promising one. Dr. E. Neve, prizeman and 
gold medallist, arrived; six Mohammedans and two Sikhs were 
baptised ; and a second society came into the field to work 
among the women. "The Church of England Zenana Mis 
sionary Society, in co-operation with the Church Missionary 
Society " (to give it its full name), is the daughter of a society 
founded in 1852. Weighted with the name of "The Indian 
Female Normal School and Instruction Society," this was 
formally organised in 1861, being itself the younger sister of 
yet another society, the Society for Promoting Female Educa 
tion in the East. Irene met missionaries of all three societies 
at Agra, Meerut, and Lahore (see pp. 65, 69, 91). The F.E.S. 



124 IRENE PETRIE 

and I.F.N., formed to send out women missionaries in days 
when the C.M.S. undertook to send out the wives of its 
own missionaries only, were interdenominational. The I.F.N. 
began regular zenana visiting nearly forty years ago, and 
in practice was almost entirely Anglican. Desire on the 
part of some of its Presbyterian adherents to make it 
actually interdenominational led to the secession of most of 
its Anglican adherents, and they formed as a new society in 
1880 the Church of England Zenana Missionary Society. 
The I.F.N. more than survived its sudden depletion, and 
is vigorous to-day under the new name of "The Zenana, 
Bible, and Medical Mission." The C.E.Z.M.S. sends out 
unmarried ladies to India, Ceylon, and the province of 
Fuh-kien in China. It now has over two hundred and 
thirty missionaries on its roll. Having thus explained, once 
for all, various recurring initials, we return to Kashmir. 

We date C.E.Z.M.S. work there from 1886, when Mrs. 
Rallia Ram, daughter of a well-known Indian clergyman, 
obtained an entrance into several zenanas as an honorary 
worker in local connexion with that society. In 1887 two 
English ladies, already experienced missionaries on its staff, 
were sent to Kashmir Miss Hull, who fills an important 
place in our story, and Miss Butler, whose memory will 
ever be held dear. Before passing to the zenana work, 
we must tell a strangely sad story of blighted hope and 
thwarted endeavour. 

From the age of fifteen Fanny Butler had wished to be 
a missionary, fired by reading a book called The Finished 
Course^ which told of lives laid down for rather than lived 
in Africa. She put her whole soul into acquiring knowledge 
that would fit her for such a career, and sedulously trained 
herself in unselfish habits. An appeal for medical women 
issued by Dr. Elmslie just before his death incited her 
to be a medical missionary in India. She was the first 



KASHMIR 125 

student enrolled at the London School of Medicine for 
Women, one of the pioneers who obtained admission into 
a profession where, as we now recognise without any 
disparagement of medical men, women can do work of 
incalculable value among their sisters both at home and 
abroad. She was too early in the field to gain the M.D., 
which she and her contemporaries won their successors the 
right to earn ; but six years of strenuous study made her a 
fully qualified medical woman in the highest sense. 

On October 24th, 1880, she left England as the first woman 
medical missionary sent thence to India. This was five 
years before the Countess of Dufferin, inspired by the Queen 
herself, after an audience which she granted to a zenana 
missionary, took the first steps towards the formation of 
"The National Association for supplying Female Medical 
Aid to the Women of India." For six years Dr. Butler 
worked at Jabalpur, Calcutta, and Bhagalpur. Then she 
returned to England to plead the cause of India's women, 
and after only eleven months at home (part of which was 
spent in further study at Vienna) she started for Kashmir, 
transferred thither at Dr. Neve's request. She reached 
Srinagar, where she found Miss Hull, in May, 1888. Later 
in the year she was joined by Miss Rainsford, who had 
taken a two years' medical course, and Miss Newman, a 
trained nurse. Missionaries were then obliged to live in 
the European quarter, four miles from the heart of the city. 
They rented a little dispensary in the city, and on the day 
it was opened, August 5th, 1888, five patients came; by the 
end of the year there had been five thousand attendances, 
the number in a single day sometimes reaching a hundred 
and eighty. The adjoining house was turned into a hospital, 
where in three months thirty-five in-patients were treated. 
One day a notable visitor arrived, Mrs. Bishop (Isabella 
Bird), whose well-known warm interest in missions (to quote 



126 IRENE PETRIE 

her own words) " came about gradually purely through seeing 
the deplorable condition of nations without Christianity." 
The distinguished traveller was so struck with the value 
of Dr. Butler's work and its inadequate accommodation that 
she gave then and there ^500 to build a new hospital 
for thirty women patients as a memorial to her husband. 
Dr. Butler was to work it, the Maharaja granted the site 
at the request of the Commander-in-Chief, Sir F. Roberts 
(now Lord Roberts), and the love and confidence of the 
Kashmiri women were being rapidly won. The months in 
Kashmir were the happiest in Dr. Butler's whole career. As 
with Irene afterwards, so with her there had been a certain 
restlessness elsewhere, till each was led in ways beyond her 
contriving to Kashmir. Once there, each felt the happiness 
of an assured conviction that the allotted sphere had been 
found, and each said strongly, " Here will I labour till 
nightfall." But a day or two after the foundation stone of 
the John Bishop Memorial Hospital had been laid by the 
Resident's wife, Dr. Butler was suddenly taken ill, and 
four days later, on October 26th, 1889, fell asleep, saying, 
" I should like to stay," and yet again, " I am ready to go, 
and whether I recover or not, God will do what is best." 
Just five days before she died she had written : " The 
happiest thing on earth is to help to take the Gospel to 
every creature." 

" Her work," said Miss Hull, ten years later, " will never 
die. Many zenanas which we still visit were first opened 
through her. Some whom she taught have already met 
her in heaven, notably the wife of a Mohammedan pir, a 
Christian at heart, though never baptised, whose life she 
saved by means of an operation." Many doctors and many 
missionaries have left noble memories, but both professions 
may be proud to claim as theirs the loyal, stedfast, and 
self-sacrificing Fanny Butler, who was as unassuming as she 



KASHMIR 127 

was able. For ten long years the Kashmiri women, who 
wept bitterly for their "doctor Miss Sahib," waited for 
such another to minister to their sufferings; and yet a 
third precious life was laid down for Kashmir ere far-off 
Canada, as will be told in Chapter XIV., supplied their 
need. 

The Z.B.M.M. lent Dr. Jane Haskew, of Lucknow, to 
fill the gap for a year; and in June, 1890, the John Bishop 
Memorial Hospital was opened by the Bishop of Lahore 
on the Mundar Bagh. One year later an overflow of the 
Jhelum caused terrible floods, which damaged it so much 
that its work had to be transferred to temporary premises 
near the Dal Gate. In 1892 a second flood wrecked it 
altogether; and 1893 found Miss Newman striving on single- 
handed with devoted perseverance in a temporary dispen 
sary. Family claims summoned her to England in 1894, 
and her hope of returning to Kashmir has not as yet been 
fulfilled. 

The C.E.Z.M.S. gave Kashmir another trained nurse in 
Miss Newnham, daughter of Colonel Newnham, of the 6th 
Bengal Cavalry, and niece of the Bishop of Moosonee. Since 
1893 she has been working in the C.M.S. Hospital, for which 
she volunteered, and this year was transferred to the C.M.S. 
Associated with her as " nursing superintendent " is Miss 
Neve, a niece of the Drs. Neve, who, after helping for a 
while as an honorary worker unconnected with a society, went 
to London for further training at The Olives in 1896, 
returning to Kashmir in the autumn of 1898 as a C.M.S. 
missionary. She was the second lady sent by the C.M.S. to 
Kashmir, and is "appropriated" by the parish of St. Mary 
Abbots, whence Irene, the first C.M.S. lady in Kashmir, had 
gone out. 

So much for the personnel of the medical department of 
the Kashmir mission. We must now take up the story 



128 IRENE PETRIE 

of the zenana work, the first department with which Irene 
was connected, from the arrival of Miss Hull early in 1888. 
She is of English and Irish parentage, and was born in 
Scotland, where her father, before he held a Suffolk living, 
was chaplain to the last Duchess of Gordon. She worked 
with the I.F.N.S. in Benares from 1873 to I %79> an d her 
proficiency in several Oriental languages was such that she 
was asked when in Bengal if she could speak English. 
"One can see that she loves the natives," wrote Irene. 
But when she first reached Kashmir she longed in vain 
for one door to open. " No Kashmiri women will ever let 
you go and teach them," said the scholars in the mission 
school. In a few years, however, the missionaries were to 
receive more requests for visits than they could keep pace 
with. 

Miss Hull had two helpers in Miss Judd, who formed a 
school for Kashmiri girls (1891-93), and Miss Coverdale, sister 
of the Rev. T. E. Coverdale (C.M.S., Lahore and Batala), 
who worked with her during the winter 1890-91, returned to 
England invalided in 1891, and came out again, after training 
at The Willows, in November, 1893. For nearly six years 
the zenana work was, however, practically in the hands of Miss 
Hull only. In the autumn of 1893 she took a six months' 
furlough, hoping to get some lady in England to come out 
with her. She returned disappointed at the end of April, 1894, 
to find that Miss Coverdale had again completely broken down 
after her winter's work single-handed ; a summer at Gulmarg 
failed to restore her, and she went for two winters to Dera 
Ghazi Khan, as a less trying climate. Meanwhile, according 
to the C.E.Z.M.S. annual report, the outlook at Srinagar was 
so discouraging that when Miss Hull came back it was a 
question whether she should continue in "this much tried 
mission " (as she calls it), or take up work in some other 
centre. Then, just ten days after her return, she met Irene, 



KASHMIR 129 

and won her co-operation for an undertaking than which none 
could have needed it more. 

Reserving that story for the next chapter, we may here 
account for the fact that Irene, as a C.M.S. missionary, took 
up work hitherto wholly in the hands of the C.E.Z.M.S. by 
referring to the remarkable development of women's work for 
the C.M.S., both at home and abroad, during the last twelve 
years. How it all came about is fully told in Mr. Stock's 
History of the C.M.S. , vol. iii., p. 367. In 1887 there were 
only twenty-two women (excluding missionaries' wives) on 
the C.M.S. roll, mostly widows or daughters of C.M.S. men, 
placed there under special circumstances. From 1887 to 1894 
(when Irene joined) two hundred and fourteen women were 
added to these, and counting those going out in the autumn 
of 1899, and a number of F.E.S. ladies just transferred to the 
C.M.S., over two hundred and twenty have been added since. 
There are nearly three hundred and forty women missionaries 
(not wives) on the C.M.S. roll to-day, working in Asia, Africa, 
and Canada. Since 1891 the C.M.S. Report has given maiden 
names, enabling us to see that nearly a hundred of the wives 
now on its roll were already missionaries when married. We 
all know what splendid work has been done by missionaries' 
wives in the past, before women were definitely trained for 
the work, as they are to-day; and the above fact suggests, 
without further comment, the potentialities in the near future 
of their co-operation. 

Gathering up the story of the Kashmir mission, we may 
conveniently recognise four departments of it, associating 
each with the name of one missionary : (i) Evangelistic 
and Pastoral, preaching in city bazars and in villages, and 
caring for the converts ; Rev. J. H. Knowles. (2) Medical, 
mainly among Mohammedans i.e. the poorer people ; Dr. 
Neve. (3) Educational, mainly among Hindus i.e. the well- 
to-do people ; Rev. C. E. Tyndale-Biscoe. (4) Zenana 

9 



i3o IRENE PETRIE 

wholly among women, both Hindus and Mohammedans, 
and especially among well-to-do Hindus ; Miss Hull. Just 
as the private talks recorded by St. John of our Lord with 
individuals probably did more to build up His earliest 
Church than the preaching recorded by the Synoptists, so 
personal dealing with o^e patient, one pupil, one woman 
at home, seems the most fruitful though the least striking 
work in Kashmir. All four departments had Irene's sympathy 
and co-operation, but she was most closely associated with the 
third and fourth; and as the Zenana work was the first 
she took up, we may defer the later story of the Hospital 
and the whole story of the School to Chapters VIII. and XI., 
merely noting here that the desire for both healing and 
education was awakened by the missionaries, the State hospital 
and State school being subsequent institutions. One or two 
further words must be said of the first department. 

When Mr. Clark revisited Kashmir in 1889 he found 
a more encouraging state of things than in any of his eight 
previous sojourns there. During Mr. Knowles's furlough 
in 1892 another volunteer came forward in the Rev. H. E. 
Perkins, son of an S.P.G. missionary at Cawnpore, and 
himself for thirty years in the Civil Service, regarded as 
king of the whole district when he was Commissioner for 
Amritsar, He was now an honorary C.M.S. missionary at 
Bahrwal. 

As in most recently established missions, linguistic work 
has claimed much time. William Carey, the Mezzofanti 
of missionaries, was probably the first European scholar to 
discover that Kashmir had a language of its own. It is an 
Aryan tongue of the great Sanskrit stock, written in the 
same Semitic character as Urdu, with an additional thirty- 
seventh letter ; for the Mohammedan conqueror imposed a fine 
of five rupees for writing it in Sanskrit, and offered a reward 
of five rupees for writing it in Persian characters. According 



KASHMIR 131 

to Dr. Gust, it is spoken by half a million people; but the 
unpatriotic Kashmiris affect to despise their own tongue, 
and like it to be taken for granted that they know Urdu. 
The Rev. T. R. Wade completed the Kashmiri New Testa 
ment, after six years of labour, in 1883 ; it and the Kashmiri 
Prayer Book were published in 1884. In 1897 Mr. Knowles 
completed the translation of the Old Testament. 

The title of Elmslie's Life is Seedtime in Kashmir \ his 
successors say that it is ploughing-time there still. Pagan 
savages are always more easily won than those with an ancient 
civilisation and an historic religion ; and as Irene writes : 
" Missionary work must be slow and uphill toil. There 
is so much to get the people to unlearn as well as to teach 
them." " The progress of Christianity has as yet been slow," 
she writes again ; " perhaps, however, in no way slower 
than it was in our own Britain, where for centuries one 
generation after another of Christian missionaries patiently 
confronted the hostile fanaticism and repelling indifference 
of pagans there." " Christ crucified," says Dr. E. Neve, " is 
a stumbling-block to the monotheist Mohammedan, as to 
the Jew ; and foolishness to the pantheistic Hindu, as to 
the Greek." He thus sums up the obstacles to the Gospel 
(C.M.S. Annual Report, 1890, p. 136): " (i) Worldliness 
and actual sin, which have a deeper hold on heathen 
and Mohammedans than on the careless in Christian lands. 
(2) Ignorance ; for when people's minds are untrained they 
cannot listen, their attention wanders, they are like very 
young children, who cannot grasp more than one simple 
idea at a time. (3) Caste, which exists in Mohammedanism 
even more than in Hinduism. To eat with a Christian is 
a terrible sin; to become a Christian is to become a hated 
outcast : even the little children know this. (4) The close 
supervision of their religious teachers." 

Discouragements have been manifold from the days when 



i 3 2 IRENE PETRIE 

soldiers drove away Elmslie's patients (1865), an( ^ roughs 
stoned French (1871), and the zenanas were all closed (1888), 
and one who had been a helper in both medical and 
evangelistic work apostatised in 1891 (a tale to be told here 
after with its sequel), and flood and earthquake devastated the 
women's hospital (1892), and a Government order threatened 
to deplete the school (1896). Moreover, three of the ablest 
missionaries have died at their posts in the earliest maturity 
of their powers. 

That there are more than human foes to reckon with is 
to the labourer in heathendom no mere theological assertion, 
for the reality of our conflict with the powers of darkness 
comes home powerfully to him. Fierce opposition, apparent 
failure, lives laid down too soon, as men would say, these 
have been the early incidents in all the missions now pointed 
to as triumphs of the Gospel. It is when the strong man, 
fully armed, sees the Stronger than he approaching, and knows 
that his days of undisputed sway are numbered, that he rallies 
all his forces. But they will not daunt men and women 
sustained by the conviction that they are on the winning 
side. Sin cannot prevail, neither can death. Lives which 
seemed most necessary to the extension, even to the con 
tinued existence, of the Church are sacrificed. The bravest 
of the brave, who were the terror of the most mighty powers 
of evil, have gone down to Hades with their weapons of 
war, and have laid their swords under their heads (as Ezekiel 
pictures in one of his rare flights into poetry). Yet an 
unbroken succession of sixty-three generations of believers in 
Christ has made good His great promise that the gates of 
Hades shall not prevail against the Church. How many 
human societies or institutions now survive that existed 
in the days of the first Christian generation? But the 
Church has the assurance of continued life, because she 
is in living union with Him Who is alive for evermore. 



KASHMIR 133 

Meanwhile, for Kashmir, as Irene pleaded, "the pains 
and the prayers and the presence of many home friends are 
urgently needed in this day of great opportunity." 

NOTE. Further information about the Kashmir Mission may be 
found in the following publications : Seedtime in Kashmir ; the 
Life of Dr. Elmslie ; The Punjab and Sind Missions of the 
C.M.S. (Rev. R. Clark) ; History of the C.M.S., vol. ii., ch. Ixiii. ; 
vol. iii., chs. Ixxvii., cv. ; Yet not I, and A Letter from Kashmir 
(both about Dr. Butler), Itineration in the Villages of Kashmir, 
by Miss Hull (three pamphlets published by the C.E.Z.M.S.); 
C.M.S. Gleaner for September, 1891 ; April, July, and September, 
1892; February, 1895; January and November, 1896; January and 
October, 1897; April, 1898; January and July, 1899. 



CHAPTER VII 

A QUIET SUMMER 
(APRIL IQTH TO SEPTEMBER 7TH, 1894) 

The mountains seem to have been built for the human race, as at 
once their schools and cathedrals ; full of treasures of illuminated manu 
script for the scholar, kindly in simple lessons for the worker, quiet in 
pale cloisters for the thinker, glorious in holiness for the worshipper. 
RUSKIN, Modern Painters^ vol. iv. 

THE busy winter at Lahore, which was the prologue to 
Irene's missionary career and the final test of her 
missionary resolution, had been preceded by a year of intense 
strain on both mind and body. Her desire to endure hard 
ness was to be thoroughly gratified ere long ; but first came 
a quiet season for renewing her strength and equipping 
herself for the arduous toil of the three years yet to come 
She writes from Kashmir in July, 1894: "Though I think 
I may honestly say there is never room for an idle half-hour 
from 6 a.m. till 10 p.m., the past three months have been 
to me, after the turmoil of past years, like a realisation of 
Psalm xxiii. 2." 

Having in the last chapter told enough concerning Kashmir 
to obviate future interruption of the narrative by explanations 
of places, persons, and things there, we must go on to tell 
how Irene was led to find " green pastures " and " still 
waters " in that land. 

On January 23rd, 1894, a few days after her memorable first 
sight of the Himalayas (p. 96), Mr. and Mrs. Wade dined at St. 

134 



A QUIET SUMMER 135 

Hilda's, and with them she had " much interesting talk about 
Dr. and Mrs. Elmslie." At Amritsar, a fortnight later, she met 
Mr. Perkins, whom she had already seen in London in 1 889, 
and he told her how Dr. Elmslie had died in his arms. 

On March 2oth, she writes jubilantly : "The possibility of a 
wonderful summer prospect has just opened up, which dear 
Miss Beynon has been working towards on my behalf nothing 
less than Kashmir itself, ... a walking tour among giants 
five to ten thousand feet higher than Mont Blanc. But 
it is only a possibility, and may be perfectly impracticable. 
How I wonder if and how I shall have some real work 
for C.M.S. after the hot season!" A week later she says: 
" As far as things can be settled out here, I start for Kashmir 
about April 23rd. Both my present counsellors, Miss Beynon 
and Mr. Clark, recommend it, and it falls in so exactly with 
my own inclinations, and with travelling ambitions of long 
standing, that I am greatly looking forward to the expedition." 

Her last two days at Lahore were spent, as we have already 
seen, with the ladies at the Z.B.M.M. House. On the 
evening of April ipth she took the train for Rawal Pindi, 
and saw in the light of the full moon three of the "Five 
Rivers," the distant snowy ranges, and the battlefields where 
the Punjab had been won. So wide was the Jhelum that 
she fell asleep and woke twice in the course of crossing the 
great bridge over it. Then she passed through a wild, rocky 
wilderness, climbing one of the spurs of the Salt Range, a 
region which suggested some of the weirdest scenes drawn 
by Dore. At Rawal Pindi she bade farewell to the railway 
for almost twelve months, and met at breakfast the three 
ladies who had invited her to travel with them. 

Miss Helen Perry, a fellow-worker of Miss Beynon's, 
introduced to Irene by other friends in London, was an 
experienced traveller who knew Kashmir well. She had 
undertaken this iourney to aid the restoration to health 



136 IRENE PETRIE 

after serious illness of Miss Grace Paton, with whom was 
her sister, Miss Minna Paton. They were daughters of the 
late General John Stafford Paton, C.B. ; and in October, 1892, 
Miss G. Paton had become an honorary missionary of the 
C.E.Z.M.S., working at Ajnala and in the Saurian village 
mission. 

Four P's on the Road to Kashmir is the title of 
Irene's diary of their journey of one hundred and ninety- 
eight miles from Rawal Pindi to Srinagar. Their method 
of reaching Kashmir was somewhat adventurous, and, now 
that a scheme is in contemplation for an electrical railway 
from Jammu to Srinagar, over the Banihal Pass, is likely 
to become as obsolete as the caravan march to Uganda 
will be when the railway to Victoria Nyanza is completed. 
They travelled in search of spring from the insupportable 
heat of late summer ; for as early as March 6th the gardens 
at Lahore had been filled with roses, pansies, heliotrope, 
nasturtium, sweet-peas, and trees clad with rich, fresh green. 
There the exquisite and abundant fruit blossom had fallen 
two months ago, and the corn was now fully ripe. 

Irene writes : " Soon after 10 a.m. on April 2oth we set 
off for the thirty-eight mile ascent to Murree in two tongas. 
Each was drawn by two stout horses, changed ten or twelve 
times in the course of the journey, and driven by a stalwart 
Punjabi. A tonga resembles a squat dogcart, with a hood 
For several miles out of Pindi we were crossing a level plain, 
beyond which the nearer heights round Murree and the far 
snowy ranges could be seen. Here the corn is still green, 
while at Murree the ear is only just forming, and the hills are 
covered with white medlar blossoms. For six hours we were 
mounting, mounting, mounting the grand hillsides, enjoying 
every fresh breeze and lovely view to our heart's content. 
White clematis and many other flowers were opening in the 
brilliant sunshine, and as we approached Murree we sniffed 



A QUIET SUMMER 137 

with delight the odour of real Scotch pines. At one place we 
passed a long caravan of Afghans from Kabul, with their 
camels and all other possessions, the men in wide white 
trousers, the women in curious patch-work overcoats, with 
tiny children perched on the top of the camel packs. We 
made friends with some of the handsome women, who 
were greatly interested in the working of my umbrella. 
They had had a quarrel with the Ameer, who had turned 
them out of their villages neck and crop, and were travelling 
towards the Vale of Kashmir. The whole thing made one 
realise the wanderings of Abraham and Jacob vividly. . . . 
Murree is like a magnified edition of Pitlochne, and com 
mands a view resembling that from the top of Wansfell 
Pike. We are 7,330 feet above the sea, and glad of a fire. 

"April 2ist was given chiefly to rearranging luggage. On 
Sunday we had three very nice services in the pretty Murree 
church, and I was writing out texts in Urdu for Munira. 

" At break of day on Monday, April 23rd, our servants and 
thirty donkeys loaded with baggage started for Dewal. We 
left at 2 p.m. with three dandies (one for the ayah), sixteen 
bearers, and two horses with their grooms. We had a lovely 
ten miles' tramp to Dewal, the path winding through a wood 
of cedars, firs, and spring-clad trees, where the blackbird and 
cuckoo were singing, then round the bare sides of great hills, 
looking down into a deep valley, beyond which were snow- 
tipped hills. 

" We were again on the road by 6 a.m. on April 24th for 
an exquisite march with glorious views of distant snows, and 
reached Kohala at 9.30. Listening to the rushing Jhelum 
and looking across at a wooded height, I was reminded of 
Serravezza. The foreground scene, however, differed. A few 
yards off Guffoor was squatting in front of two fires of sticks, 
manipulating his pots, pans, and plates near a tree, which he 
used as a larder, having hung our half-sheep in a muslin bag 



138 IRENE PETRIE 

to one of the branches. The khidmatgar served us with 
Guffoor's productions, the bhisti was in attendance with his 
skin of water, and a little way off sundry pariah dogs were 
waiting for darkness to steal any remains of the meal. . . . 

"The moon was still shining when we started soon after 
5 a.m. on April 25th, and we began by crossing the temporary 
suspension bridge from the right to the left bank of the 
Jhelum, which here divides our Empress's dominions from 
those of the Maharaja of Kashmir. The permanent bridge 
was swept away in a recent flood. Nearly all our morning 
march and most of the afternoon march were along a road cut 
out of the face of the almost perpendicular height on the left 
bank of the river, as we ascended the deep gorge through 
which it flows. Here and there the woods were white with 
eglantine, and the air was deliciously scented with the fresh 
blossoms, often mingled with yellow acacia and jasmine and 
the rich scarlet of the pomegranate's waxy, bell-shaped flowers. 
After a twelve-mile march we got to Dulai, where we rested 
during the heat of the day, setting off again at 4 p.m. to reach 
Domel at dusk. Here another great river, the Kishenganga, 
joins the Jhelum, and the snow mountains beyond rise to the 
height of the Matterhorn. 

" On April 26th we passed, as usual, various sleeping forms 
on the charpais outside the village huts. ' Going to bed ' is 
a simple process with these folks ; it simply means wrapping 
a razai round them and lying down. The valley through 
which our fourteen-mile march lay was more open, and fields 
of splendid wheat and barley were ripening in the hot sun 
shine. At 11.30 we drew rein at Garhi, under the shade of 
some trees covered with scented blossoms like lilac, on which 
multitudes of lovely peacock butterflies were disporting them 
selves. We took an evening stroll to a bridge over the 
Jhelum, where a procession of villagers was crossing to a tree 
on a hillside decorated with flags and coloured rags, and used 



A QUIET SUMMER 139 

as a Hindu sanctuary. The river here is very wide and very 
rapid ; the bridge consists of a single rope of buffalo hide, with 
two upper ropes as rails, and looks shaky enough. . . . 

"On April 27th our march was still near the great river, 
flowing here in a deep gorge between perpendicular cliffs. 
Huge wooded hills tower up on each side ; there is a splendid 
snowy range in the background ; we heard the lark and thrush 
and saw English buttercups and masses of maidenhair fern 
among the rocks. At Hattian it was extremely hot, but 
wonderfully beautiful. Two quotations from the ancient Book 
of Poetry are often in my mind now : ' Thou, Lord, hast 
made me glad through Thy work ; ' ' Thou hast given him 
his heart's desire.'" 

Miss Perry roused the camp very early on April 28th, to 
avoid the heat after 10 a.m. An incident of the morning's 
march furnished Irene with a text for the sketch called 
A Parable from the Himalayas, contributed to a magazine, 
which preserves some of the thoughts of that happy journey. 
It begins thus : 

"It was between 2 and 3 a.m. when we were summoned 
from dreams of the homeland to the realities of a tent and 
camp-fires one spring morning at Hattian, on the road to 
Kashmir. An hour later the camp was broken up, and the 
fitful glimmer of lanterns showed the dark forms of servants, 
coolies, and syces packing stores, loading donkeys, and 
saddling horses. 

"Just as the crescent of the moon appeared over the crag 
above the encampment, our procession started in single file 
up the steep valley. Not long after we were watching the first 
flash of rosy dawn on a high snow-peak, as the stars dis 
appeared one by one. The song of the first bird blended 
with the roar of the Jhelum, fretting its way through the 
narrow gorge beneath. Then we could trace the forms of 
trees, shrubs, and flowers above and below our path, and 



140 IRENE PETRIE 

enjoy the fragrance of the eglantine blossoms strewn hither 
and thither like patches of snow. 

" But stay ; here is surely death in the midst of all this 
glorious life a mimosa-tree, whose leaves, though green, are 
closed and drooping as if all vitality were withdrawn. We 
look at the root no disturbance has been there j at branches, 
leaves, blossom all seem perfect, though paralysed and 
unconscious as if with the blight of death. 

" Death, or only sleep ? As we watch and wonder the 
slanting rays of yellow light from the great sun, hidden 
hitherto by the mountain opposite, creep towards us. They 
touch our mimosa-tree, and at the same moment we hear the 
rustle of the morning breeze among its leaves. Even as we 
look the delicate twigs are stirred ; they flutter in the wind ; 
they lift themselves to the golden sun-rays ; and ere we pass 
on the leaves are expanded, the blossoms erect, and the tree 
seems to rejoice among its fellows in its gracious fulness of 
life. 

"We leave it to go forward on our day's march, enriched 
with a fresh lesson from God's Book of Nature. . . . 

"Just as the glory of the sun's rays in this Eastern land 
wakens the sensitive leaves of the tree, so Christ, our Sun of 
Righteousness, comes to dispel darkness and give the Light 
of Life to those who look to Him. 

" The mimosa-tree was perfectly formed and complete in all 
its parts, but it could not be all that the Creator meant it to 
be till those sunny rays had wakened it out of slumber to 
fulfil the true life of which it was capable. . . . 

" Our tree was reached not only by the sun's rays but also 
by the stirring of the wind. ... * The wind bloweth where it 
listeth, and thou nearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell 
whence it cometh, and whither it goeth : so is every one that 
is born of the Spirit/ 

" Truly, the Light and Breath of Life are the best gifts for 



A QUIET SUMMER 141 

soul and body which come from the Triune God Himself, 
and from Him alone. But good gifts must be shared. . . 

" In this exquisite land of Kashmir, surrounded with a 
dazzling splendour of sunlit, snowy ranges, the people are still 
sitting in darkness and the shadow of death. Yet it was to 
shine upon such as these that the Dayspring from on high 
hath visited us. Are we who have the Light bearers of that 
Light?" 

Resuming the journal for April 28th, one reads of some 
unnamed fellow-travellers, who were always in trouble and 
could hardly get food, being of the servant-beating sahib kind 
who boasted of using their fists freely. Miss Perry's staff, on 
the contrary, who were firmly but always kindly and con 
siderately treated, prided themselves on being the best set of 
servants on the line of march, and were always cheerful and 
willing. The kahars, who carried the dandies, came to say 
they would gladly remain with her throughout the summer 
for any wages she liked to give them. 

Irene continues : " We would gladly have spent a quiet day 
at Chagoti for Sunday, April 2Qth ; but as the dak bungalow 
rules forbade us to claim rooms for more than twenty-four 
hours, we were obliged to go on. Perhaps learning new lessons 
in Nature's beautiful book is not an unsuitable Sunday occu 
pation occasionally. We were off at dawn, and had a fifteen- 
mile march. The scenery became wilder and wilder, all 
traces of cultivation had disappeared, and the gorge narrowed 
into a rocky ravine, shut in by sheer cliffs, quite a hundred 
feet high, at the bottom of which the river raged and foamed. 
All around rose the steep, bare, snow-crowned mountains. 
The place would be an awesome one in stormy weather. 
In one place the tonga road was demolished by recent snows, 
and our whole caravan had to climb a set of narrow zigzag 
tracks, up the mountain-side, and go partly across and partly 
under the side stream and waterfall. At the bottom lay 



143 IRENE PETRIE 

a poor camel, who had fallen from a great height, and still 
panted in agony, as his owner's religion forbade him to take 
life. ... At Urie the bungalow is on a ridge above three 
deep valleys, with great snow-peaks closing in the view all 
round. The place reminded me of Andermatt, and here 
we had morning and evening service. Each day's march 
has been more beautiful than that of the day before. 

"The walk of thirteen miles on April 3oth, the whole of 
which I did on foot, led through a forest sloping up the 
mountain-sides. Masses of white clematis and hawthorn 
grew among the huge deodars, pines, and chenars, and 
we watched the chameleons on the rocks. In two places 
the highway was represented by a single plank over a 
swift stream, and flat-faced Tartar coolies were repairing 
the road. Flocks of lovely Kashmiri goats were feeding 
on the hills. Near our destination at Rampur huge cliffs, 
crowned with Alpine woods and snow, shut in the valley as 
at Lauterbrunnen. During our enchanting climb into the 
forest in the evening we agreed, as we had done at Urie, 
how nice it would be to build a house for tired missionaries 
there. 

" Leaving Rampur at 4 a.m. on May ist, we had an exquisite 
walk, seeing the silver moonlight on one set of snow-peaks 
and the rosy dawn light on another. . . . We might have 
been keeping May-day in England as we ascended a rocky 
and almost perpendicular watercourse up the face of Baramula 
Hill, seven hundred feet high, enjoying primroses, forgetme- 
nots, and wild iris, and the song of cuckoo, blackbird, and 
thrush. But before us at the top was such a view as I 
had never before seen. Below, the flat, fertile Vale of 
Kashmir, spread out like a map, with the silver links of the 
Jhelum winding through it, now wide, placid, and silent; 
beyond, to our north, the endless, glorious stretch of Hima 
layas, glistening, snowy peaks and domes, the highest, Nanga 



A QUIET SUMMER 143 

Parbat, almost twenty-seven thousand feet high, near to the 
spot where meet 'the three greatest empires in the world.' 

" On May 2nd we took possession of a fleet of five boats, 
and starting on a stage of the journey even more beautiful 
than all that had gone before, floated up the river. Its 
silence contrasted strangely with the roar and din of waters 
during the past week, the towing-path was carpeted with wild 
flowers, the mighty amphitheatre of mountains all around 
shone one dazzling mass of white, save where they fell away at 
the point we entered by, where the Jhelum forces a passage 
through to water the hot plains of the Punjab, and loses itself 
at last in the Indus. 

" Ascension Day, May 3rd, was spent on the Wular Lake, 
which reflects in its quiet waters the encircling snow-mountains, 
and must be in some respects the most beautiful lake in the 
world. Mist and rain drew a purple haze over the near hills 
at times, when the views were quite Scottish and recalled 
Loch Duich. 

" On the sunny morning of May 4th, after breakfasting in a 
meadow blue with iris, under the shade of mulberry-trees, we 
entered the Kashmir capital. 

" So ends the first stage of the grandest journey I have ever 
made, in the course of which I have walked a hundred 
miles. We have had no difficulty or accident of any kind, 
and have enjoyed perfect weather throughout and most 
congenial companionship, Deo gratias. It is so glorious to 
be up among these dear hills, and I am in Alpine condition. 
Oh that all the dear home friends were here with us now to 
see what we see!" 

From May 2nd to June i3th they lived in their boats, 
going up and down the Jhelum and Dal Lake with Srinagar 
for headquarters, and then up and down the Sind River with 
Gunderbal for headquarters. Here is a picture of their 
encampment on the Dal: "Our boats were moored under 



144 IRENE PETRIE 

the shade of blossoming plum-trees, and the tent pitched 
close by under poplars and pear-trees draped with vines, and 
haunted by kingfishers, splendid golden orioles with a rich, 
liquid note, and nightingales who sang our lullaby. I was out 
in a boat before five one morning, among the water-lilies, 
watching the first flash of rosy light as it touched the snows of 
the Pir Punjal, which stretched for quite a hundred miles along 
our southern horizon. By the time the sunshine was making 
the glaciers of Tutakuti glisten like diamonds, the line of pink 
fire had crept along the peaks to the far north-west, where the 
fantastic crags of the Hindu Khush bound Kafiristan.". 

" Kashmir is more lovely every day," she says again, when 
they were on the Sind, giving a yet more attractive picture of 
the view in front of her as she wrote from the poop of their 
vessel, " looking up the Sind Valley, through which Tibet might 
be reached, vi& Leh, in about twenty-eight marches. Here 
the boats were drawn up under the shade of five magnificent 
chenar-trees. The hollow trunks of three made comfortable 
rooms for the servants, and it took eight tall men to clasp 
hands round one of them." 

Invitations to a garden party at the Residency met them on 
arrival at Srinagar, but they were "of one mind in avoiding 
social distractions." Before she had been there a week, how 
ever, Irene had made acquaintance with all the missionaries, 
and entered into every department of their work. 

On May 6th she attended the tiny English church, where 
Mr. Knowles officiated as honorary chaplain, and where, a 
fortnight later, the first missionary sermon she had heard in 
India was preached by the Rev. Arthur Stone, the summer 
chaplain, with a collection for the C.M.S. Hospital. On 
May yth and 8th, in the waiting-room of the Hospital, then 
the only place of worship for the native Christians, she was 
at "delightful prayer-meetings in preparation for Whitsun 
tide, quite like a bit of Salisbury Square," as she remarks, 



A QUIET SUMMER 145 

recalling the Thursday meetings at the C.M.S. House. 
Coming out, she was introduced to Miss Hull. On May gih 
Mr. Tyndale-Biscoe and two boys of the school took her 
for a moonlight row on the Dal Lake. On May nth 
she went with Miss Hull to her girls' school and to a 
zenana. " Some of the women and girls are beautiful," she 
writes; "but the dirt on their clothes is quite unspeakable. 
Many listened most attentively to the Bible lesson. For the 
present there must be even more of uprooting of false ideas 
of Christianity than of seed sowing." On May i2th she 
visited the Hospital with Miss Neve and Miss Newnham. 
Her general impression of the Kashmir missionaries was : 
"All are thoroughly overworked, yet quite unable to cope 
with the work waiting for them." 

On May i;th Miss Hull took her to call on a venerable pir 
and his wife. "They were very kind and polite," she says, "and 
handed us sweets, which I fear we only pretended to eat, as 
we sat on the floor. Then the Bible lesson began, and oh ! 
how they listened ! The old man seemed to be drinking it 
all in, as Miss Hull read from the Gospels. She thinks that 
they, like so many others here, might gladly become Christians, 
were not prejudices so strong, and difficulties and persecutions 
so real. They heard that I was a missionary whose location 
had yet to be fixed; and as the pir shook hands, in special 
compliment to me on leaving, he said : ' Will you not stay 
and teach us?' " That evening Irene wrote home : " Miss Hull 
is singlehanded as a zenana missionary. I feel inclined to 
transfer my offer to the C.M.S. from the Punjab to Kashmir." 
On May 23rd, when Irene had moved to Gunderbal, Miss 
Hull, resuming work, as we saw in Chapter VI., in great 
discouragement, wrote to her : " Meeting you has been 
such a pleasure. I need not say how heartily I endorse the 
invitation of the aged pir and pirbai." 

The attraction of the ardent newcomer to the experienced 

10 



146 IRENE PETRIE 

worker, " than whom," says Irene, " I have never met a more 
earnest person," was indeed mutual and instantaneous; and 
three months later, when acquaintance had become friendship, 
Irene wrote : " If among the missionary ladies I have seen 
out here I had been offered the choice of companions to 
live with, I think Miss Hull and Miss Coverdale would have 
headed the list in any case." 

Meanwhile, Mr. Stock wrote to her privately on May yth : 
" I need not say what a pleasure it is now to hear of your 
desire to join the C.M.S."; and on May 27th the decision 
of the Parent Committee in London on April 25th came, 
enclosed in a letter from Mr. Clark, "With kindest regards, 
and very earnest hope that your joining us in our missionary 
work may be for great good." 

"So at last," she writes joyfully on May 3ist, "I belong 
to the C.M.S. Where, however, I shall be in six months' time 
I have no idea : perhaps in Amritsar, perhaps Miss Hull's 
renewed invitation to remain and work in Kashmir may be 
accepted. I look for all being arranged by a Wiser Will 
than ours. Meanwhile, my acceptance is very delightful, 
and my Urdu study is a definite enough work to have in 
hand." 

On June Qth she wrote to Mr. Clark thus : " Since coming 
to Kashmir I have seen something of the work which is 
going on in Srinagar, especially that done by the ladies. 
Miss Hull has asked if I could be associated with this 
department, as her hands are overfull, especially now that 
Miss Coverdale is so seriously ill. I do not know whether 
the Committee have as yet suggested any destination for me 
after this summer, but if not, and if there is no good reason 
against it, I should be very glad to fall in with Miss Hull's 
proposal next winter, if agreeable to the Committee, of course 
as a C.M.S. worker." To which Mr. Clark replied: "I will 
very gladly ask the Committee to appoint you, at any rate for 



A QUIET SUMMER 147 

the present, to Kashmir. Help is greatly needed there, and 
you will find a grand sphere of usefulness extending itself far 
and wide. May God Himself bless your work abundantly 
wherever you may be ! " 

It was not till July 2ist that a telegram from Mr. Clark 
told her that the Committee had appointed her to Kashmir. 
On August 3ist she wrote: "I am so glad in the thought 
of being in real work soon, and there does seem to be 
about as much need of help here as there could be anywhere, 
if only I can speak enough to be any good." 

" It was with very great thankfulness," wrote Miss Hull in 
Indicts Womcn^ " that we welcomed Miss Petrie just before 
Miss Coverdale left. Her offer to stay and work here was 
a much desired but unexpected blessing." And to some 
friends of hers in England she also wrote : " It is time 
I told you of the goodness of our Father in sending me 
a fellow-worker in Miss Petrie. She came to Kashmir 
as a visitor, hoping for quiet time to study the language 
and prepare to take up mission work, when the C.M.S. 
should appoint her to a station. At one house she 
visited with me an old pir's wife said to me, 'Tell her 
she cannot do better than stay and help you.' I told her, 
scarcely daring to hope she would, only adding that I was 
quite sure there was no place where she could be more 
wanted ; and she stayed. It is indeed a great blessing to 
have so efficient, kind, and good a fellow-worker." 

On June i4th " the four P's " started on a two days' 
march of thirty-five miles from Gunderbal to Gulmarg, due 
west of Srinagar. Here for nearly three months they lived 
in a four-roomed hut of pine-logs, playfully called "Perrydise," 
at the heart of a great forest of the Pir Punjal range, under 
the shadow of lofty Apharwat, overlooking the whole Vale 
of Kashmir from a height of 8,500 feet above the sea. 
Around them was a mountain panorama unrivalled in the 



148 IRENE PETRIE 

world 250 miles of snow-peaks ; where, above all the others, 
towered in dazzling whiteness the lion-like form of Nanga 
Parbat, its rugged edge seeming to pierce the horizon. It 
is 11,000 feet higher than Mont Blanc. Coming from the 
plains, where the corn was in the ear by the middle of 
February, to the mountains, where the anemones were blooming 
late in June, they felt as if they were enjoying a fifth month 
of spring. 

The approach to Gulmarg on June 1 5th is thus described : 
" We were off at early dawn, and had splendid views, as the 
ground began to rise, of snow-ranges both north and south. 
We went up lovely paths by streams in which masses of snowy 
eglantine were dipping. The real climb of three thousand 
feet was nearly all through a pine forest, amid wild, scented 
jasmine, thyme, and pink eglantine. About midday we 
emerged on Gulmarg ('meadow of flowers'), a broad grass 
plateau, green only in parts, elsewhere white with anemones 
and yellow with kingcups. On its farther side the forest 
again slopes steeply upwards to the crags and snowfields 
of Killanmarg, Apharwat (14,500 feet), and Tatakuti 
(15,500 feet). We crossed the marg, and climbed up a wood 
land path till on the crest of a ridge in the depths of the 
forest we found our home. ... All around are the grand 
pines with their delicious scent; underneath grow masses 
of wild strawberries, forgetmenots, and ferns. It is a most 
lovely spot, reminding me of both Wengen and Chamonix. 
. . . Concerning zoology, besides the objectionable winged 
beetles and mosquitoes who invade us in the evening, we 
have visits from many exquisite moths; fancy one peacock- 
blue, with yellow spots and a scarlet body. A fine leopard 
was prowling round in hopes of getting a neighbour's big 
dog under cover of night. Reports of a bear come from 
the other side of the marg ; and Miss Perry has forbidden us 
to wander alone in the woods above this, as some gigantic 



A QUIET SUMMER 149 

buffaloes made for her pedestrian party yesterday. . . . One 
night the cows came to feed on the matting of our verandah ; 
another night pariah dogs broke into the dairy and drank our 
milk." More serious drawbacks to their primitive life were 
the windstorms, which sent them racing after their movables, 
and pitiless and persistent downpour of rain on many days. 

They made some interesting expeditions : one to a glacier, 
where they sat in an icehouse, and found masses of edelweiss ; 
one to a village, where they put off their shoes to inspect a 
sacred tank, and forty people assembled to see how they 
fastened them on again. 

Irene had Ruskin's Modern Painters with her, and was 
feasting on "The Mountain Glory" in Vol. IV. (which also 
went with her to Leh in 1897). She was reading Kingsley's 
Sainfs Tragedy too, for enjoyment of literature had always 
been a part of her annual holiday. As she wrote later : 
" When one has so little time even to open an English book, 
good poetry supplies one's mental appetite with a first-rate 
condensed essence." Or as she wrote from Gulmarg : " A 
little good poetry is a great treat in the intervals of Urdu, 
though I regard reading as rather a stolen pleasure nowadays, 
when there are so many other pleasures, of glorious scenery, 
and so forth." 

She had indeed deliberately preferred Gulmarg to Simla 
because it promised more leisure for Urdu, and opportunity 
of teaching from a good munshi, with whom she continued 
work at Srinagar, for she was hoping to go up in the spring of 
1895 f r * ne fi rs t examination which C.M.S. missionaries are 
required to pass. Throughout the summer she studied at 
least six hours daily, and even on Sunday read the Urdu 
Bible and Prayer Book. " Urdu," she writes on June 3oth, 
" occupies all possible hours. I was going to say quiet hours, 
but such do not exist in India. I always feel glad that home 
habits of working in a room with the door open prepared me 



150 IRENE PETRIE 

for working in a verandah, with conversations in English and 
Urdu going on in each ear, and a happy chorus of cocks 
and hens." On July 24th she says : " I make alarmingly 
slow progress with Rasum-i-Hind^ the Urdu account of 
Mohammedanism, which is the most important subject 
prescribed. The language and printing are as difficult as 
the matter is repulsive. The part I am now doing is a 
travesty of the Book of Genesis, which says that Enoch, 
Abraham, and other patriarchs spent their lives promoting 
Islamism, that Ishmael, not Isaac, was offered in sacrifice, 
and that the incidents of Joseph's life turned upon a series 
of puerile miracles. Of course, knowledge of this book will 
be most useful in future work. ... I feel as ever that only 
one ultimate object could induce me to study Oriental tongues." 
She plodded on, however, undeterred by the remonstrances 
of her companions, till on July 3ist Miss Hull arrived at 
Gulmarg, and only one month of the holiday season remained. 
When she also, with her long experience and high standard 
of hard work, lectured Irene, the latter " thought of slackening 
off a little," and, thanks partly to instruction given by Miss 
Hull herself, began to feel rather happier about the lesson 
books by the middle of August. "On September 6th," 
she says, " I finished Job, which is really very difficult, 
with all the poetical expressions and queer words. I 
only hope my mouth and ears will open when I get to 
work." 

This tale of labour at a foreign tongue may seem tame to 
those who regard missions as a romantic enterprise, or un 
satisfactory to those familiar with the lives of missionaries 
like T. V. French or G. L. Pilkington, who devoted to God's 
service a remarkable talent for linguistic study, and loved it for 
its own sake. For Irene, as for many, this study was one of the 
earliest, severest, and most prolonged tests of power to deny 
herself; and merely to mention that eventually she was un- 



A QUIET SUMMER 151 

usually successful in mastering two very difficult languages 
would be to omit one of the most instructive points in 
our story. Her success was no chance outcome of general 
ability, but the reward of patient painstaking. Moreover, 
while the opportunity for rising, in a moment of high- 
wrought enthusiasm, to some great self-sacrifice comes but 
once in a lifetime to the few, the truly unselfish life is made 
up, for the missionary as for most of us, of a succession of 
small, unnoticed self-sacrifices in " the trivial round, the 
common task." Probably Irene, determined to conquer 
Urdu, found it easier to decline, one by one, pleasant 
invitations, and to refrain from using her gift of song at 
Lahore, than to renounce, day by day, the delights of 
climbing and sketching amid what she calls " the most 
superb views I have ever seen." We have told how the 
artist predominated in her throughout her life ; and not only 
the friends who did not believe in missions, but one at least 
of those who did, and who, being an excellent artist herself, 
was able to gauge Irene's artistic powers, declared that a girl 
who could have become so notable as either musician or 
painter should never have gone out as a missionary. That 
her love of art remained unabated to the end is seen from 
a letter to an intimate friend, written within a year of 
her death, in which she alludes to chrysanthemums " so 
lovely that they make one long for another life to give to 
painting " ; and says of some recent sketches : " They are 
mere poor caricatures, but I think one's little attempts have 
a Biblical sanction in that beautiful verse, 'The works of 
the Lord are great, sought out of all them that have pleasure 
therein.'" Yet in the holiday resort of Gulmarg her guitai 
lay unstrung, her easel could seldom lure her from the table 
where repugnant Rasum-i-Hind was flanked by grammar and 
dictionary, though she found forty-three varieties of exquisite- 
wild flowers growing within five minutes' radius of their hut, 



iS2 IRENE PETRIE 

and the transcendent proportions of Nanga Parbat, in all 
his mysterious glory, closed in the landscape. 

But she was to learn that lawful pleasures laid at God's 
feet are sometimes restored, as Isaac was restored, with a 
newly won blessing. " Now in this time," said our Lord 
of the disciple who gives up house or brethren or sisters for 
His sake and the Gospel's, "he shall receive a hundredfold" 
(Mark x. 29, 30). The mission in Kashmir soon claimed 
Irene's music ; and her sketches not only won much interest 
in that land from many quarters, but raised considerable funds 
for it, and thus became part of her work. At Gulmarg the 
wife of the Director of Public Works, herself a good flower- 
painter, saw a few sketches Irene had made there, and 
asked if she might purchase replicas. A substantial gift to 
the collection in Gulmarg church on behalf of the C.M.S. 
Hospital, after a sermon by Dr. Neve, was only the im 
mediate result of Irene's acceptance of the little commission. 
The pictures bought were shown in the exhibition of Drawing 
Club sketches in the Public Library, other orders followed, 
and as early as August Irene destined their proceeds for 
the building fund of St. Luke's Church, of which more anon. 
She left Gulmarg (where we can well believe that the days 
had proved all too short) " with numerous orders to execute 
in any painting-time that comes in the near future," and 
people at Srinagar and elsewhere proved at least as willing 
to buy as the small European community there. 

As she made a good deal of time for correspondence in 
the course of that quiet summer, we may speak once for all 
here of her intercourse with home during her missionary 
career, ere we follow her to the capital. 

"Be concentrated in the energy of personal effort; be 
diffusive in the unity of spiritual sympathy," is a counsel of 
Bishop Westcott's that Irene tried to act on throughout her 



A QUIET SUMMER 153 

brief but intense life. Distance from the interests and 
affections of former days seemed only to strengthen her attach 
ment to them. When at Gulmarg she heard by telegram of 
the birth in Montreal of a nephew, an event which doubled 
the number of her near relatives, her rapture so Miss Hull 
reports was almost more than she could bear physically, and 
the lively sympathy expressed in her news finally knitted up 
her new friendships. When, a few months later, snow-blocked 
passes delayed the mails, which she characterised as "my 
weekly joy and treat," and home letters posted in three 
successive weeks reached her simultaneously, she is described 
as " literally shouting for joy " after the long silence. 

Not only all concerning her relatives but all concerning 
her friends remained as interesting as ever, though she grew 
more and more absorbed in her work. " I think it is wonder 
ful," writes one girl comrade of past days, " how you can keep 
in touch with old friends so well, in the midst of your missionary 
labours." " I had a card of flowers and a letter for Christmas 
from Irene," writes a very busy friend, " which made me feel 
rather base, as I had not written to her." " I can hardly realise 
even yet," writes another girl comrade in December, 1897, "that 
this Christmas I shall have no greeting from Irene. It is the 
first since I have known her that this has been so. She never 
seemed to forget anyone." A missionary whom Irene met 
several times at Amritsar had a sister in England with whom 
she was slightly acquainted before she went out. This lady 
tells that whenever Irene saw her relative she wrote sending 
ner the most recent news of her health and welfare. The 
incident is given as a typical one. We hear of her despatching 
between twenty and thirty Christmas gifts to friends in Europe 
one year ; of her preparing twenty-four Christmas cards of dried 
Himalayan flowers for them another year. She had always 
taken special delight in giving presents at that season, and 
she not only continued to do so, but to choose them with as 



154 IRENE PETRIE 

much thought as ever or the idiosyncrasies of their recipients. 
And she was as ready to condole with the sorrows, counsel 
the perplexities, remember the birthdays, and help forward the 
enterprises of the friends of her girlhood as she had ever been. 

Her interest in home missions remained unchanged also. 
" I feel we should rather be giving to you," writes the 
Hon. Treasurer of the Church Army in acknowledging 
her annual subscription sent from Kashmir. Among letters 
written to her in England after she had actually reached Leh 
in August, 1897, are thanks for two boxes of Kashmir goods 
sent to different friends for sales of work at home, and for 
her annual subscription to the British and Foreign Bible 
Society and the Church Pastoral Aid Society. She had been 
placed on the Kensington Committee of the latter in 1888, 
and inquired after its prosperity in a letter written just as 
she started on her last journey. 

The number of old friends with whom she maintained a 
regular correspondence in hours snatched too often from 
needed sleep was very large. The effort thus made was not 
made in vain, for. she enjoyed unbroken intercourse in spirit 
with those she cared for most, and the spiritual sympathy of 
some in absence is worth almost as much as their bodily 
presence. Turning over letters to her that chance to survive, 
one passes from the pastoral counsel and warmly expressed 
approval of her work of the Vicar of Kensington to pages 
of home news from old schoolfellows ; affectionate letters 
from former College by Post students, telling of their own 
efforts in work for God ; thoughts of the wise gleaned from 
hearing or reading, and passed on to one on outpost duty 
as watchwords from home ; and words of cheer from fellow- 
missionaries in other lands. 

Hers was not one of the self-contained natures that need 
not to lean strongly on the love of others. " Being alone 
in the world" was her definition of misery. So when one 



A QUIET SUMMER 155 

friend writes from the United States : " I consider every line 
I receive from you a great treat and privilege," and another 
in England writes : " You are happy to be one of Christ's 
messengers, now that possibly all days of service for His 
Church may be short," we can understand that Irene often 
said of her mail : " It is heart-warming to read all these kind 
letters," or (referring to the news that a third member of 
her hygiene class hoped to become a missionary) : "It does 
warm one's heart to hear from the dear students." Above 
all, she was strengthened and comforted by the assurance 
which is the burden of most letters : " Courage ; we pray for 
you without ceasing " ; "as the old Scotch-woman said, ' We 
shall pray for you nard.' " So they " held the ropes " ; and 
her exceeding delight in the home mail, which one Christmas 
had almost fifty letters for her by one post, passed into a 
proverb among her colleagues. 

The value she set on their affection for herself would not, 
however, have justified the time she gave to letter-writing 
had it not been her effort throughout to translate the personal 
regard of friends into concern for her chosen work, to receive 
gifts for her pupils rather than herself, to broaden prayer 
for her into prayer for Kashmir. 

In this effort she succeeded to a remarkable degree. " How 
near in some respects Kashmir seems with your own 
dear self in it,' said another correspondent in the United 
States. " You cannot think how glad I should be to send you 
anything that would be a help in your work, and that would 
show my interest in it," says a former schoolfellow. From 
many individual friends, from her Sunday school class, from 
the Kensington C.M.S. working party, and from little bands 
of helpers she had called into existence at Mitcham and 
at Penshurst, generous gifts came again and again. 

As an illustration of co-operation that blesses both those 
abroad and those at home a letter to Irene from Mitcham, 



156 IRENE PETRIE 

written in February, 1895, may be quoted: "I cannot tell 
you how deeply the accounts of your work interest me. I 
do indeed feel how immense the obstacles and hindrances 
are which meet you on every side, overwhelming, one 
would be tempted to say, were it not for the knowledge 
of our Father's Presence and Power. I rejoice to feel 
that I may in some measure, however small, help with my 
prayers. It is such a help to one's prayers to have more 
knowledge of the difficulties for which these prayers are 
specially needed. ... I took your letter down to our 
1 Missionary Union ' meeting, and read all about the presents 
and the women and girls to the children, to their great delight. 
It made all seem so much more real to them to hear what 
actually had happened to their handiwork. ... I rejoice to say 
that our little Union continues to prosper wonderfully. . . . What 
makes me feel most thankful and hopeful of all is the benefit 
I cannot but recognise that it is to our children themselves. 
It is so cheering to see quite rough and unruly ones growing 
gentler and more disciplined, and some of our idlers learning 
to work quite hard and earnestly. . . . You have been so closely 
associated with our Union from the first (indeed, we owe its 
existence, humanly speaking, to your visit), that I longed to 
tell you all about ourefforts and our progress." Another letter 
from Mitcham in 1897 reported a missionary band of sixty 
" Sowers " all working with undiminished enthusiasm. 

Sentences from three more letters will indicate how Irene 
stirred up prayer for Kashmir. A London friend, who had 
purchased some of her sketches, writes : "I often gaze for 
a long time at your sweet little pictures, which hang together 
in a group in my own room, and pray for a great blessing on 
you and all the work in Srinagar. ... I hope you keep well. 
I think you must, for there is a happy ring about your letter, 
as if you had found your God-made niche and were content." 
A Scottish lady, whom she met for the first and last time 



A QUIET SUMMER 157 

during a day and a half in Rome on her way back to India 
in 1895, writes fifteen months after their meeting : " I have 
not forgotten you and your companions daily in my prayers, 
but have asked God to grant you health, strength, patience, 
and courage for the work He has given you to do, and 
I trust He has heard me." A lady in Montreal, who 
knew Irene only through her journals, writes : " I really 
felt as if I knew and loved her also, and have rejoiced 
over her good work, and for two years have prayed for it 
every day." 

That sympathy might be enlightened and prayer definite, 
Irene sent home many photographs and journals, and also 
wrote personal letters, full of graphic details, calculated to 
interest individual correspondents, that friends might become 
distributers as well as recipients of information. " How 
vividly," writes an American friend, "your journals have 
brought places and people before me ! I am sure your friends 
will soon insist on your publishing a book." 

The following letter of condolence from a London neighbour 
expresses another aspect of her influence : " My first feeling on 
hearing the news was that if any death could be without sadness 
it must be Irene's. She had fulfilled her mission so truly, with 
such self-restraint and self-devotion all her life : first at home 
and in society ; then, when the way was clearly opened for her 
to go to India, by devoting her great gifts of mind and heart 
so enthusiastically to the work in Kashmir, grinding at the 
languages, which were not naturally to her taste, with as much 
earnestness as she threw into everything else. Knowing her 
and hearing her speak of her work have caused me many times 
to defend the cause of foreign missions against slighting 
remarks, and to realise a little the binding force of the charter 
of missionary work, 'Go ye teach all nations.'" 

One further quotation from the magazine article already 
quoted on pp. 20 and 55, will convey the impression made by 



iS8 IRENE PETRIE 

her work on those who followed it at home through journals 
and letters : 

"First, we will look into the dark, comfortless women's 
quarters in one of the homes in Srinagar. A group of women 
and children of all ages are squatting on the floor in listless 
idleness, a look of settled dulness pervading all their faces, 
until transformed into one of eager welcome by the appearance 
of their English lady visitor. Her bright face shows that it 
is Irene herself, as she gathers her ready pupils about her, 
to teach them to knit and read, and best of all, to know the 
love of Christ which passeth knowledge. 

" Our next glimpse is of a little English gathering of mis 
sionaries and travellers thrown together for a single evening, 
by chance, as we are apt to say. Most of them are strangers 
to one another, and feeling rather lonely and very homesick ; 
but Miss Petrie cheered us all up, as one of them said: 
she got out her guitar and sang the dear old Scotch songs to 
us, till it seemed like a real English home evening. . . . 

" To every one of us Irene Petrie has three lessons still to 
teach, the same that she was for ever teaching, by her words 
and life and influence, to all who knew her while she was 
on earth. The first is the lesson of simple, childlike trust in our 
Heavenly Father's will and power to send or keep us wherevei 
He sees that we can serve Him best. The next is the lesson 
she had such a wonderful power of bringing home to the heart 
of even the youngest child that in God's service rich and poor, 
great and small, all alike are needed, and all are claimed by 
His love. And the last and the most important is the lesson 
that prayer is the highest, the hardest, and the most necessary 
service of all. ' Oh, if you only knew,' she would say again 
and again, ' how we abroad depend upon the prayers of you 
at home ! There is such strength and such support to us in 
the thought that you are praying for us, and that we all are 
watching and waiting and working together for the harvest.' " 



A QUIET SUMMER 159 

A passage from Irene's letter to the College by Post, written 
at Gulmarg on June 23rd, 1894, will fitly conclude this 
chapter. After describing some of the sights that indicate 
the deep need of those who are without knowledge of the 
True God, she continues : 

" But there are happier sights, too, out here. Never have I 
enjoyed our Church service more than when joining in it with 
a large congregation of native Christians, many of whom had 
really endured the trial of their faith. In the splendid 
Christian schools in Amritsar, among Miss Tuting's gay groups 
of non-Christian pupils, and in the medical missions both 
there and at Srinagar, Christ's commands to teach and heal 
the sick are being literally carried out. I have been stirred 
by watching the faces of the women of four cities, from the 
richest to the poorest, as they listen to the message coming 
with wonderful freshness into their darkened lives. To how 
many of these it brings indeed the Light of Life we cannot 
now know ; it seems a profanation to try and tabulate results, 
when Christ tells us that the kingdom of God cometh not 
with observation. 

" Face to face with heathendom and missionary work, 
many preconceived ideas are greatly modified; but these 
following impressions are daily strengthened: 

" The need is indeed great, and the work among these Indian 
natives, who, as Christians, often put our religious profession 
to shame, is indeed worth living for. 

" The largest proportion of the real and often unexpected 
difficulties in missionary work can be directly traced to 
the dearth of efficient workers. How many there must still 
be at home who could come and help ! Well-educated 
ladies as doctors and teachers are urgently wanted for the 
Christlike work of medical missions, and for the increasingly 
important work of building up the native Christians, and 
giving higher Christian education. 



160 IRENE PETRIE 

"As a learner and beginner, I would venture to suggest 
to any who hope to come out that the following seem 
needful qualifications : Prudence as to bodily health, 
methodical and compact habits under any circumstances, a 
large heart, a reserved tongue, and readiness to take the 
second or, if need be, the tenth place. While every kind 
of gift can be turned to account in India, it is also true that 
untrained, inefficient, or self-sufficient workers may often 
have, and cause, disappointment. 

" All the more, then, do we beg for the prayers of the Mite- 
Givers' Guilds and all other members of the College by Post, 
because the standard must be a high one ; and any flaws 
in His instruments must hinder the work which God is willing 
and able to do through them, and which is indeed His own 
work." 

Referring to what Irene here says about " the tenth place," 
a College by Post student unknown to us personally wrote 
in February, 1898 : "In the light of the knowledge we now 
have of Miss Petrie's remarkable gifts and powers, this sentence 
in her first letter, which struck us very much at the time, 
strikes us even more forcibly. Written by one so highly 
gifted, and so eminently qualified to take the first place, how 
Christlike the sentiment ! How ready indeed the writer was 
to be called up higher ! " 



CHAPTER VIII 

FIRST WINTER IN SRINAGAR 

(SEPTEMBER STH, 1894, TO MARCH SOTH, 1895) 

The woman's cause is man's ; they rise or sink 
Together, dwarfed or godlike, bond or free. 
If she be small, slight-natured, miserable, 
How shall men grow ? 

But in the shadow will we work, and mould 
The woman to the fuller day. 

TENNYSON, The Princess. 

THE quiet summer was over, and on September ;th a 
picturesque procession of one hundred and two human 
beings and six quadrupeds left Gulmarg for Srinagar, since 
"light marching order" is not the fashion in India. Next 
morning an unforeseen difficulty arose over getting a mount 
for Irene, so she determined to proceed on foot. " I set off 
at sunrise with a coolie we knew for escort," she says, "and 
walked on fourteen miles across the plains, stopping only 
once for five minutes, till 10.30, when our nice boatmen 
appeared, and joyfully conducted me to our old craft, where I 
was glad enough to sit down. One of them fanned me, while 
I enjoyed some luscious peaches. I had to wait some time 
for the rest of the procession ; and at 6.30 after a long day 
on the river we found ourselves opposite to the Barracks. 
There I and my goods were landed, and a warm and delightful 
welcome joined on to the regretful farewell with the Perrydise 

161 II 



1 62 IRENE PETRIE 

party. Mr. and Mrs. Tyndale-Biscoe were at tea with Miss 
Hull and Miss Newnham, and I felt at home directly." 

" The Barracks " is such an unexpected address for lady 
missionaries that it claims explanation, as the designation of 
a set of about a dozen little houses for European visitors 
built by the Kashmir Government on the Munshi Bagh, the 
European quarter of Srinagar. This is an orchard stretching 
for half a mile along the right bank of the Jhelum, from which 
it is separated by a bund rising about twenty feet above the 
river. Through its fine chenars and willows the rosy dawn 
may be seen lighting up a hundred miles of the Pir Punjal 
range. Miss Hull and Irene shared one of these houses, 
which was rented by the C.E.Z.M.S., and until her own rooms 
in the Hospital were ready, Miss Newnham was with them. 
" We are a trio now, and a very happy one," says Irene. How. 
close is the co-operation between the two societies in the 
field was shown by the fact that Miss Newnham, a C.E.Z. 
lady, working for the C.M.S. Hospital, lived in a C.M.S. house ; 
while Irene, a C.M.S. lady, appointed to Kashmir to assist 
M-iss Hull in the zenana work, lived in a C.E.Z. house. 

Her life quickly fell into an uneventful routine. She 
had arrived on a Saturday evening, and before breakfast on 
Monday she resumed her Urdu lessons with the munshi. On 
Tuesday she was at three Sikh zenanas. The warmth of her 
welcome was not the only thing that made her feel at home, 
for she discovered many links to each of her new associates, 
and their familiarity with a good many persons and places 
that had been a part of her home life prevented from the 
first any sense of strangeness. In rare moments of leisure 
the little group of missionaries seem to have enjoyed each 
other's society thoroughly. For instance, "the nicest dinner 
party " Irene had been to since leaving England was one given 
by moonlight on October i2th at the summit of the Takht-i- 
Suleiman, to which Dr. Neve invited six of his colleagues. 



FIRST WINTER IN SRINAGAR 163 

The Munshi Bagh was close to the Takht and the Hospital, 
so there are many references to both during this first winter. 
Soon after Irene returned to Srinagar in October, 1895, she 
went, as we shall see, to the Sheikh Bagh, which was close 
to the city and to the School, and the School became one 
of her great interests therefore during the succeeding winters. 
Midway between the two Baghs stands the Residency, 
where lives the representative of the Empress of India, with 
whose help and under whose advice the Maharaja rules. 

" It is so delightful to be at last in the midst of the work 
I have longed for." In the supreme satisfaction thus ex 
pressed by Irene she was almost unconscious of minor dis 
comforts : the wind that blew relentlessly through the ill- 
fitting doors of their house ; the rats that ran to and fro, 
consuming furs and anything else they could find ; the appre 
hension that the decrepit house itself would fall down suddenly 
if either flood or earthquake took place; the inconvenience 
of being at a great distance from nearly all the zenanas ; and 
the trials of climate. Kashmir may be " equal to Paradise * in 
spring, but burning heat in summer, deadly stench in autumn, 
and bitter cold in winter make up the rest of the year for its 
capital city. Premising that the winter 1894-95 was a particu 
larly severe one, we may quote some of Irene's descriptions of 
its course at once: 

" October 2oth. The whole Pir Punjal has put on its winter 
mantle of dazzling snow, and is surpassingly beautiful. Here 
the mornings are chilly, and a fire welcome at night." 

"November 22nd. Dreary wintry weather has come now 
with bare trees, rain, wind, and snow down to an elevation of 
two thousand feet above this. We sit round our wood fire, 
with feet in the fender." 

"December ^th. This week we had our first fall of snow, 
but happily it did not lie, and we are rejoicing now in lovely, 
bright days, when long walks are a real treat." 



1 64 IRENE PETRIE 

Really bad weather set in after the New Year, and by the 
middle of January city visiting had become impossible. 

"January i*jth. The snow is about a foot deep all round, 
and folks with leisure are doing a great deal of skating and 
toboganning. The lakes are frozen, the trees all frosted, our 
bath-rooms floored with ice. Water freezes in the basin an 
hour after one has washed one's hands ; and we are moving our 
larder into the dining-room to keep the food from freezing." 

"January 24^. The road from Baramula is blocked with 
snow ; the boat with the mails was ice-bound on the Wular 
Lake for six days, and the poor men's provisions ran short. 
The horses who bring in the mails suffer greatly, as there is 
no pity for animals among the non-Christian natives. We 
walk along beaten snow-tracks, between walls of snow two or 
three feet high, and every building is fringed with long icicles." 

"January ^isf. We are well, though aching with cold." 

By the beginning of February they were fairly snowed up ; 
and to save the servants a journey across the compound, 
they melted a block of ice to boil water for making their 
tea from, and served themselves. Meanwhile, sympathetic 
letters from England expressed a hope that Irene did not 
find the heat of India too trying. 

February wore on with the thermometer four degrees 
below zero at night, but the grey sky and misty horizon since 
Christmas gave place to sunshine and lovely distant views. 
On February nth they picnicked on the frozen surface of 
the Dal in hot sun. Next day a thaw set in, and mud 
unspeakable succeeded snow in the city. They had to 
wait another month for the sight of mother earth, and at 
the first green blade felt like Noah welcoming the dove's 
olive leaf. March i4th brought a final snowstorm. A few 
days later the skies cleared, the mountains were seen 
again, and birds began to sing in glorious sunshine ; but the 
accumulated snows of a Himalayan winter turned to mud 



FIRST WINTER IN SRINAGAR 165 

deeper and thicker than ever, soaking through the strongest 
footgear, while outside the city the horses sank in mire 
up to the girths. "I believe we must be the muddiest 
missionaries in the world," says Irene. 

She does not seem to have suffered in health from these 
arctic experiences, but she had many admonitions to take care 
of herself, of which these words from a letter written to her 
by the Bishop of Lahore on November i2th, 1894, ma y 
serve as an example : " I am glad you have found so 
congenial a sphere of work as that in Kashmir. I would 
only beg of you to take care of your health, and not to make 
experiments in the way of going long intervals without food. 
I venture to give this piece of advice because someone 
who had lately seen you told me you were not looking 
as well as when you were in Lahore last winter." 

Valuable work is so often hindered or even abandoned 
because ardent missionaries do not consider their own health 
that the following sentence of a letter of Irene's on the subject 
is of interest : " I have seen enough since leaving home to 
realise more than ever before what a blessing good health 
is, and what dire results come of the carelessness of some 
missionaries as to health and food. ... Oh that people 
would only realise that God's laws of nature are as binding 
as the Decalogue ! " 

When she had been in India eleven months she could 
say: "I am so thankful never to have had a touch of 
fever"; but only five days after she wrote these words on 
November 2nd a small pupil waylaid her as she went 
home, begging her to hear his verses. She lingered, though 
the sun had just set ; two days in bed and a week's absence 
from work was the price paid for this little indiscretion. 
In January, when "everyone seemed to be down with 
dreadful colds," Dr. Neve was saying : " The wonder is that 
Miss Petrie keeps so well, and still goes to the city " ; and 



T 66 IRENE PETRIE 

Irene was writing : " I do feel how much all the health 
and happiness in present work is due to the prayers of 
the dear ones far away." 

She touches here on a matter about which friends were 
wont to ask first of all. Often before they had begun to 
ascertain what her work was, they wished to know if she 
was happy in it, if it came up to her expectations. She 
answers thus on October 2 7th, the anniversary of her departure 
for India. "How little I thought this day year where I 
should now be ! ... There is much to be thankful for indeed, 
after all the changes of scene and companionship of the past 
year, in my having, as I think, got into just the right niche 
here, in this pretty little home with this kind friend, and the 
beginnings of work, and constant recreation of seeing those 
glorious mountains." In another little bit of retrospect on 
December 7th she says : " If I had offered generally to the 
C.M.S. they would probably have sent me somewhere else, as 
they never appoint ladies to Kashmir. Between the ridiculous 
unpopularity of educational missions among some theorisers 
who sit at home and the lack of romance about a mission- 
field hitherto apparently unfruitful, Kashmir does not get 
the sympathy and interest that it ought to have. ... I often 
marvel at the chain of circumstances that led me here, and 
hope the lines have not fallen in too pleasant a place for 
a missionary. However, looking back I do feel that each 
step was ordered for and scarcely by me." 

Her days were divided between learning Urdu and visiting 
zenanas. Every morning from 8 to 9 o'clock she studied the 
Acts and Epistles and Rasum-i-Hind> which she calls " the 
most odious book I have ever read," her lesson dividing chota 
hazri, taken on first rising, from breakfast. Family prayers 
and religious instruction of their own servants followed. At 
1 1 they started for the day's work in the city, returning between 
5 and 6 for tea. Evensong, at which Irene was organist, 



FIRST WINTER IN SRINAGAR 167 

dinner at 7.45, and another hour or two of language study, 
ended the day. " Exodus, Prayer Book, and grammar " were 
her evening subjects, and the journey to and from the city 
was utilised for " grinding at dialogues." By October she tasted 
the sweetness of being able to explain John iii. 16 to her 
pupils in their own tongue ; in January she added a second 
lesson from the munshi after dinner; but one gathers that 
a toilsome evening after a busy day was telling on her spirits 
for, on January 3ist, she groaned out : " It is really humiliating 
to find how well everyone else gets on with their language 
studies ; but Miss Hull says she thinks I have got to learn 
more patience. ... If only my useless musical memory could 
be transferred to these old languages ! " The very next day 
she begins Kashmiri with Miss Hull, and finds it an even 
worse undertaking than Urdu. " I wish more than ever," 
she writes on March 5th, "that I had any gift or taste or 
memory for languages." 

We have already had with Irene glimpses into zenanas at 
Meerut, Lahore, and Amritsar, stations where work is at a 
more advanced stage than in Kashmir ; and one may hope that 
the time is long past when mention of zenana missionaries 
led to search in the index of an atlas for " Zenana," and that 
the kind of life led by our women fellow-subjects in India 
behind the purdah, which shuts off the women's quarters from 
the rest of the dwelling, is now matter of common knowledge. 
It may be well, however, to remind the reader that their 
seclusion is neither ancient nor indigenous ; its full develop 
ment, if not its actual origin, in India dates from the 
Mohammedan conquest in the eleventh century A.D. The 
learned Pandita Ramabai tells us that the lauded Sanskrit 
literature contains " many hateful sentiments about women," 
though it pictures the heroic age of India as one in which they 
were to a large extent honoured and free, like the Hebrew 
women of old. But one of the root ideas of Mohammedanism 



1 68 IRENE PETRIE 

is that while woman 'may minister to man as either toy or 
drudge, she can have no share in his intellectual, still less 
in his religious, life. A woman never enters a mosque. The 
system begins by despising and degrading her, and ends by 
distrusting, insulting, imprisoning her, and placing her all 
her life under the absolute rule of some man in childhood 
of her father, in wifehood of her husband, in widowhood 
of her son. Poets like Byron and Moore, who were never 
in the East, have thrown over her imprisonment a glamour 
of gleaming robes and dazzling jewels, of perfume and flowers 
and music. In reality the zenana, even in affluent houses, 
is mean and bare and squalid; the life of its inmates is 
dull with ennui unutterable, wretched with bickerings, 
jealousies, petty tyrannies, and sometimes hideous cruelties. 
So close is the imprisonment that an Indian woman can live 
and die without seeing even a tree or a cow. A European 
invited to " dine with " an Indian gentleman eats a meal 
at an hotel at his expense. His host would break caste 
by eating with him, would be mortally offended by an 
allusion to his wife. Etiquette requires even a lady missionary 
asking him if she may call on her to say nothing more 
definite than " May I see your house ? " Women of the 
poorer classes are not thus imprisoned, but how utterly 
they are contemned may be judged from words addressed 
to a lady who was labouring among village women in the 
Punjab : " You will take your book into the fields and teach 
the cows next." 

A recent writer in the Spectator remarked of Asiatic women 
generally that "their ignorance is phenomenal," its twofold 
result being abject superstition and habitual resistance to any 
kind of change ; there is, moreover, much unhappiness as the 
men slowly become more educated, and are thrown more and 
more on each other for society; while the children learn 
nothing till they cease to be children. Here are the statistics 



FIRST WINTER IN SRINAGAR 169 

for India according to the 1891 census. Of the Hindu women 
in the whole Empire, only one in 244 was either literate or 
learning at school; of the Mohammedan women, only one 
in 298. 1 

Matters being thus, it is not hard to imagine that the 
personality of a British lady, highly cultured and free to order 
her own life, is at first a puzzle and gradually an education 
to the women of India. Comprehension of her circumstances 
and aims comes slowly, and after much questioning. Irene 
was constantly asked what relation she was to Miss Hull, 
whether she was married, or was going to be, or if she was 
not married, why she was not. She was even asked about 
her brother-in-law's income ; their notion of a woman being 
always dependent on some man naturally suggesting this 
when they heard that her one relative was a married sister. 

Of course, no wise missionary would wish that Eastern 
customs should be supplanted wholesale by Western ones. 
Miss Hewlett's opinion on this has been quoted in Chapter V. ; 
and more and more Irene realised that in preaching Christ 
to Indians we are taking a faith of Oriental birthplace back 
to its own continent, and that Christianising India ought to 
be a very different thing from Anglicising India. 

Nor is it merely a question of abolishing certain flagrant 
abuses that have grown out of the zenana system, such as 
marrying very young girls, and condemning to perpetual 
widowhood little children who have been merely betrothed. 
Non-Christian Hindus, under the indirect influence of Christi 
anity, are finding arguments against these things from their 
own ancient books, and uniting with Christians in combating 
them. Nor is it even the fact that "the Hindu woman is 
unwelcome at birth, untaught in childhood, enslaved when 

1 None of this applies to the Parsis, a community influential out of 
all proportion to their small number. Several natives of India and 
" advanced " Indian women known in Europe belong to that community. 



170 IRENE PETRIE 

married, accursed as a widow, and unlamented when dead," 
that most strongly urges forward zenana missions. Not 
because she is unspeakably miserable but because she is 
unspeakably powerful must she be won to the faith, if India 
is to be conquered for Christ. 

Happy companionship in marriage being scarcely known, 
the bond between mother and son is stronger even than 
with us, and the mother's influence paramount. " You 
would not dare to use such words before your mother," 
said Mr. Tyndale-Biscoe, rebuking a boy for foul language, 
as he might have rebuked a boy at home. " My mother 
taught me to say it," was the significant reply. Many 
a man who no longer believes in the Hindu gods does 
puja to pacify his mother, or is deterred by home influence 
from confessing that he does believe in Christianity. The 
Rev. G. E. A. Pargiter, late Principal of St. John's College, 
Agra, tells of a young man of very good position who said 
to him, " Can I not be a secret Christian ? for my mother 
says she will poison herself if I am baptised." These 
two typical incidents emphasise, as no general statements 
could do, two aspects of the crying need for the zenana 
missionary as the one teacher who can reach these mothers. 
Many a Hindu lad who has been at school and college, even 
in Europe, falls back to the moral and spiritual level of 
his forefathers when he returns to mother and wife in the 
zenana ; and the history of what bigoted heathen women once 
accomplished in the undoing of the wisest of men is repeated 
on a smaller scale. 

We see this going on, but happily we see something else 
going on besides. Let us turn, not to a missionary report, 
but to a Blue-book and a newspaper. A few years ago 
the Director of Public Instruction in the Madras Presidency 
called attention to the fact that while in the University 
examination the number of Brahmans examined had decreased 



FIRST WINTER IN SRINAGAR 171 

by eight per cent., the number of Christians had increased 
by forty per cent., and surmised that in another generation 
the Christians would have secured a preponderating position 
in all the great professions. The Madras Mail accounted 
for this by pointing to the striking superiority, physical and 
intellectual, of the mothers of the Christians. The census 
returns already quoted tell that of the Christian women of 
India and the majority of these, we must remember, belong 
to the humblest classes of the community one in seven is 
literate or learning. 

Briefly as they are stated, these facts may indicate the 
importance of zenana visiting before we plunge into its 
apparently commonplace details. We thank God that so 
many of Irene's countrywomen have heard the call to it, 
and we recognise that success in it demands many gifts : 
the pastor's love of souls ; the teacher's love of instructing ; 
the district visitor's kindliness; the society woman's savoir 
faire j the quick insight and intelligence that come of a 
mind trained at all points; the ease and graciousness and 
tact that come of birth undeniably gentle; the delicate 
sympathy that can only come of having those laboured for 
" in the heart," as St. Paul had the Philippians in his heart ; 
the spiritual power that can only be sustained by constant 
communion with God. 

To her Kensington friends Irene pictured her daily routine 
thus : " After a walk of about a mile we have an hour's row 
in our boat to the different ghats, whence the houses can be 
reached on foot. Generally an eager face or voice gives 
welcome ere the door is opened, for the pupils count the 
days of the week to the time when the visit is due. The 
teacher sits down with them on chair, charpai, or floor, as 
the case may be, and reading or knitting is produced. Learn 
ing is slow work for those whose minds are wholly untrained ; 
but knowing what reading may be the key to for them, we 



172 IRENE PETRIE 

encourage them to persevere during the long weeks and 
months. Then, when a time comes that all the pupils 
are gathered round and inclined to listen, that babies within 
and cocks and hens and pariah dogs without are quiet, books 
and work are laid down, the Bible is opened, and week by 
week, from different portions, we try and set before them some 
of the great truths of the loving Father, the needing sinner, 
the ready Saviour, the unfailing Guide. Often a verse in 
which the teaching of the lesson can be gathered up is learned, 
to be, as we hope, a permanent possession for the pupils. 
* Miss Sahib, sing,' is a frequent request, and quite a chorus 
joins in the Christian hymns we have set to the quaint 
native airs." 

"Three new houses," she writes on October 4th, "have 
been opened this week, with warm invitations to teach. My 
fear is that Miss Hull will be quite overdone ere I am pro 
ficient enough to help really well." But already the Niki 
Mem ("little or youthful lady"), as Irene was called in the 
zenanas, was able to teach them texts, and Miss Hull was 
emphatically declaring that she was " a blessing." Some sixty 
women and girls were under instruction by Christmas, many 
of whom could now read simple books in their own language. 
" Miss Hull has such interesting welcomes and experiences," 
says Irene, " one feels that there might be a wonderful harvest 
in Kashmir, if only more efficient workers were here and 
prejudice were broken down. . . . Alas ! we have had to refuse 
fresh invitations to teach, which come every week, because we 
can scarcely keep pace with houses already undertaken." 

Distances were so great and time of so little consequence 
to those they visited that it was hard to get more than 
three visits into their expedition of six or seven hours, and 
they aimed at a weekly visit to every pupil, and made a rule 
of going to those only who were willing to have a Bible 
lesson. These lessons followed out the course of the Christian 



FIRST WINTER IN SRINAGAR 173 

year, and set forth systematically the great outlines of the 
faith. As spring advanced, Irene rejoiced " at getting longer 
hours with the dear pupils"; and they welcomed more 
warmly than ever teachers whom rain and mire could not 
daunt. 

"The work gets more interesting every week," she writes 
on March 5th. " Many of the pupils are very dear, and it is 
wonderful to see the eager look on some faces over the Bible 
lesson,' and to hear them speak of and to Christ, as if they 
really trusted in His present power to help them. Of course, 
there are the terribly sad things, suffering and degradation 
and selfishness ; and now that the month of Ramazan has 
begun there is more inclination to oppose among the Moham 
medans. To-day the mother in a family who has listened 
very civilly at other times and always been extremely friendly 
entirely refused to come to the Bible lesson, and called out 
to ask what wages I received. This is a favourite inquiry. 
But her little girl crept up close, and asked if I had ever seen 
Jesus Christ, and listened and questioned about Him so 
eagerly. Several of our pupils have been ill lately, and when 
illness comes even those who do regard us as heretics seem 
grateful and glad if we mention that we remember them in 
our prayers." 

Miss Hull tells of another who said : " Ah ! it is time, 
the distance has been great, and see, I was growing old 
without knowing anything of Him ; but when you come 
and read to us it seems as if God were here." " You will not 
wonder," adds Miss Hull, " that it seemed so to me too. . . . 
It was one of the last bright days of autumn, but in those 
hearts the light that never fades had begun to shine, the 
light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the Face of 
Jesus Christ." 

Few Indian cities contain a greater variety 01 women to 
be visited than Srinagar. Irene had all sorts and conditions 



174 IRENE PETRIE 

of pupils, from rich officials' families to very poor people, 
from most intelligent to utterly dull ; Kashmiris, both Hindu 
and Mohammedan, Sikhs, Dogras, Pathans, Nepalese, 
Afghans, Tibetans, Punjabis, Gujeratis, Rajputs, Bengalis, 
and Parsis, with corresponding variety of tongues. 

A few sketches of individual pupils, whom one follows from 
week to week in Irene's letters, will best illustrate this. To 
give names would be an intrusion into homes whose privacy 
is as much to be respected as that of our own, and particulars, 
however interesting, that might lead to identification must 
in many cases be omitted also. We begin with Hindus and 
go on to Mohammedans. 

While the Maharaja is at Jammu the lord lieutenant or 
governor is the greatest native at Srinagar. Though not 
a Christian, he spoke with the greatest appreciation of the 
Mission School at Bareilly, where he had been educated, 
contributed to the C.M.S. School at Srinagar, and received 
the missionaries most courteously when they visited his 
ladies at his invitation. 

The mansion of a rais, which commanded an alley notable 
even in Srinagar for the exceeding vileness of its smells, 
contained a large and very nice party of ladies, studying Urdu, 
Hindi, and English. 

In an untidy room at the top of a dark and broken stair 
case lived a pleasant Punjabi lady, arrayed in a gorgeous 
costume, green, blue, and gold, with a fine scarlet double 
chaddar, like that described in Prov. xxxi. 21 (margin). She 
was the wife of a tehsildar, an official who has been defined 
as an Oriental edition of a French pr'efet> but more powerful 
and irresponsible. 

The neat, clean little home of the wife, mother, and year- 
old son of the munshi, a Hindu pundit, was a contrast to 
these abodes. Irene was working through the Gospels with 
them ; and he had quite a library of books, the two great 



FIRST WINTER IN SRINAGAR 175 

Sanskrit epics standing alongside the Bible on his shelves, 
in a way entirely characteristic of the India of to-day. 

In a large Sikh family three generations of learners speaking 
Urdu, flavoured with Punjabi and Hindi, all pleasant, nice 
people, willing to learn, formed quite a school. 

The circumstances of another Sikh pupil were tragic enough 
to call out much of Irene's sympathy that winter. The man 
to whom she had been betrothed at the age of five claimed 
her, when she had grown into a bright girl of eleven, as his 
wife. He had never done anything for her, and was a 
particularly worthless fellow, whom she feared and hated so 
intensely that she declared she would rather go to prison or 
throw herself into the river than marry him. For three years 
the case had been before the courts, postponed and referred 
from one judge to another, and the poor mother had spent 
almost all she possessed in fighting for her daughter's liberty. 
Neither Hindu nor Mohammedan was likely to favour a 
woman's cause, and one native judge ordered the girl to be 
struck as she stood before him. What increased the bitter 
ness against them more than anything else was a rumour that 
they were inclined to Christianity. The missionaries had 
reason to believe that they were much more than inclined 
to it. " Through all the trouble they have been most attentive 
listeners," says Irene, "and they tell Miss Hull how greatly 
they desire to become Christians, and have really learned to 
pray to Christ. They take it as a direct answer to prayer 
that recently the trial seems to have turned quite in their 
favour; and last week the mother declared in court, when 
appeal to the guru was suggested, that she no longer believed 
in the religion of the Sikhs, but in her Miss Sahib's teaching, 
saying, ' Come what may, I trust in Christ.' " Irene describes 
how on February 6th Miss Hull and she, escorted by Mr. 
Tyndale-Biscoe, made their way through a crowd of gazing 
pundits into the court. " The judge had three chairs set at his 



176 IRENE PETRIE 

side, and when Miss Hull thanked him in Kashmiri a murmur 
of wonder ran through the audience. The poor girl has never 
seen her supposed husband except in court. He is a very 
ill-looking young man, and the witness whom he brought, a 
guru, is a very ill-looking old man. The judge questioned 
him through and through as to the laws and customs of the 
Sikhs, and the old fellow was pretty well turned inside out 
as he kept contradicting himself and making admissions really 
damaging to his side, on several of which the case might have 
been instantly dismissed. But alas! it was only postponed 
again. However, the judge was civil to the girl, and probably 
went more fairly and carefully into the evidence because we 
were there. He made quite an oration as to his holding the 
scales of justice evenly, and all through took elaborate notes 
of the evidence in Persian." A fortnight later she writes 
again : " The poor girl and her mother came early to pour 
out their woes. That Kashmiri judge had dismissed their 
case the day before in the man's favour, and they had been 
shamefully treated on the steps of the court. They have 
a last chance in appeal to the Chief Justice's court against 
the alternative of marriage or prison." The Lord Chief 
Justice was a Bengali, educated in England, and the appeal 
to him was happily successful. The girl is now married 
to a worthier suitor, and the mother, though not actually 
baptised, seems to be a true Christian. The missionaries 
still hope that she may have courage to confess the faith 
publicly. 

Among Mohammedan pupils was the daughter of a pir, 
wearing a coronet of jewels and a single cotton garment, and 
dying by inches of rheumatism brought on by sitting on a 
damp floor ; and the family of a very wealthy shawl merchant, 
who had a grand palace, with gardens, fountains, and summer- 
houses, and large rooms beautifully carpeted, where, con 
spicuous among really beautiful Oriental draperies and china, 



FIRST WINTER IN SRINAGAR 177 

were a few intolerably vulgar pieces of gaudy glass from 
England and a cheap nickel clock from the United States. 
The ladies, who though pretty looked dreadfully sickly and 
delicate, were all squatting together in one small, stuffy room, 
keeping strict purdah. They wore embroidered robes, and 
heads, throats, arms, and hands were loaded with splendid 
jewels. The gentlemen of the family came and listened 
most respectfully to the Bible lesson given to them. 

Another rich Mohammedan, by race one of the fierce 
Pathans, left a gentle young wife in the plains with two 
bonny boys, and came to Kashmir to find State employ 
ment. Here he wedded another woman, who was wild with 
jealous misery when she discovered some time afterwards 
that he had already a wife in the plains. The first wife 
was brought to Srinagar ; and these rivals, living together, 
were the very first of Miss Hull's pupils whom Irene visited 
in May, 1894. Then the second wife sat smoking her hookah, 
and defiantly uttering bitter arguments against Christianity. 
But both begged to be taught when visited again in 
September; and the first wife, alone with Miss Hull, told 
of her faith in Christ, but in a whisper, " for they would kill 
me if they knew it." At any rate, confession must have meant 
immediate separation from her boys. "She has such a beauti 
ful face," writes Irene ; and the work of Divine grace in her 
heart was shown by the way in which she alluded to her rival 
as " my sister." The usual reading with " sweet Mrs. X." 
became a Bible lesson to the two boys, and the mother eagerly 
called their attention to all that was said of Christ and His 
love. 

Here is a glimpse of Mohammedan family life on another 
side : " Coming out of a house, I was accosted by an old 
man next door with a request. His son's wife had become 
a. mother a week before, and was very ill. Could I do 
anything for her? I said I was not a doctor Miss Sahib, 

12 



1 78 IRENE PETRIE 

and did not understand these cases, but went in to see the 
poor, pretty little thing, partly because I did not want the 
father-in-law to go on detailing her symptoms in the street. 
I ascertained that she was fearfully weak, and was getting no 
nourishment. I recommended them to give her warm milk at 
once, and to go without delay to the hospital for proper treat 
ment and advice. Two days later Miss Hull and I were 
invited in together. The girl looked worse. They had given 
her no milk, though their own dinner was cooking in the 
corner; they had not gone to the hospital, because her 
husband said it was 'so cold for him to walk there'; and 
they were about to finish the poor little thing off with 
leeches. Miss Hull administered a good scolding. ' She 
will die, and then you will say, " It is Fate," and piously cant 
about the will of Allah.' He promised to go to the hospital, 
and I hope her words will have some effect." Irene insisted on 
milk being given to another poor little mother, quite a child, 
living on a diet of sherbet only, her face wasted almost past 
recognition ; beside her lay a three weeks' babe, the feeblest 
little scrap of humanity Irene had ever seen, likewise perishing 
of starvation. 

The kangre, or small fire-basket, carried under the clothes 
for warmth, is a frequent cause of accidents. On one occa 
sion Irene found a poor old woman badly burned three 
days before. Her people had actually done nothing for her, 
though only a few minutes' walk from the State Hospital, 
where they could at any time get dressings. A whole row 
of men were enjoying their hookahs in a room close by, 
and her own daughter's excuse was that she would be 
ashamed to go to the hospital. "They have queer notions 
of shame, certainly." Again, we find Irene herself dressing 
a terribly burned foot in a dirty little wooden house with 
a mud floor, wondering, as she washed it for bandaging, if 
it had ever been washed before, and realising how unwilling 



FIRST WINTER IN SRINAGAR 179 

Kashmiris are to be at the trouble of taking a girl or a 
woman to the hospital, however sore her need. 

She had pupils in still humbler circumstances than those 
just described. Close to the Munshi Bagh, in a sort of 
farmyard, lived a colony of Punjabi Hindus, the policemen 
of Srinagar, " such nice, simple people," who listened most 
attentively to the Bible lesson Miss Hull gave them on her 
way back from church on Sunday. Twice a week Irene 
went to teach their girls reading. The first time she seated 
herself on a big stone, in front were her swarthy little pupils, 
behind were white goats resting their heads on her shoulders. 
Next time a policeman saw her approaching, and ran out 
with a chair, exhorting them to attend before she began. The 
class included her one boy pupil, a jolly little chap, who 
wanted her to teach him every day. Visiting the village 
another day with medicine for a fever-stricken woman, whose 
bed was the bare ground, she was met by the children bring 
ing their books and begging for an extra lesson. 

Irene shared not only in the fisher's work of " taking souls 
alive" out of heathendom, but also in the shepherd's work 
of tending and feeding the flock. To find the Srinagar 
sheep we must go, as our story has suggested, to the C.M.S. 
Hospital, where the first Christian Church in Kashmir, in 
both senses of the term, may be seen. Its whole European 
staff were introduced in Chapter VI., and its history since 
1882 must now be sketched. 

The Drs. Neve have seen a collection of lath and plaster 
huts transformed, between 1889 and 1899, mto one f tne 
most important public buildings at Srinagar. South-east of 
the city, and well away from its dust and foul odours, 
near the Dal Gate, and on the already described spur of 
the Takht, 5,250 feet above the sea, it stands a series of 
picturesque, red-roofed, turreted houses, over which waves 



iSo IRENE PETRIE 

the red cross flag, flanked by a pretty little church, with 
glorious prospects from the verandahs, over shining river 
and maze of canals, airy pinnacles of city mosques, gardens, 
and orchards, blue outlines of rolling hills, and noble, 
serrated ranges of the snow-clad Pir Punjal. On its 
reconstruction R.6o,ooo have been spent; the cost per 
bed being ^"15, as contrasted with ^300 in an English 
hospital. The annual cost of maintaining a bed is $ $s., 
as contrasted with $o or ^60 here. This has not 
been the outlay of a missionary society. The C.M.S. has, 
indeed, provided its staff; but with the exception of the 
very first doctor sent, all happen to have been either 
honorary workers or specially supported by their own friends. 
The whole expenses of its erection and of its annual up 
keep, which amount to about R. 15,000 a year, are met by 
the gifts either of local friends, including a good many 
native gentlemen, or of friends at home, who have been 
so active that it is a building reared without either a 
special appeal or a debt. The only State aid is a 
permission to obtain rice from the State granaries at the 
same rate as the city poor obtain it. Even with its 
present accommodation for 125 in-patients, it is hardly large 
enough, especially now that the erection of the Pertab Singh 
wards, opened by the Maharaja whose name they bear, 
and the addition of skilled lady nurses to the staff have 
greatly increased the female patients. The average annual 
number of out-patients is 36,000; of in-patients, over 1,300; 
of operations, 3,500; over 300,000 visits and over 30,000 
operations being the whole record for the ten years 1889-99. 
Truly a mustard-tree has grown from the tiny seed planted by 
Elmslie ! 

Though at Srinagar, it is by no means for Srinagar 
only. On one typical day of 1896 they took a census, 
which showed that from morning to evening 155 people, 



FIRST WINTER IN SRINAGAR 181 

representing 90 villages altogether, were in the hospital. 
From 150 miles away over the mountains patients have 
come to it, and it influences the whole valley. In so lofty 
a land malarial diseases are few; so are accidents, vehicles 
and machinery being scarce. " Mauled by a bear," " fallen 
from a fruit-tree," are typical "accidents." Poverty, dirt, 
hereditary disease, and contagion fill the wards; eye cases, 
bone cases, kangre burns abound, and the majority of cases 
are surgical. As many as 58 operations (15 major) have 
been performed in one day. The after mortality is less 
than five in a thousand, in spite of personal habits setting 
every law of health at defiance, of ignorant stupidity and 
intolerance of splints, of poking of dirty fingers under 
antiseptic dressings, etc. Dr. Neve attributes this low 
mortality largely to the absence of alcoholism in the patients. 
We must surely add the medical skill, the healthy site and 
conditions of the hospital, and the blessing of God on work 
done in His Name. 

Irene describes her first visit to it thus : " I waited near 
the gathering crowd of patients, who were standing and 
squatting in dejected attitudes in the big waiting-room till 
the doors opened. One old, feeble man with such a weary 
expression, and one poor little baby unrolled from the 
depths of a shapeless bundle, struck me particularly. Then 
I accompanied Miss Newnham and Miss Neve on their 
morning rounds in the women's wards, where their gentle, 
skilful fingers are daily occupied in dressing probably several 
dozens of ghastly wounds. The nattiness of all the arrange 
ments was as much to be admired as the patience of many 
of the sufferers. None were purdah women, and in many 
cases not only their husbands but their other relatives come 
to watch operations and dressings. I then saw the clean, well 
stocked dispensary, where groups of patients were receiving 
medicines, and eyes were being attended to; and the men's 



J82 IRENE PETRIE 

wards, where the men looked up so gratefully, making their 
salaams in response to inquiries." 

The growth of the hospital buildings is easily seen ; the 
statistics of its patients are easily given. But what of the 
results that justify it as a missionary institution? These 
cannot be tabulated, yet there is evidence to show that 
they are potential for untold good in that moral and spiritual 
regeneration of Kashmir which is the supreme aim of all 
missionary effort. In addition to the blessings, both to the 
State and to the family, of threatened lives spared and 
maimed lives restored, which all hospitals show, this hospital 
confers in a yet more marked degree than hospitals at home 
the following benefits on the community. Many new and 
important data are contributed to medical science by the 
diagnosis under new conditions of a great variety of cases. 
The Drs. Neve's articles in The Lancet are an illustration 
of this, and their conclusions as to alcohol, for instance, are a 
matter of general as well as professional interest. Again, 
sojourn in the wholesome, airy hospital is an education in 
the laws of health, a revelation of undreamt-of possibilities 
of comfort and cleanliness to hundreds or rather thousands 
of a nation that has much to learn here. Again, it fosters 
friendly feeling between Briton and Kashmiri, and breaks 
down race prejudice as nothing else could do. Years of 
purely business intercourse with natives, as soldiers, clerks, 
or servants, do less to produce sympathy and mutual under 
standing between European and Asiatic than a day or two 
of patient ministration by doctor and nurse to wounds and 
disease. The native is no longer a subordinate, but a friend 
and a guest. They try not only to cure him, but to alleviate 
his suffering and to make him as comfortable as possible \ 
whereas at home the sick Kashmiri lies on the mud floor 
of a dark room, in the dirty clothes he has worn day and 
night for weeks and months. If he cannot cat ordinary food ? 



FIRST WINTER IN SRINAGAR 183 

he is told to starve, as a means of expelling his malady; 
and the worse he is, the larger the crowd of curious and 
noisy neighbours. Strong as the prejudice against the 
foreigner and the foreigner's creed is, the Kashmiri has 
been learning during the last few years not only to associate 
with the word British the ideas of justice and freedom, but 
with the word Christian the idea of philanthropy. 

Even if no religious teaching were given in the hospital, its 
deeds would proclaim forcibly the love which is the essence 
of Christianity, and shape an answer to the heathen thought 
of God as a Being Who takes pleasure in human suffering. 
But such teaching is given through evangelistic addresses 
to the out-patients, and through short but systematic Bible 
readings to the in-patients, given when they are withdrawn 
from heathen influences, and when, in long, quiet hours of 
convalescence, the words spoken can sink into their hearts. 

Patients ask the doctor to come and talk to them on 
religious subjects, and often old patients, still reckoned 
Mohammedans, may be heard months afterwards attributing 
their cure to Hazrat Isa (Holy Jesus), continuing to pray 
to Christ, and gladly buying and reading the Scriptures. 
Many loud professions of assent and admiration are doubt 
less as superficial and insincere as they are ready ; nor 
is gratitude a conspicuous characteristic of the oppressed 
Kashmiri. One hears of the disgusting ingratitude of the 
man successfully operated on for cataract, who goes off "in 
a huff" because he has not received rupees as well as 
restoration of sight; one hears of the pathetic ingratitude 
of the downtrodden and miserable folk who have found the 
hospital a haven of refuge, and resent being discharged when 
cured. Still, there stands the object-lesson in practical 
Christianity, " known and read of all men " ; and though 
some of the actual instruction may be scarcely understood 
or quickly forgotten, or accepted without being acted upon, 



i34 IRENE PETRIE 

it is gradually, by means of the Hospital, permeating the 
whole population ; as the doctors realise when, by way of 
holiday, they itinerate among the teeming villages, and 
are welcomed and listened to eagerly by former patients. 
They also realise the crying need of more missionaries to 
follow up, when the patients have gone home again, the 
impression made in hospital. 

What, then, of the little flock as yet gathered in Kashmir ? 
On Christmas Day, 1895, eleven nationalities were represented 
at the Urdu service. " The numbers are small as yet, com 
pared with Agra or Amritsar," says Irene, "but the service 
is a most hearty and reverent one." The pure Kashmiris 
(all, so far, converts from Islam) are very few in number, 
mostly ignorant and humble people, and to a great extent 
members of one family employed at the hospital. Beside 
the fact that a large proportion of the Christians are immi 
grants must be set the fact that as yet the more prominent 
Kashmiri inquirers have taken refuge in India, others 
carrying in the sheaves for which the Kashmir missionaries 
laboured. We read, for instance, of a pir convinced of the 
truth in Kashmir, flying from persecution at home, and being 
baptised in the Punjab. 

Among the Kashmiri colony at Ludhiana in the Punjab 
in 1865 was an old man named Qadir Bakhsh. American 
missionaries won him to the faith, and he soon became, 
as already told, Dr. Elmslie's catechist, and for more than 
thirty years preached the Gospel to everyone he met, till he 
died in 1897, aged over a hundred. "Oh yes, I know Qadir 
Bakhsh," said the magnate of a village to Mr. Knowles; 
" everybody knows him for miles around. He is a very 
good man, but is always bothering us about his religion." 
His sons were employed at the hospital, and to a grandson 
of his, born in August, 1894, Irene stood godmother. This 
child with t younger brother is now receiving a Christian 



FIRST WINTER IN SRINAGAR 185 

education under Miss Hull's care. His daughters-in-law with 
a few other women came to a Bible class which Irene held 
every Tuesday afternoon in the dispensary, her pupils cluster 
ing round the fire, their little ones "keeping fairly quiet in 
the midst." It was her first attempt at expositions in Urdu, 
and each lesson was worked through with her munshi before 
hand. Her most intelligent pupils were two sisters from Ladakh, 
converts of the Moravian Mission at Leh (see Chapter XIII.). 
One of them was the wife of a Madrassi Christian, courier 
to a rich American. When he started with his master on 
a shooting expedition in the wilds, he moved the houseboat, 
where his wife and her sister lived, opposite to the Barracks, 
asking Miss Hull by telegram to take care of them in 
his absence. She stipulated that their jewelry, valued at 
R.2ooo, should first be deposited in the bank ; for after the 
manner of Tibetan women they were adorned with endless 
bracelets and necklaces, one consisting of thirteen English 
sovereigns, and wore on their heads peyraks thickly studded 
with turquoises. 

Irene found yet another pupil and another godson in the 
family of the Bengali master of the C.M.S. School, himself 
a fruit of the mission college founded by Carey and Marshman. 
We meet this Mr. Sircar first at a missionary meeting held 
on St. Andrew's Day, 1894, when Dr. E. F. Neve spoke in 
Urdu on China and Japan, a Christian from the North-west 
Provinces on India, and Mr. Sircar told of his own conversion. 
Such an observance of the Day of Intercession appointed by 
our Archbishops is noteworthy, and Irene's account ends 
with: "I doubt whether our grand Kensington St. Andrew's 
Day meetings are more hearty." Like her other godson 
Suleiman, Atwal Kuwar Sircar had been born within a week 
or two of her own nephew. To his sister Neru, aged nine, 
she gave regular lessons in English and Urdu during both 
this and the following winter. Humdrum work it was, 



1 86 IRENE PETRIE 

calling for patience first of all, for half an hour was once 
spent in getting the child to discriminate between two of 
the five Z's in the Urdu alphabet " But one does long," as 
she says of some small Kashmiris, "that these little ones 
should grow up to be a real strength to the church here. 
There are so many adverse influences round them." 

Are the Kashmiri Christians really satisfactory ? may be asked 
by those who have a general idea that the average traveller 
in distant lands is very ready to criticise "native Christians." 
It is strange that it should not be taken for granted that 
some native Christians, even when truly converted, are, like 
some Christians at home, half-hearted, inconsistent, vulnerable 
to the shafts of temptation, in need of our own oft-repeated 
prayer, " From hardness of heart, and contempt of Thy 
word and commandment, Good Lord, deliver us." It is 
strange also that we do not remember that every year of 
successful missionary work must add to the number of those 
whom it used to be the fashion to term "professors," 
Christians simply because their parents were Christians, with 
no experimental knowledge of the faith. And who would 
deny that it is far better that they should be professors 
under Christian instruction and with a Christian ideal before 
them than unreclaimed heathen? Unless he is personally 
interested in religious effort, a traveller is likely to make the 
most of the shortcomings of native Christians, and to disparage 
the work of the modern missionary accordingly. He would 
not dare to disparage the work of St. Paul, because history 
has vindicated it; but he chooses to forget what "unsatis 
factory" people St. Paul's converts in Corinth and Galatia 
were, and that his soul was not only encouraged by a 
Timothy, or an Epaphroditus, but grieved by a Phygellus, 
an Hermogenes, a Demas, an Hymenseus, and an Alexander. 

Friends and helpers of missions have, on the other hand, 
to guard alike against over sanguine views of new converts 



FIRST WINTER IN SRINAGAR 187 

and undue discouragement about old ones. We expect them, 
with curious lack of common sense, to be faultless ; when 
we find they are not faultless, we cease to believe in them, 
with more curious lack of faith that where God has begun 
a good work He can and will perfect it in His own time 
and way. 

It is only fair to recognise that the past of the Kashmiris 
places them at a disadvantage as compared, for instance, 
with our own ancestors of a thousand years ago. Effects of 
the history recalled in Chapter VI. are graven too deeply on 
their character for generations to be immediately effaced, even 
by acceptance of the Gospel. How complicated is the process 
of effacing these effects will be seen when we come to the 
story of the C.M.S. School. Here is one very simple 
illustration of how slowly heathen ideas die. A Kashmiri 
girl who had been hearing about the murder of John the 
Baptist prayed aloud : " O God, never again show mercy 
to that wicked King Herod." 

Arid present environment is quite as much against them 
as heredity. The traveller does not say much about this, for 
his attention is engrossed by a certain charm of picturesque- 
ness and strong colour in surroundings wholly new. He 
sees the imposing ceremonial of the procession to the Hindu 
temple; he has no conception of the real nature of the 
worship carried on within, or of the degrading and polluting 
tales of the gods that form the earliest "religious" instruc 
tion given by mothers to their children. He marks the 
ostentatious public devotions of the Mohammedan ; he can 
know nothing of his habitually harsh and heartless conduct 
to his hapless wives, not because he is personally brutal, 
but because reverence for womanhood is utterly alien to his 
creed. " I sometimes wish," writes Irene, " that those globe 
trotters who are attracted by the outward pious cant of the 
Prophet's followers, and fail to realise any special need 



1 88 IRENE PETRIE 

for Christian missions, could see what we see within the 
homes here." Into some the reader has already followed 
her. Even the man of business, who lives in the European 
quarter of an Oriental town, rarely becomes intimate with 
its people. He does not enter their homes, he cannot converse 
freely in their language. Only the missionary, living among 
them and for them, can gauge the contrast between a heathen 
environment and that Christian environment at home which 
has been the slow growth of centuries, and which affects even 
the irreligious for good. He indeed penetrates the picturesque 
exterior, and realises the unutterable dulness and sadness, 
and the absence of all making for righteousness in lives 
without Christ. "The wickedness and rottenness and 
cruelty and suffering that we come across make Rom. 
viii. 22 (St. Paul's picture of creation groaning) very real," 
writes Irene. Other missionaries have expressed the thought 
that whereas at home we see many proofs of the devil's 
existence, heathendom declares his undisputed sway. 

Babes in Christ, still imbued with heathen ideas on 
almost every subject, have to follow Him often as indi 
viduals in this hostile environment. Why do not more of 
us go out, not only to win them but to help them from 
day to day to live the Christian life when won? 

In 1896 Dr. A. Neve, after fifteen years of work in 
Kashmir, gives in a personal letter the following telling state 
ment of the situation : " On the evangelistic side of our work 
there seems to be more encouragement than formerly. I 
used to say we were like children, picking away at the 
mortar in the cracks of a great granite wall ; but sometimes 
it seems as if the whole mass was disintegrated and ready 
to fall. Though it is much too powerful for any light artillery 
we may bring against it, a slight earthquake might make 
huge breaches. It is the action of God's Spirit that can 
alone effect anything noteworthy." 



FIRST WINTER IN SRINAGAR 189 

In addition to her language study, her zenana visiting, 
and her instruction of native Christians, Irene found a task 
quite after her own heart in forming a Sunday class for 
English-speaking children. Mr. and Mrs. Tyndale-Biscoe had 
done something in this direction already, and there was room 
for such an effort. " On November 28th," writes Irene, " I 
visited two nice little European families, telegraph people, 
living in houseboats, whose mothers warmly welcomed the 
idea of the Sunday class. The European postmaster also 
welcomed the idea, but his motherless little ones can as 
yet speak Hindustani only." On Advent Sunday the school 
was opened ; and on her birthday (December 22nd) Irene 
carried out a home tradition by giving a children's party 
to fifteen Sunday school pupils, aged from three to thirteen, 
The class was well attended and firmly established when, in 
the spring, she handed it over to the daughter of a British 
officer stationed at Srinagar. 

The children's party inaugurated a very bright Christmas 
season, a pause in their routine which brought the workers 
into hospitable touch with all amongst whom the work lay. 
Christmas Eve was spent in decorating a tree with gifts 
from working parties at Kensington, Mitcham, and elsewhere. 
Irene was organist at the Christmas Day services in the 
English church, choosing music familiar at St. Mary Abbots ; 
and Miss Hull and she entertained their colleagues at lunch in 
English fashion. Then with Miss Neve and four gentlemen 
she set off for the Takht, where, after a truly Alpine climb, 
they snowballed each other, saw a huge eagle hovering 
over the crags, and watched a glorious sunset behind 
the snowy ranges. Dr. Neve then entertained forty-five 
Kashmiris in native fashion, and the tree and distribution of 
gifts followed. 

Next day they rode through the snow to the State Leper 
Asylum, on a breezy tongue of land stretching into the 



i 9 o IRENE PETRIE 

Dal Lake, beyond the Hari Parbat Fort, and some six miles 
from the Takht. In 1890 its site and R-4ooo for building 
had been granted by the Maharaja, who placed it under 
the management of the Mission Hospital staff, an incident 
which marked the inauguration of a new policy towards 
the Medical Mission, after a quarter of a century of strenuous 
opposition from his Government. The yearly expense of the 
asylum, which accommodates over eighty lepers, is also borne 
by the State. In Kashmir segregation is voluntary, but many 
remain where healthy conditions of good air, good food, a 
placid life, and pleasant, light work, mitigate, and in some 
cases even apparently cure, the disease. The lepers listen 
attentively to Dr. Neve's teaching, though they may be heard 
immediately after, either from sheer inability to perceive 
that it is incompatible with the teaching of the Prophet 
or in a spirit of sullen hostility, to mumble the Moslem 
creed. Their Christmas visitors brought them dalis of fruit 
and sweets ; and Irene describes them thus : " Some are 
terribly disfigured, others look healthy, but probably none 
can ever be well." 

As we shall have no further occasion to take the reader 
to the Leper Asylum, three very interesting later allusions 
to it in her letters may be quoted here : 

February, 1895: "A Hindu leper in the asylum told 
Dr. Neve before the other lepers that he believed in Christ. 
He is an intelligent man who can read, and if he becomes 
a real, strong convert will be a great help spiritually among 
his unfortunate companions. We greatly hope that the years 
of patient work there may now bear this visible fruit." 

June, 1896 : " We went down the lake in two boats to 
the Leper Asylum, and Miss Hull gave a first-rate address 
in Kashmiri to the three dozen patients. Sad as their lot is, 
it is certainly cheered not a little by the perfect arrange 
ments for them and all the kind attention they get. The 



FIRST WINTER IN SRINAGAR 191 

Hindu whom you heard of goes on well; he teaches the 
others, and the doctor says he seems to be living a Christian 
life among them." 

March, 1897: "A bright spot in the mission work lately 
has been the baptism, just before his death, of a leper who has 
been a Christian at heart for two years. There are now two 
Christian graves at the asylum; and we noticed with great 
satisfaction on this occasion that the Mohammedans had 
volunteered to carry their dead companion, though he was a 
Christian. The first Christian leper died of cholera during 
the fearful epidemic of 1892, and then none of the Moham 
medans would touch him, and at great personal risk Dr. 
E. E. Neve and Mr. Tyndale-Biscoe did all that was needful." 

The day after that Christmas visit to the lepers a little 
party was given at the Barracks, of which there are detailed 
accounts in Irene's letters, and also in letters from Miss Hull. 
We blend their narratives, distinguishing Miss Hull's contri 
butions by brackets. 

"On St. John's Day Miss Hull started in a dunga at 
12 o'clock, returning from the city shortly before 5 o'clock, 
with eleven of our pupils, who were not too shy to trust them 
selves to the terrors of the journey. It was quite a triumph 
to get these, for Miss Hull never ventured such an invitation 
before." 

[" I scarcely expected, when I said to some of those whom 
we teach, ' We are going to have a week's holiday, now you 
will have to come and see us,' that they would really come ; 
but they have come and gone. Only those who know some 
thing of the fear and distrust of natives generally with regard 
to the English will be able to realise what it means that three 
families trusted me with their precious children for the after 
noon. The mothers might not come they were in strict 
seclusion ; but they said, ' We will send our little girls, if 
you will come yourself to fetch them.' It was rather a 



192 IRENE PETRIE 

weary journey, calling now at one house, now at another, 
up one dreary lane after another. Some had forgotten the 
day days are much alike in these cheerless homes so many 
disappointed us. We passed many things on the way which 
seemed very wonderful and new to these little prisoners. 
'Mem ji, what is this?' was a frequent exclamation. At 
our landing-place Miss Petrie stood ready to receive our 
guests. They must have been glad to get their tea now, 
you will think; but they would not eat with us, and the 
very mention of food would have been disastrous. The 
whole party, however, squatted happily on the floor, glad, 
after the frost and snow outside, to toast at our fire, and 
fill their small fire-baskets with fresh cinders. Miss Petrie 
struck up a lively air on the piano, and we sang 'There is 
a happy land ' and ' Here we suffer grief and pain.' "] 

" They were immensely delighted," continues Irene, " with 
our house, and our big baja (the piano), and our little baja 
(the guitar), to which we sang Sanskrit hymns, as the guests 
were all Hindus. They salaamed to portraits of the Queen, 
and said we were ' blessed people.' Then Miss Neve and 
I worked the magic-lantern, while Miss Hull explained its 
scenes from the life of Christ." 

[" The eager question : ' Is that Jesus Christ ? ' as they 
followed picture after picture from the manger to the cross, 
and the reverent salaam, the ever and anon ' Blessed, blessed 
be Jesus, the Saviour of the poor,' showed Who was the central 
figure in their thoughts. Six months ago these women and 
girls, with two exceptions, had had to learn to pronounce 
the Holy Name of Jesus ; and now with a shout of triumph 
they hail the picture of the angel standing by the empty 
grave. * He is God ! ' they exclaimed ; ' how could death hold 
Him ? ' * Ah ! Miss Sahib, since that day His image is 
imprinted on my heart/ was the fervent expression of one 
when I visited her six weeks afterwards. The visit to u& 



FIRST WINTER IN SRINAGAR 193 

was a revelation to them, as none of them had ever been 
in an English house before."] 

Three uneventful months of work among heathen, Moham 
medans, native Christians, and European children followed; 
and we may close this chapter with the last paragraphs of 
a letter written by Irene to the College by Post at the 
opening of her second winter in Srinagar, which gathers up 
the impressions of this first winter. After describing the 
routine of zenana visiting and the variety of women visited, 
she continues : 

" There may sometimes be a flippant listener or, especially 
in Mohammedan houses, a tendency to argue, but more 
often the quiet behaviour and earnest look show how glad 
they are to hear the good news. I can imagine nothing 
more thrilling than to see the response as for the first 
time the tidings of a God of Love Who sent His own 
Son to live and die for them goes home to one heart and 
another. We believe that here and there in this city there 
are those who look to Him and trust Him already. 

"Many have followed Miss Hull all through the Gospels, 
and are familiar with other parts of Holy Scripture, which 
they have learned to love. Others are only beginning to 
know it, and in a sense nearly all are beginners, for they 
seldom can hear more than once in a week, and all home 
surroundings and antecedents hinder rather than help them. 

"We earnestly ask your prayers for them, that the Holy 
Spirit may Himself teach them, and give all the faith and 
patience and courage they need, if the good confession is to 
follow the belief with the heart. It is just at this point 
that you can be fellow-helpers. We may have the privilege 
of actually going among them ; but we feel more and more 
that the work is God's, not ours, and therefore we beg you 
to bring the needs before Him. May I suggest three special 
subjects for prayer? 

'3 



i 9 4 IRENE PETRIE 

"(i) The native Christians. Many are not behind English 
Christians in zeal and love; others are as yet babes, and 
for them we long for such gifts as St. Paul asked for the 
Ephesian Christians. 

" (2) The non-Christians, some of whom already know 
much of Christianity; others may have heard perhaps once 
only, in hospital, zenana, or village gathering, something of 
the love of Christ. God is able to open the hearts and the 
understanding of those who hear. Will you ask Him to do 
this? 

" (3) Your own countrymen in this land, including those 
who are specially called missionaries. What great things 
might be, if all of us who bear the Master's Name were 
His faithful witnesses in a dark land; if each of us, by the 
inspiration of the Holy Spirit, perfectly loved God and 
worthily magnified His holy Name ! That is, indeed, our 
greatest need; and grateful we are to the friends at home 
who, unable to leave England, through family ties or other 
urgent reasons, are yet by their interest and their prayers 
doing so much for the great world's need outside. 

"Needy as all the Indian Empire is, we are here in one 
of its neediest corners, and as we look at the high mountains 
north of us, or in the faces of the fur-clad travellers who 
find their way here, we often think of the still greater 
needs of the vast Central Asian regions beyond, where a 
traveller might go on for three thousand miles without 
encountering one of our missionaries, and that in thickly 
populated lands, many of which are open. No wonder that 
we long that the Lord of the Harvest would thrust forth 
labourers into His harvest. 

" If among those who read these few words there are some 
who cannot but hear the Master's voice as He says, ' Go ye 
into all the world ' to all His disciples, and who are offering 
fend presenting themselves to Him for service wherever He 



FIRST WINTER IN SRINAGAR 195 

may direct, then we who have already been allowed to come 
to one of the uttermost parts of the earth wish you a hearty 
God-speed. 

"If I might add a personal word, it would be just to say 
that missionary work has far exceeded one's highest hopes 
in happiness and interest. Life is indeed worth living out 
here, and even if permitted to sow only a few tiny seeds, 
one can rejoice in the certain hope of the harvest, which 
may be seen only by those \*ho come after, but for which 
we can trust Christ, knowing that He must reign." 



CHAPTER IX 

A SUMMER AT HOME 

(MAY 2ND TO SEPTEMBER 25, 1895) 

As ever in my great Taskmaster's eye. MILTON. 



Miss Petrie, I hope you will have a very happy 
visit to England, and be able to lead many to see 
what open doors there are in Kashmir. I should like to 
hear of many offering for work there." So wrote, on March 
i4th, 1895, Miss Dawe, of Nuddea, caring, after the generous 
manner of missionaries, that a station other than her own 
should be befriended. The suggestion that in going home 
Irene aimed first of all at finding new friends for Kashmir 
was a true one. She also wished to be enrolled as a C.M.S. 
missionary "in full connexion," and to see the relatives 
who were coming over from Canada for the Long Vacation. 
Here are three sentences from letters on the last point : 

December 28th, 1894 : " My heart gives a great bound at 
the very idea of being with you again, and seeing Martin." 

January 3ist, 1895: "It would be so lovely to see home 
again. I hardly dare think of it, though the more I get into 
work here, the gladder I am that I have been allowed to 
realise my heart's desire of being a missionary." 

February 28th : "In a little over ten weeks we may meet 
(D.V.). What a grand thought it is! Every day I build 
castles in the air about the train pulling up at Charing Cross, 

196 



A SUMMER AT HOME 197 

and the vision of your face, and the first glimpse of Martin." 
The colleagues at Srinagar greatly enjoyed her Scottish songs, 
and playfully referring to the favourite " My heart is sair for 
somebody," declared that the " somebody " for whose sake she 
would " range the world around " must be that small nephew. 
They thought her so much in need of rest and change that 
they urged her to take a year's furlough ; but the very fact that 
she went and came at her own charges as an honorary mis 
sionary made her the more scrupulous about leaving her 
work, the more anxious to return to it as quickly as possible. 

On February i4th she writes : " According to present arrange 
ments Miss Newnham, Miss Neve, and I start in four weeks, 
under Dr. Neve's escort, for the Punjab. The Urdu examina 
tion will probably be at Amritsar early in April ; and on 
April 1 6th the Peninsula leaves Bombay. I shall feel nearly 
home when there." After her passage was taken for April i6th, 
the C.M.S. Conference, for which the rest of the party were 
going to the Punjab, was postponed till the autumn, but 
Miss Hull, who had travelled thither alone, considered that 
Irene could do so also without difficulty ; and the welcome 
news that Miss Hull's sister could be with her at Srinagar for 
the summer set Irene's mind at rest on the question of leaving 
her colleague. March i2th found her, as she says, "very sad 
at the prospect of good-byes here to all the dear pupils and 
Miss Hull. However, as soon as I get afloat on the dunga 
bound for Baramula, my heart will begin to leap all over 
again at the thought of the goal of the long journey. I can 
hardly take in all the joyfulness of the prospect." 

At the moment of starting there was an unexpected delay. 
" On Sunday, March 24th," she says, " after three services in 
drenching rain, we noticed, ere darkness fell, that the river was 
for the first time visible from the windows of the Barracks. 
Generally it is twenty feet below the bund on that side. All 
night long we heard the steady splash of the rain, both outside 



198 IRENE PETRIE 

and inside the house, and on Monday morning the high roofs 
of dungas and houseboats, usually hidden beneath the bund, 
were visible. The day was very dark, and an incessant pour of 
rain was interspersed with snow and lightning. We watched 
the opposite bank of the river gradually disappearing, and 
after lunch moved everything movable into the dungas Miss 
Hull had sent for. Dr. Neve came and kindly assisted in 
tearing up our carpets and piling the furniture, etc., on table-- 
and shelves; and at nightfall we abandoned the house for * 
houseboat kindly lent to us. Mercifully, however, the rain 
ceased at last, and we hear that the breaking of a bund higher 
up the river and flooding there probably saved us. ... News 
of the road speaks of tonga service suspended, many bridges 
carried away, two and a half miles of road annihilated, and 
post-runners unable to get in. So my departure is perforce 
postponed; and as I shall now have to march all the way, 
there will be barely time to catch the Peninsula. However, 
they are making needed repairs with all speed, and having 
a dandy, an excellent servant, and a parwana from the Governor 
for coolies and supplies, I hope to get on all right, and still 
to have a day in the Punjab for the examination, which I 
have just heard by wire that they will arrange." 

Two days later she started, and her account of what befell 
her is dated: 

" CITY MISSION HOUSE, AMRITSAR, April gtk. 

" My solitary journey among the Himalayas is a safely 
accomplished fact (Deo gratias /), and I am thoroughly enjoy 
ing a quiet day in feminine society again. . . . 

" Saturday, March 3oth, was a really lovely spring morning, 
so Miss Neve proposed a walk together before breakfast for 
a last view of the dear hills from Rustum Gari. Dr. Neve 
came in with the news that he starts for the seat of war at 
one*, as medical officer to the pioneer civilian engineering 



A SUMMER AT HOME 199 

corps in the Chitral Expedition. He is going to use some 
long accumulated months of leave due to him on the under 
taking, and hopes for opportunities of medical missionary 
work, as well as for a share in a righteous cause that seems 
more like a real crusade than any war of modern times. We 
hear that Umra Khan has already been erecting mosques 
within the borders of Kafiristan, and making some of the poor 
Kafirs Mussulmans at the sword's point. ... At midday Miss 
Hull and I started in our shikari together and paid some 
farewell calls. Then she went on with her city work, and 
I glided slowly down the river in solitary state, getting to 
Shadipur after dark, where we moored for the night. My 
only visitors were a centipede, whom I was successful in 
slaying, and in the gray dawn a huge jungle-cat, who had 
discovered the milk-jug and got his head inside it, and, half 
suffocated, was banging it round the boat with a terrific noise. 

" On Sunday morning we were on the Wular ; the clear 
blue sky and lake, with just a brown boat or so here and 
there, being set in a perfect circle of snowy mountains all 
round. I had full though solitary church services. We were 
moored at Baramula in the late afternoon, and I gave orders 
for a start at dawn on Monday. 

"The khansaman was well up to time with his chota 
hazri and packing; but the coolies, who do not love early 
hours, all quietly hid when loading time came, and we 
lost nearly an hour while the khansaman went indignantly 
round with the Governor's parwana to collect them or others 
again. We got off in good time, though my dandy, with 
four bearers and a fifth to relieve them, three baggage coolies, 
the khansaman and his coolie, and then the canteen coolie. 
We had to take all needfuls, except eggs and milk, wkh us. 
The khansaman, who is as fine a specimen of a handsome 
Kashmiri as you could find, looked very imposing, and was most 
prompt and masterful with the coolies, though I forbade him 



200 IRENE PETRIE 

to use the stick he delighted in flourishing. We started under 
high walls of snow, but in an hour or two were in crocus-land 
amid lovely sunshine. Gangs of coolies were at work repairing 
the road. We spent the night in the dak bungalow at Uric. 

" On Tuesday, April 2nd, we made a long march, the hill 
sides by this time being covered with almond- and peach-trees 
in full blossom. The scenery is surpassingly grand. There 
had been a great landslip in one place, and the whole 
mountain-side seemed to have overwhelmed the road. A 
poor horse had just fallen down the slope from the temporary 
path a foot wide, and at the suggestion of the good old 
khansaman I gave a rupee for labour, with the happy result 
that he was restored to his owner, a trader, not much the 
worse for his fall. 

" On Wednesday we did two more beautiful marches, going 
through all the stages of spring to summer, with corn in the 
ear and poppies among the corn. My usual routine was 
breakfast at 6 or 7 o'clock, an early morning march, mostly 
on foot, Urdu grammar at all quiet intervals during the day, 
and dinner at 7 in the dak bungalow, where I always got 
a comfortable room. 

" On Thursday we again did two marches ; on Friday we had 
a hot march right down to the valley, crossed the frontier, 
and climbed to the lovely spot on the mountain-side where 
the Dewal dak bungalow is. I had the whole place to myself, 
as it is off the main road ; and hearing of an English lady who 
might prove to be a doctor Miss Sahib, quite a number of 
village people arrived in the verandah to ask for medical 
help. There were old people with bronchitis, a man who 
had been blind for eighteen years, and a wee baby with 
a gentle young mother. I was sorry to have to tell the 
poor things that I was not a doctor, and had very little 
medicine with me. The incident made passages in the 
Gospels so vivid; and I could not help feeling, if one may 



A SUMMER AT HOME 201 

think it reverently, what a deep joy it must have been to our 
Lord to heal all that were sick of diverse diseases. 

" The early dawn of Saturday, after the cloudless, starlight 
night, and the exquisite last march up another two thousand 
five hundred feet to Murree was something to remember 
always. I halted to gather violets and maidenhair, and to 
listen to the cuckoo in a wood ; and then as we reached the 
ridge there was the glorious stretch of now far-away snowy 
ranges, the nearer view of huge chains of wooded, blue hills, 
and on the other side the hot, misty, endless plains. I said 
farewell to the khansaman, dandy, and camp outfit ; and soon 
after 4 o'clock was tucked into the mail tonga to begin a 
thirty-eight mile drive at full gallop, in the course of which 
we descended over six thousand feet, getting into Rawal Pindi 
by moonlight about 9. 

" On Sunday I enjoyed four nice services in the most home 
like church I had seen for very long. At the morning garrison 
service there were rows and rows of fresh white uniforms, the 
Dragoon band led the Palm Sunday hymns, and special 
prayers were offered for the troops already on the way to 
Chitral. I also went to a Hindustani service, mostly attended 
by Christian station servants." (Some pleasant intercourse 
with the newly married wife of a young officer just gone to the 
front, and with the wife of the chaplain, who was the daughter 
of Bishop French, is then described.) " In the afternoon 
Dr. Neve called, and most kindly planned to escort me to the 
railway station at n p.m., looking after all my nondescript 
bundles and managing coolies and gari-walas just as the 
dear father would have done, and I was not a little glad of 
help. I had a fine large carriage to myself, and woke at 
6 a.m. to see harvest in progress on every side. So I have 
been through all the four seasons in a week. Coming home 
for a holiday when so many out here will be facing hardship 
and grave danger in this war, I feel almost an impostor." 



202 IRENE PETRIE 

On Monday, April 8th, Irene was welcomed to Elmslie 
Cottage, Amritsar, by Miss Wright, and to the City 
Mission House by the C.E.Z. ladies. On Tuesday she 
attended a Holy Week service, at which Dr. Imad-ud-din 
preached; and in response to a sudden summons hastened 
on Wednesday morning to Batala, where she was entertained 
at the Baring High School, so closely associated with 
"A.L.O.E." She arrived at Batala just in time for her first 
Urdu examination paper on Wednesday afternoon ; and before 
the ink was dry on her second paper on Thursday morning, 
she hurried off to catch a train for Amritsar, that her written 
work for Dr. Weitbrecht might be followed by an examination 
in Rasum-i-Hind and Urdu conversation with Dr. H. M. Clark 
on Thursday afternoon. On Thursday evening she started 
on a four days' continuous railway journey to Bombay. In 
spite of circumstances so trying for an examinee, she passed 
first on the list of candidates that spring, winning over two- 
thirds, that is, " honours " marks, and taking ninety out of 
a hundred marks for conversation, which is regarded as the 
most important subject of all. Such was the reward of her 
patient plodding. 

But it was a costly success. We learn incidentally that she 
was far from well when she left Srinagar and on the road 
to Amritsar; and throughout her journey to England one 
helpless arm was in a sling, the result of a finger poisoned 
by some city mud, which got under her nail one day when 
she was drawing off her boot. The agitation of delay and 
uncertainty, the double strain of her difficult journey and of 
the long-dreaded examination, taken in hours snatched from 
fatiguing days of travel against time, came upon her during 
the intense heat of April in the plains; and instead of the 
quiet Good Friday and Easter she had planned for, by 
accepting one of many invitations to stay with friends on 
her homeward way, she was forced to hasten on without 



A SUMMER AT HOME 203 

a pause. She was not one of those who go up for an 
examination without any quickening of the pulse ; and even 
to her plucky and resourceful nature a week's march with 
native companions only, must have been an ordeal, especially 
as she had to carry in silver in her dandy all the money 
she needed till she reached Bombay. No wonder, then, 
that she was completely prostrated with fever during the 
rest of the journey, and reached Bombay on the evening of 
Easter Monday with a temperature of 103. But she actually 
attended an early celebration of the Holy Communion next 
morning, before embarking on the Peninsula, cheered by 
a telegram of good wishes from Miss Hull. 

She left Bombay on Tuesday, April i6th, reached Mar 
seilles on April 3oth, and London, by traversing France, on 
May 2nd. The fortnight at sea was a time of great suffering 
and weakness; yet on eight out of twelve weekdays there 
is an entry in her diary of Hindi or Kashmiri study. Her 
brother and sister, who had left Montreal on the day she left 
Bombay, met her at Charing Cross, after her thirty-four days 
of lonely travel, and took her to Mrs. Carus-Wilson's house 
at Hampstead. 

As one of the large family party gathered there she 
spent the summer; for Hanover Lodge was let till the end 
of the season, and she was only able to pay it a short 
visit immediately before her return to India. During the 
time less than five months in all that she was in Britain 
she paid fourteen visits to friends and relatives in different 
parts, most of which included a missionary address. When 
she arrived she was much exhausted ; but within three weeks, 
on Ascension Day, May 23rd, she opened her lips for the 
first time on behalf of Kashmir at Mitcham. 

Between May 23rd and August 4th she gave eighteen 
addresses on India generally and Kashmir specially ; not 
as a C.M.S. " deputation," for missionaries are not expected 



204 IRENE PETRIE 

to speak for the Society during the first four months of their 
furlough, but in voluntary response to requests from those 
she had formerly been associated with. She spoke to the 
Mitcham Missionary Union, to the St. Mary Abbots and Latymer 
Road Sunday schools, to Gleaners at Kensington, Hampstead, 
Canonbury, and Leamington, to the C.M.S. Ladies' Union 
at the C.M.S. House, to the Emerson Club, to the children 
and old girls of the Princess Mary Village Homes, to cadets 
at the headquarters of the Church Army, to working parties 
at Kensington and Brighton, to a missionary meeting in 
a Cumberland village, at a Y.W.C.A. Conference, at the 
Mildmay Conference, at the Keswick Convention, and at 
Penshurst. 

Miss Lloyd furnishes a reminiscence of one of these addresses 
given during a happy visit to Addlestone for the twenty-fourth 
Commemoration Day of the Princess Mary Village Homes. 
All present and about forty former inhabitants of its picturesque 
cottages were gathered together on "Old Girls' Day." "Why 
should mission children never have anything but hymns ? " said 
Irene ; and taking her guitar, she sat down, and poured forth 
bewitching little Spanish songs. Then she talked bright, 
sympathetic, simple chat, growing gradually serious, as she 
spoke of using all gifts to the glory of God, and then of the 
women of heathendom, their needs and their appeal to us. 
Then, taking her guitar again, she sang some inspiring hymns. 
And long afterwards her face, her voice, her manner, dwelt in 
the memories of those children as an uplifting vision of beauty 
and goodness. A branch of the Gleaners' Union among the 
girls was the immediate outcome of her visit ; and when, two 
years later, the village was once more gathered together to 
hear of her sudden home-call, there were few dry eyes in the 
great schoolroom. Just three years later, on Commemoration 
Day, 1898, H.R.H. the Duchess of York opened the "Irene 
Cottage," " erected to the memory of our beloved Irene Petrie, 



A SUMMER AT HOME 205 

with the money she so lovingly bequeathed to the Homes," as 
Miss Cavendish wrote. It accommodates eight little girls and 
a mother, and had already given shelter and a first experience 
of human love to three hapless waifs rescued by the Society 
for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, 

Throughout that all too short summer of 1895 much time 
had to be spent in renewal of intercourse with friends, eager 
to welcome her home and hear of her new life ; varying from 
those who rejoiced over it, like one who wrote: " Think some 
times, dear Irene, of an old friend who would so enjoy seeing 
you again, and hearing all you have to say of your blessed 
work," to those who met her with, "I suppose you have no 
thoughts of going back to India." Her bright reply, " I am 
travelling with a six months' return ticket," puzzled people 
who were concluding that she had wearied of a whim. 

" I know of no one," writes a frequenter of the C.M.S. 
House, "who gave me more strongly the impression of whole 
hearted devotion, and this was joined to so many gifts." 
The impression was even more influential in quiet talks than 
in public addresses. It must have been strange to turn from 
the husband of a former girl friend, who said he had no 
objection to his wife taking an interest in foreign missions, 
because "a little philanthropy always sits wells on a pretty 
woman," to the writer of the following words, who had just 
been invalided home after five years of happy missionary effort 
in Japan : " I have such intense recollections of the joy 
that came in the work at times that I am half afraid of 
giving exaggerated impressions to people at home. Some 
of them do seem to think it so extraordinary. Of course, 
there are disappointments and discouraging times which come 
very often ; still, I don't think there can be any other joy in 
the world quite like the joy of being with Christ when He 
finds a soul that has been out in the dark all its life." 
Mysterious indeed are "the issues from death that belong 



206 IRENE PETRIE 

unto God." One recalls Irene's visit in June, 1895, when 
she was buoyantly anticipating a speedy return to Kashmir, 
to the devoted feHow-missionary who had written thus to 
her. She found her pale and feeble on the sofa, hardly daring 
to hope that she would ever be allowed to go back to Japan. 
Who would have expected that Irene's friend would be labour 
ing on now, in renewed health, having accomplished a decade 
of service, and that for the vigorous Irene herself only two 
more years of life and work remained ? 

Her activities that summer were as incessant as they had 
ever been, for at home, as abroad, she lived out her favourite 
motto: "As ever in my great Taskmaster's eye." In all 
intervals she was executing commissions for replicas of the 
sketches she had brought home to illustrate her addresses. 
Orders for these flowed in, and the walls of many a house 
in Britain and Canada, as well as in India, now speak through 
her skilful brush of Kashmir. She also worked at Hindi and 
Kashmiri daily, and to those about her never admitted, what 
she admits not once but often in her diary of that summer, 
that she was " very tired." In a letter to Mrs. Carus- Wilson, 
written July loth, evidently in answer to inquiries and exhor 
tations, she speaks of "having had enough pain in the past 
week or two to serve as a warning " ; and that most motherly 
friend, writing after her return to India to implore her " to 
take her life more quietly," says : " I saw with real concern 
how much less strong and well you were than when I first 
knew you." 

" Kashmir is evidently a trying climate for you," wrote Miss 
Lloyd. " We thought," wrote Miss Jones, whose affection 
for her old pupil has been already referred to, "when Irene 
was in England that her lovely complexion was looking rather 
more transparent and delicate, and we feared that she might 
not be able to stand the climate very long." " I was sorry," 
writes a third friend, " to see how delicate Irene looked on 



A SUMMER AT HOME 207 

her return from Kashmir, when I had the privilege of hearing 
her speak at the C.M.S. House. I feared that the trying 
climate and her unwearied labours were undermining her 
constitution; but how she seemed to rejoice at being able 
to work for Christ ! " 

Looking back now, one realises that it was not only the 
" unwearied labours " that had blanched her cheek and 
checked her overflowing vitality and elasticity of spirit. She 
had seen the affliction and heard the bitter cry of heathen 
dom, and like her Divine Master, she was "moved with 
compassion " at beholding the scattered and shepherdless 
multitudes. Love of souls was the keynote of her life, as of 
the life of every true missionary ; and though she never uttered 
current phrases about it, she was weighed down by the 
burden of perishing humanity. Her one desire was to hasten 
back to do whatever might be done by her for its succour. 

Meanwhile, Miss Hull, caring for Kashmir and needing her 
as much as anyone could, wrote thus : 

"Mv DEAREST IRENE, 

" I am much troubled that you have been so ill. . . . 
Now I do hope you will take complete rest in England, and 
not rush about and try to do too much. A voyage round the 
Cape or to Australia would be the best thing for you, I am 
sure. . . . Your people desire no end of love and salaams 
to you, and there are constant inquiries. My sister takes your 
Bible class. Ever, dear Irene, with much love, 

"Your very loving friend, 

" E. G. HULL." 

Her friends at last insisted upon an autumn holiday alone 
with her sister, at some favourite haunts in the Highlands. 
First she spent four days at the Keswick Convention, of 
which she writes : " I have been having a perfectly delightful 



2o8 IRENE PETRIE 

time here, and have already come up with quite sixty friends, 
old and new, in this dear place. . . . The great missionary 
meeting was splendid. ... It was followed by a gathering of 
missionaries, accepted candidates, and central secretaries only ; 
and the gradual recognitions all round and general atmosphere 
were, as someone suggested, more like one's idea of Heaven 
than anything else." 

Visits to kinsfolk in Northumberland and to friends in 
Cumberland and Midlothian succeeded Keswick, and Mr. 
Stock met her just in time to forbid the Kashmiri books to 
cross the Border with her. Then for barely three weeks she 
roamed over the hills and moors around Kingussie, Invercannich, 
Blair-Athol, and Pitlochrie ; and watching a rainbow from 
the summit of Craigour declared, with possibly a touch of 
patriotic partiality, that even the magnificent Himalayas must 
yield the palm of beauty to the Highlands, with their mystical 
charm of soft colouring. After visiting an invalid relative in 
Wales, she came to London with strength renewed for the 
farewells. 

During the summer she had written as follows to the C.M.S. : 
"When first set free to go to India, I went out with the desire 
to join the C.M.S. a little later on. ... Since then, having seen 
the work of many societies, and made the personal acquaint 
ance of over a hundred missionaries, my desire to be connected 
with the C.M.S. in preference to any other society has been 
greatly strengthened. Perhaps the chief and strongest reason 
for this preference is that C.M.S. missionaries have the privi 
lege of being remembered by name by the very large circle 
of C.M.S. Gleaners and others who use the Cycle of Prayer." 

The C.M.S. enjoys the reputation of being second to no 
society in setting up a high standard of qualification for 
candidates, and accepting those only who attain it. Though 
Irene had already approved herself in the field and passed 
her language examination, and though she was personally 



A SUMMER AT HOME 209 

known to many at headquarters, she went through the usual 
routine of general examination papers, interviews, and con 
fidential inquiries addressed to her intimate friends ; and 
on July 3oth was formally accepted "into full connexion 
as an honorary missionary." The C.M.S. never had a more 
loyal missionary, nor one in more cordial relation to all 
its authorities ; and only two months before her death she 
wrote, alluding to other societies : " I always feel more and 
more glad to be linked with the C.M.S." 

As she sailed before the annual valedictory meeting, they 
took leave of her and of a Persian party, consisting of the 
Rev. A. R. and Mrs. Blacket and the Rev. C. H. and Mrs. 
Stileman, with Bishop Cassels of Western China, at a meeting 
in the C.M.S. House on September loth. Three sentences 
from the Instructions addressed to her by the Committee may 
be quoted : " We are very glad you have joined us, bearing the 
honoured name you bear and going at your own charges. . . . 
The Committee are aware of the very serious obstacles to 
the progress of the Truth in Kashmir, but they pray earnestly 
that you may be used of God with your fellow-workers to 
win for Christ, by His grace, many of the children and women 
of the land. . . . May many in the Kashmir territory, and 
even in regions beyond, if God's providence should plainly 
so direct, hear the Gospel message from your lips." One 
recalls her in the Committee-room at Salisbury Square that 
day, her fair young face almost as white as the ostrich feather 
that shaded it, almost as transparent as her light summer 
dress, but shining with a rapt devotion and stedfast resolve 
that gave it a well-nigh unearthly beauty. 

Next day her relatives sailed for Canada, and she went 
to pay a farewell visit to the young Lady De 1'Isle and 
Dudley, who ever since she was ten years old- had been her 
most intimate friend. She was so struck with her delicate look 
that she wrote to Irene's sister : " Had you been in England, I 

14 



210 IRENE PETRIE 

would have implored you to detain her here." No one could, 
however, have done that. On September i4th, in the ball 
room at Penshurst, under the chandeliers presented to Robert 
Dudley, Earl of Leicester, by Queen Elizabeth, Irene pleaded 
the cause of Kashmir for the last time before what was probably 
the first missionary meeting ever held in that place. Lady 
De 1'Isle wrote to her next day : " Dear, I never thanked 
you half enough for your beautiful talk to us yesterday, and 
for all the trouble you kindly took. I know you do it all for 
the Master, and look for no reward; but already one sees 
what a deep impression you have made, and it is an impres 
sion that with some of us will never wear off." Another who 
was present wrote, four years later, of " the remembrance left 
of the sweet, earnest worker who was giving up all for the 
sake of Christ, pleading the cause she so loved," adding : 
" I am very glad to have heard and seen one so consecrated. 
Such lives are an inspiration." The immediate result of this 
meeting was a Penshurst branch of the Gleaners' Union, 
which afterwards sent considerable sums to the church, 
hospital, and school at Srinagar, with many handsome gifts 
for the mission Christmas-tree, and for prizes to zenana 
pupils. 

The last ten days were spent at Hampstead; and on 
September igth she was once more at "the dear C.M.S. 
House " for the best of all the prayer meetings she had ever 
been at even there. The first part concerned Fuh-kien, 
and letters received since the massacre of August ist were 
read, with such tributes to the group of martyrs and to 
the brave little Stewart children. Finally, the Persian group 
and "our dear friend Miss Petrie" were commended in 
prayer. 

On her last Sunday, September 22nd, she worshipped once 
more in her beloved parish church, under a tablet placed 
there two days before to her parents and little sister, for 



A SUMMER AT HOME 211 

which she had chosen the text, "At home with the 
Lord " (2 Cor. v. 8.). 

For the latest glimpses of her we turn to her mother's 
dearest friend, Miss Lloyd. She had visited her at 
Hanover Lodge just before she started in 1893, and again 
at Hampstead on September 24th, 1895. " I felt how grown 
she was in life and power for service," is her comment on 
seeing her after two years' interval. In 1897 she recalls the two 
visits thus : " I saw Irene immediately after your marriage, . . . 
and felt perfectly satisfied from my interview with her how 
fully she counted the cost of going. She played the organ 
a little for me, and we discussed many things. I could not 
help saying, ' You must be sorry to leave this home of your 
childhood, all so comfortable and pleasant. But probably 
you will come back to us in a few years.' ' Not so,' was 
her reply (and such an expression of her deepest feelings 
was rare enough to be noted and remembered) ; ' I give it all 
up freely and fully. I am not sorry to leave these things 
not even the organ to follow the Master. I know He has 
been calling me.' I saw her at Hampstead before she went 
away finally. She looked so delicate that I pressed her to 
go to a place more healthy for her than Kashmir. But she 
said that her call was to go there, and that she must go. ... 
As she waved me farewell from the gate, I thought that 
probably I should not see her again; but I did not think 
that it was she who would so soon leave her post of service, 
she looked so bright, and with such vitality about her. . . . 
On account of her great likeness to your dear mother she 
was always a great favourite of mine, and I have felt since 
she went to India that it was a great privilege to hare known 
her. Her short, bright life was a very happy one ; like Mary, 
she sat at the Master's feet, and did His messages, even 
to a distant land." 

"When shall we see you again?" asked another, whom 



2i2 IRENE PETRIE 

she reckoned an "honorary aunt," embracing Irene for the 
last time ere she started. And to her Irene said what she 
had not said to her relatives : " I shall stay on in Kashmir 
as long as I am fit for the work there." Others have been 
spared to drive a longer furrow for the distant seed-sowing, 
but no one ever looked forward more unswervingly when 
once the hand had been laid on the plough. 

So she went, and we saw her face no more. 

How cheerfully she began the easiest and most enjoyable 
of her three long journeys is seen from her letters : " Our 
perfectly happy summer together with all its interests will be 
one of the brightest portions of our whole lives to look back 
on. ... It is all so much happier than it was two years ago. . . . 
It is such happiness to think of being in the real missionary 
work again, and of all the prayers for Kashmir promised 
by the dear home friends. There surely will be a gift of 
the Holy Spirit for many there soon." 

Seen off once more by Mrs. Cams- Wilson and Elliott, she 
started across Europe from Victoria Station on September 
25th. An urgent invitation to address the Gleaners at Davos 
(see p. 47), which would have involved two additional days 
of hard travel, was only declined under great pressure from 
friends. But she fulfilled a long-cherished ambition by 
halting for one night in Rome. She arrived there early 
on Friday morning, and left on Saturday afternoon; but 
thanks to her old habit of taking in quickly what she 
wanted to know and doing quickly what she wanted to 
do, and also to the friends there who entered heartily into 
her desire to turn every moment to account, she carried out 
a very full programme of sights. 

" Fancy dating to you from the Eternal City," she writes, 
"and on the evening of the day that I have actually seen 
Raphael's ' Transfiguration,' the Michael Angelo ceiling, and 
the Via Appia ! . . . I had a good sit-down study of the 



A SUMMER AT HOME 213 

two greatest pictures in the world, ' The Transfiguration ' and 
' The Communion of St. Jerome,' which I have longed to see 
since I was thirteen. Neither could disappoint in the least. 
. . . But of all the sights the two which have moved me 
most have been the Catacombs and the Mamertine Prison. 
We visited the Catacombs of St. Sebastian under the church 
dedicated to him. A dear old Franciscan took us, who had 
a more heavenly minded face than any other of the many 
religieux I have seen in Rome. . . . Down in the awful 
darkness of the Mamertine dungeon, where many had been 
starved and slain, as well as incarcerated, I felt quite ashamed 
to call myself a missionary at all, thinking of that grand 
St. Paul and what he bore for Christ's sake and the Gospel's. 
I have been reading the Second Epistle to Timothy all over 
again ; it does come fresh after seeing that place of suffering, 
with the post against which the prisoners were guarded, and 
feeling the chill air of the lower cell, into which those shortly 
to die were let down by ropes." Many close pages follow 
describing enthusiastically "the originals in the Vatican of all 
the dear old Greeks which we used to admire in Smith's 
History, and such marvellously lovely statues, that one's life 
feels altogether enriched by seeing them," and much else ; 
and she concludes by saying : " The whole visit has been 
delightful, and a real rest on the way. . . . Urdu and Kashmiri 
will come to the front still; but with thought I can muster 
enough French and Italian just to manage at the railway 
stations. . . . Italy is certainly as pleasant and kindly a land 
to travel in as our dear Highlands." 

In the train between Rome and Brindisi she wrote to Mrs. 
Carus-Wilson : "I can't tell you how I value your united 
prayers for poor Kashmir and the workers there. I feel so 
utterly unworthy both of the work and of all the kindness for 
the work's sake. Do ask that I may get away from self and 
be filled with the Spirit." 



IRENE PETRIE 

Brindisi was reached in time for a noon service on Sunday, 
September 2pth. That evening the Oriental sailed, reaching 
Bombay on the Saturday of the following week. Contrasting 
her twelve and a half days at sea with the hundred and fifty- 
two days spent at sea one hundred and two years earlier 
by Carey on his way to India should emphasise the far 
heavier responsibility for India of this generation. 

Fine weather and the companionship of particularly agreeable 
friends, both new and old, rendered the voyage delightful. 
" Many old travellers," she writes, " say this is the finest 
passage they have ever made. ... I am longing now to be 
back at work. Nothing else is so well worth living for, I am 
sure." " I am greatly looking forward " (this to a South 
Kensington friend), "to being with the dear, brown pupils 
again, and expect a busy winter among the zenanas with further 
language studies. Please remember Kashmir in prayer." 
11 More than ever," she writes to Mrs. Carus- Wilson, " I feel 
that the work there is the thing of all others to be glad to 
live for, even if progress may at present be so slow, outwardly, 
that only those who come after see results." 

Meanwhile, there was work of another kind at hand, In 
stead of taking between thirty and forty missionaries out, as the 
Carthage, sailing a month later, had done in 1893, the Oriental 
carried only one other missionary, a clerical member of the 
Cambridge Mission to Delhi. Irene says : " I daresay a good 
many on board disapprove of missionary ladies. . . . People 
are amused at my daily attempts to get through a little 
Kashmiri study; but all are most pleasant and kind, and 
many come up and ask for information about the work, and 
even ventilate their own or friends' criticisms of missions, 
from the sending of missionaries into China to the slovenly 
attire of lady missionaries in some remote districts. ... I 
think it is really good for both parties that we should come 
into touch in this way, and if only I could use it to the full, 



A SUMMER AT HOME 215 

it would be an opportunity for trying to win some station 
folks' goodwill and interest for the cause." By way of con 
trast to this, she had for fellow-travellers the late Bishop 
of Calcutta and the Rev. S. Morley, consecrated Bishop of 
Tinnevelly on October 28th, 1896. 

Landing at Bombay on October i2th, Mr. and Mrs. Morley 
and Irene were entertained by the Rev. W. G. Peel, who was 
consecrated Bishop of Mombasa in 1899. Two years later 
Mrs. Morley wrote, on hearing of Irene'i death : " I cannot 
tell you how deeply the news, so unexpected, touched us, 
for she had won our hearts, even in the short time we had 
known her, by her bright and sweet manner and her Christ- 
like love of her poor people in Kashmir. One of the great 
pleasures we were looking forward to in going there was 
the renewal of our friendship with her. We have postponed 
our visit, not caring to see Srinagar without her." 

Mr. Morley saw her into the train on Sunday evening for 
Jeypore, which was reached at 5 a.m. on Tuesday. Here she 
was the guest of Miss Hull's sister, the wife of Dr. Hendley, 
of the Army Medical Department. A letter of welcome 
from Miss Hull awaited her ; and hearing how tired and busy 
she was from Mrs. Hendley, Irene declined an invitation to 
Lucknow, and hurried on. Enthusiastic traveller as she had 
always been, she wrote now: "Once on Indian soil, the 
thought of work again is so alluring that the one wish is to 
get back to it as soon as possible." The chief incident of 
her stay at Jeypore that most picturesque of Indian cities 
was a ride on one of the Maharaja's elephants; and she 
dined "at the Residency, which is very palatial, as befits 
a house where the heirs to nearly all the European thrones 
have been entertained. . . . Rajputana is the happy hunting- 
ground of those who shoot tigers, and the place for Royal 
Highnesses who go globe-trotting to have sport after big 
game." 



216 IRENE PETRIE 

Leaving Jeypore before dawn on Thursday, she got to 
Amritsar at 3.30 a.m. on Friday. A pleasant forenoon was 
spent with her friends there "hearing of recent encourage 
ments that renewed one's longings for our poor Kashmir," 
and she visited some Christians who had moved from Srinagar 
to Amritsar. After tiffin Mr. Clark and his daughter saw her 
into the train for Rawal Pindi, and she finished her very last 
railway journey at 2 a.m. on Saturday morning, remarking, 
over a final packing of her trunks for the hills, " I hope 
there will be no luggage in Heaven." A special tonga brought 
her to the house of Dr. and Mrs. Spencer at Murree, whose 
sister had been a London friend. Miss Hull had sent the 
khansaman here with a second note of welcome to escort 
her the rest of the way. 

She spent a quiet Sunday at Murree, rejoicing, one week 
after enduring 90 in the cabin of the Oriental, in furs 
and a fire; and set off for Srinagar early on Monday. 
Murree to Srinagar had been a journey of twelve days in 
April, 1894, and in April, 1895, Srinagar to Murree had 
been a journey of seven days ; but in the " prosperous 
journey, by the will of God," of October, 1895, two days 
by road in a tonga and two days by water in a dunga 
covered the whole distance of a hundred and sixty miles. 
When, after swinging round corner after corner down the 
great sweeps of the descending road, she reached the river, 
her own head-boatman met her with yet a third note of 
welcome from Miss Hull, and in glorious weather she was 
paddled up the Jhelum, Kashmir looking more beautiful 
than ever. 

Sunset on Thursday, October 24th, found her in the 
city. "As I scrambled up our ladder to the top of the 
bund I heard the dear Miss Hull's voice, and a minute 
later was in her arms in the pretty drawing-room, looking 
cosier and nicer than ever. ... My thirty days of travel, 



A SUMMER AT HOME 217 

during which there has not been one contretemps, are 
over; and thankful indeed I feel for the journeying mercies 
which all through have been the answer to the dear ones' 
prayers, and, above all, for being back here with such an 
overwhelmingly sweet welcome." 



CHAPTER X 

SECOND WINTER IN SRINAGAR 

(OCTOBER, 1895, TO AUGUST, 1896) 
There is nothing fruitful but sacrifice. 

BETWEEN October 24th, 1895, and July 8th, 1897, 
Irene was not absent from Srinagar for more than a 
fortnight at a time ; and the continuous story of zenana and 
school work, varied by study of a second and third language, 
is one of unhasting, unresting labour, each day's work done in 
the day, each week's work in the week, as if she ever heard 
the warning voice, " Never if not to-day." She could not have 
crowded more achievement into those last twenty months had 
she known that her sun would go down while it was yet day, 
even before noon. 

The " portion " for March 25th in Daily Light that favourite 
manual of missionaries all over the world contains these 
words: "I will keep thee in all places whither thou goest, 
and will bring thee again into this land" (Gen. xxviii. 15). 
Miss Hull appropriated this promise to Irene when they 
read it together just as she started for England, and now 
they rejoiced together over its fulfilment. A letter written by 
Miss Hull to her young colleague in September, 1895, brings 
both work and workers vividly before us : 

" MY DEAREST IRENE, 

M , . . I have felt so much for you parting with your dear 
if 



SECOND WINTER IN SRINAGAR 219 

sister and her husband and the baby boy. ... I trust it will 
comfort you a little to feel how much your coming back is 
looked forward to, and what a blessed work you are, I trust and 
believe, coming to do here in poor Kashmir. No place or 
people could want you so much, and after all, there is much 
happiness in being where we are wanted." 

The day after her arrival Irene went into the city with Miss 
Hull. "I found," she says, "the dear brownies had an even 
bigger slice of my heart than I had thought when in England. 
It is delightful to get into work again in this dear place " ; while 
Miss Hull wrote in Indicts Women : " You can think what a 
joy it was to welcome Miss Petrie back again. Her bright, 
loving face was welcomed by many who had learned to know 
and love her before she left." 

There is a notable ring of joy in all the letters about her 
return ; for though she had given up much, life still contained 
for her in larger measure than for many what she once 
enumerated as "the three great blessings love, health, and 
work." Above all, it now contained the joy of rejoicing with 
the Great Shepherd Who seeks His sheep scattered upon all 
the face of the earth. Well might a friend who followed 
every detail of her Indian labours write : " Really, it seems 
to be an overflowing life of joy and usefulness and peace into 
which God has, in His mercy, brought you in India." 

Was it, then, really a sacrifice to get out of the tame routine 
of home into a career so varied and interesting ? The question 
directs us to another aspect of her life, for particulars of which 
one is indebted to opportunities of talk with her colleagues, 
since her own letters contain hardly a hint of it. The traveller 
who visits Kashmir for a few weeks of its exquisite spring, and 
only enters Srinagar once, either to call at the house of a 
great man which has been specially prepared for his reception, 
or to shop in the bazar which has just been cleaned up foi 
European sightseers, may imagine that love of excitement 



220 IRENE PETRIE 

or adventure or some other ulterior motive brings a lady 
missionary there ; and may go home to utter cheap disparage 
ment of her toils, quite ignorant of the conditions under which 
they are carried on. "You do not require eyes," writes 
an English resident in Srinagar, in a private letter, "when 
approaching the habitation of a Kashmiri. So when you find 
yourself amongst a collection of such habitations you more 
than know where you are." Few streets possess drains ; the 
courtyards are very cesspools. A refined lady, accustomed to 
our well-scavengered thoroughfares, passes to her daily work 
by the accumulated refuse of months, even of years, whose 
overpowering exhalations force her to press a handkerchief 
to her face, wondering how the natives, who walk up and 
down complacently inured to this atmosphere, can survive. 
In places the filth is above her boots, and her servant must 
carry her on his back. 

His escort is indispensable for another reason. One result 
of the Mohammedan conquest of Kashmir is that its people 
have no trace of chivalrous feeling. The men stand idle, 
and watch the women toiling up and down the ghats with 
heavy waterpots, believing that their wives were born to be 
the burden-bearers. When a track wide enough for one has 
been swept in the snow, a Kashmiri will yield the right of way 
to an Englishman as he would yield it to a cow or a pariah 
dog, to avoid trouble ; but he would shoulder an English lady 
into the snow without hesitation if she had no one to protect 
her from insult. If he is unwilling that the inmates of his 
zenana should be taught, he will close his door in her face 
with a rude rebuff, or try to stare her out when she has 
entered, or set the dogs in the street howling, if staring does 
not daunt her. 

She endeavours to teach in an apartment that is at once 
schoolroom, drawing-room, nursery, and kitchen, seated 
generally on an unclean floor, in an atmosphere bad enough 



SECOND WINTER IN SRINAGAR 221 

in mild weather, but intolerable in cold weather, when the 
women keep warm by holding kangres, whose fuel is cow-dung, 
under their clothes. Irene's senses were peculiarly susceptible 
to every kind of physical pleasure or pain, and she was so 
overcome on two occasions that she fainted away when giving 
her lesson. She was alone ; her pupils thought she was dead, 
and seem to have been too bewildered to do anything. When 
she recovered, she walked home, and said nothing about it, 
still less mentioned it in her weekly letter ; but Miss Hull 
chanced to hear of these occurrences afterwards. 

And there is the trial, in order not to hurt the feelings of 
a hostess whose intentions are kind, of swallowing sweetmeats 
prepared with rancid oil, or tea strained through the corner 
of the dirty single garment worn by Kashmiris, and " tasting 
like boiled sea- water, with some grease in it." 

We at home seldom hear of these things, because mission 
aries scarcely allude to them, as they find the difficulties of 
the work itself far more trying than any mere physical dis 
comforts. The task set before a European to-day of entering 
into the mind of an Oriental is a harder one than that set 
before the first preachers of the Gospel ; for St. Paul was not 
the only one of those first preachers who had at once Hebrew 
religion, Greek education, and Roman citizenship, and who was 
therefore already in touch on one side with each of his diverse 
hearers. But how little English women and Indian women 
have in common spiritually, intellectually, or socially we have 
already seen. Another worker among the women of India says 
that one hour with a pupil there is more exhausting than a 
whole day of teaching in a high school at home, so great is 
the strain of prayer and of longing to gain the heart and 
touch the conscience. Not a few of those described by 
Irene as "the dear pupils who are so nice" were, we learn 
from others, ignorant and apathetic beyond conception. For 
generations they have accepted the dictum that a woman 



222 IRENE PETRIE 

has no intellectual nature to be cultivated by reading and 
thinking, no spiritual nature to be uplifted by religion. We 
are told of one girl in particular whom she would not give 
up, though during two years she had been trying in vain to 
enable her to master the alphabet. 

Little more than a week after her return to Srinagar in 
good health and spirits Irene was on the sick-list, the result 
of several long days amid the. autumnal odours of the city. 
She was absolutely forbidden to enter it throughout the month 
of November; and Miss Hull wanted to take her away for 
a trip in a dunga. She herself wrote, however : " Having 
slept in eighty-two different places in the course of nine 
months this year, I don't think I can be quite in need of a 
change. ... I believe I have much needed to learn the 
lesson of being still and waiting for a while, and it was sent 
pretty definitely to me." So she used the unwonted leisure 
in writing her annual letter to the College by Post, putting 
up fifty Christmas presents for friends at home, studying 
Hindi, and visiting pupils within a short distance of the 
Barracks. 

Joyfully, on December 2nd, she resumed city work, and 
spent three active days among the zenanas. " On December 
6th," she writes, "I was just thinking, while dressing, how 
lovely it was to be quite well again, and how much work I 
hoped to get through now, when violent pain came on, and 
I had to go back to bed. It was a bad internal chill, due, 
we believe, to the draughts through our handleless doors. I 
cannot remember such another helpless time of suffering. 
For two days I scarcely lifted my head once from the pillow, 
and was unable to move from one position. ... I do feel 
very thankful to God for recovery, and grateful indeed to 
the kind friends here. I cannot describe how good they 
were and how clever. . . . The sad part was to be giving 
such a lot of trouble to all these dear, busy people. I only 



SECOND WINTER IN SRINAGAR 223 

hope I shall be able to serve Miss Hull and Miss Barclay in 
some way some day. Now it is all happily over, one feels 
how much one may learn at such a time new lessons, just 
the ones needed, of course." Miss Hull relates that her 
first act on realising that she was dangerously ill was to 
send for her cheque-book. " Owe no man anything " had 
always been a part of her religion ; and the incident is 
characteristic of her calm sense of duty under agitating 
circumstances. 

Mr. Clark had advised Miss Hull, instead of facing the 
rigours of another winter in Srinagar, to migrate to the Hazara, 
whose inhabitants had never had a resident missionary, but 
had always welcomed visits warmly. She therefore left 
Srinagar on December i6th; and Irene accepted an oft- 
repeated invitation to Holton Cottage, of which Mr. and 
Mrs. Tyndale-Biscoe had taken possession in December, 1894; 
whose hospitality she had already enjoyed for four days in 
January, 1895, when, scarcely settled themselves, they took 
in Miss Hull, who was recovering from a severe cold, and 
cancelled Irene's plans for solitary Urdu at the Barracks 
meanwhile. On December i4th she rose from her bed to 
pay them a second visit, which lasted till April 8th, 1896, 
returning to them again from November ;th, 1896, to July 
8th, 1897. 

On December iyth she again went into the city; but 
influenza was prevalent there, and Dr. Neve wrote so strongly 
to her about the risk she was running, that she was compelled 
to prolong her Christmas holiday, and actually owned to not 
having a great deal of strength. But to the home friends, 
who had proposed another furlough on hearing of her 
alarming illness, she replied : " It would take more than 
all the king's horses and all the king's men to drag me 
across the world again, within a year, after once getting back 
to work here." 



224 IRENE PETRIE 

Her second Christmas in Srinagar was as happy as the 
first. On December 2ist she writes thus of the joy of 
giving its message in the zenanas : " The good news comes 
all fresh to oneself when one tries to make it plain to these 
women, and many enter into the lessons in a wonderful way." 

At the New Year she says : " At last I am rejoicing in 
really good health again, and appreciate it immensely. I hope 
now to be allowed to have a long spell of work." That 
hope was fulfilled, for at the end of 1896 she was able to 
report that she had not been kept in one working day, and 
had given, on an average, twenty Bible lessons every week, in 
addition to much miscellaneous teaching. Four short trips, 
amounting altogether to six weeks' absence from Srinagar, 
was all the vacation she took that year. " I am sure," she 
says, " that present good health is given in answer to many 
prayers by kind friends at home." Doubtless, also, she had 
learned lessons of prudence in sparing herself, all home 
counsels being pointed with the warning, " You will have to 
leave Kashmir unless you take better care of yourself." 

But probably the chief explanation of her sustained health 
was that she no longer lived in the draughty and ruinous 
Barracks, at a distance of over an hour's journey from the 
city, which involved an exhausting day of continuous labour. 
Holton Cottage is a cosy house, well built in English style, 
and stands in a plot granted to the mission by the Maharaja 
on the Sheikh Bagh, a pleasant meadow planted with fruit- 
trees, and skirted by the Jhelum. A sketch of Irene's done 
there the following spring shows the sharp tip of Haramuk 
dazzlingly white through a mist of soft green and snowy 
blossom in the orchard, a combination of the grandeur of the 
Alps with the charm of an English April. She was now a 
mile and a half from the Munshi Bagh, and only four 
hundred yards from the city; and her move from the 
Barracks was a move from the eastern to the western extremity 



SECOND WINTER IN SRINAGAR 225 

of the European quarter, which lies along the Jhelum between 
the Takht and the first of the city bridges. 

Of all her abodes in India "dear Holton Cottage," as 
she often calls it, the one she was in longest, exactly a 
year in all, became most truly a home to her ; and the happy 
effects of residence there upon her health and spirits are to 
be traced in her letters. She was persuaded to return to a 
midday lunch, and to rest occasionally ; and " the many 
comforts of this sweet home," to which she gratefully refers, 
included perfectly congenial companionship with friends " who 
become kinder and dearer every week," and an enjoyment 
of their two children, who were not much older than her own 
nephews, echoed in one of her latest letters, where she says . 
" Small boys are quite the nicest things in the world." 

She needed all her strength that winter for carrying on 
the whole of the zenana work, now rapidly growing, for, as 
Miss Hull, on leaving Srinagar, wrote to the headquarters 
of the C.E.Z.M.S. in December, 1895: "A greater number 
of houses have been visited than in any previous year ; and 
a reverent and earnest attention is paid to the Bible lessons, 
which has been very encouraging." Miss Ada Barclay, 
an artist who had come to Kashmir to paint, occasionally 
volunteered help with pupils who knew English ; otherwise, 
Irene was alone in the visiting. During the four months 
of Miss Hull's absence she rose nobly to this responsibility, 
finding time, now that she had passed in Urdu, for an hour' 
Kashmiri in the morning, and an hour's Hindi in the evening 
as well. 

In her annual letter of December, 1895, to the C.M.S. 
headquarters she says; 

"Among the pupils themselves there are the difficulties, 
known to all teachers, of hearts that resemble the hard, the 
shallow, and the choked soil in which the good seed could 
not bring fruit to perfection. But if there are some who 



226 IRENE PETRIE 

are indifferent, or unpersevering, or distracted with other things, 
there are many whom it is always delightful to teach. Among 
encouragements may be noted the welcome given in an ever- 
increasing number of houses to the Miss Sahibs, and that 
not merely from the desire for an amusing break in the 
monotony of their lives, or even from a wish to learn some 
kind of work, but from a real willingness to study, and in 
many cases to put honest effort into the learning. The 
lessons in reading and work are, of course, only means to 
an end; and signs are not wanting that among the pupils 
some are grasping the thought of a God of Love, and 
beginning to look to Christ as their own Saviour, not only 
in their troubles, but also from their sins, of which there 
seems often to be a real sense. Some have learned to 
pray to Christ, and to look to Him for answer to their 
prayer; others, who have been too bigoted in their old 
beliefs to listen without making some opposition, have ex 
pressed real gratitude on hearing that we are in the habit 
of praying for them. 

"As to needs for the work, the minor ones have in large 
measure been supplied by the kindness of personal friends 
in England, who have enabled us to give many acceptable 
little gifts, such as bags for books and work, leaflets, texts, 
work materials, and dolls for rewards. The great need which 
we feel more and more is, of course, the power of the Holy 
Spirit, and we ask friends to pray that this may be given 
abundantly to both teachers and taught in this place." 

Here are one or two dated extracts from subsequent letters : 

January nth, 1896: "It is wonderful to think of the 
change here since the days when it was a concession to 
allow the ladies to teach even knitting; and when, that 
learned, the pupils cared for no more visits." 

February yth : " Seven pupils are now reading as well as 
hearing the Bible lessons, five in Hindi ; and as one gets 



SECOND WINTER IN SRINAGAR 227 

more into their speech, the little talks we have become more 
and more interesting. It is so delightful when they take up 
the lesson and give it back in different words, showing that 
the idea is grasped." 

February i4th : " There has been so much illness lately 
that I am like a walking druggist's shop." 

March 28th : " There have been some specially interesting 
fresh openings among the zenanas, and in every case the 
proposal of Bible teaching, which one always makes on a 
first visit, has been warmly welcomed, and the lessons have 
been reverently and often eagerly listened to. You can guess 
the feeling of responsibility when one begins at the very 
beginning with those who have never had Christian teaching 
before. One could not dare to go without recollecting the 
promises of the Holy Spirit's aid. John iii. 16, Luke xv. 3-7, 
and John x. n, always seem to help most then, and one goes 
to Phil. ii. 6-10 again and again a little further on to sum 
up the lessons from the Gospel. The Love and Holiness 
of God are the ideas one longs for them to grasp first." 

In March Irene added another undertaking to her already 
heavy burden of work in Miss Hull's absence. Their old 
quarters in the Barracks had been condemned as actually 
unsafe, so a new C.E.Z.M.S. house was being built on the 
Sheikh Bagh as a " twin " to Holton Cottage, and Irene was 
preparing it for its occupants. As their return approached, 
we find her living in a constant nightmare of yard measures 
and pages of dimensions, sitting up far into the night writing 
to Bombay for hardware, to Calcutta for draperies, to Cawn- 
pore for blinds, to Lahore for groceries, to the Hills for tea, 
etc., etc., and hardly able to get off to her visiting in the 
morning, being waylaid with inquiries and petitions from 
all sorts of people. That someone should superintend was 
essential, for just as a Kashmiri domestic will dust a room 
before sweeping it, a Kashmiri builder will stain the floor 



228 IRENE PETRIE 

before he distempers the walls. Incidentally her account book 
shows how liberally she contributed to the plenishing of this 
house, in which she was to live herself for scarcely six months. 

She was also busy in organising a choir of eighteen for 
the Easter services in the English church, not only to render 
them as attractive as possible to the residents, but to create 
an inducement for regular church-going to the choir itself, 
which largely consisted of young telegraph clerks. " After 
Easter, if the chaplain and other summer visitors wish to 
take over the charge of the music, they can easily do so, and 
I shall be set free for something else," she writes. Which 
was exactly what happened, and so the choir became a 
permanent institution. She had always been an adept at 
discovering work that no one else was doing, and passing it 
on to others when its need and value had been recognised. 

None of these things, however, interrupted her regular routine 
of zenana visiting, and we can well believe that she was ready 
for a brief Eastertide outing on the Wular Lake with the 
C.M.S. School. Reserving particulars of that for the next 
chapter, we may here complete the story of zenana work up 
to August, 1896. 

Irene had planned to be in Srinagar to welcome Miss Hull 
to the newly furnished house ; but got back from the Wular 
on April i8th to find that Miss Hull had returned before 
she was expected, and was already in possession of it. With 
her were two more C.E.Z. ladies and a group of converts 
from the Hazara. Miss Coverdale had come to make her 
third brave attempt at work in Srinagar (see pp. 58 and 128) ; 
and Miss Pryce-Browne, who had left England in October, 1895, 
and divided the winter between Amritsar and the Hazara, 
arrived in Kashmir as the station to which she had originally 
been assigned. The party was completed in June by Miss 
Howatson, who had just become a C.E.Z. missionary in 
Vocal connexion. She formed a school for Punjabi girls near 



SECOND WINTER IN SRINAGAR 229 

the Amira Kadal Bridge, "whose bright little pupils soon 
became very fond of their teacher, and bid fair to overflow 
their cheery schoolroom." "We are quite a strong band of 
workers," Miss Hull wrote joyfully in May j but there was 
more than enough for each to do. Unhappily, Miss Coverdale's 
health again failed, and it was not until November that 
she was able to take part in the work. By that time 
Miss Pryce-Browne had been invalided home. 

We must go back some years for the story of Miss Hull's 
native following. The Hazara forms the northern extremity 
of the Punjab, and its chief city, Haripur, lies over a hundred 
miles due west of Srinagar. In 1882 a Pathan policeman 
named Sayad Ullah Khan, heard Mr. Knowles, who had 
not yet joined the Kashmir Mission, preaching there. Later 
on he heard similar preaching from Major Battye, of the 
5th Goorkas; and having long felt the burden of sin, and 
finding no peace from the Koran, he sought out the missionary 
and the officer for further instruction, and at last followed 
Mr. Knowles into Kashmir, a rough journey of some hundred 
and sixty miles, and asked for baptism. On May i3th, 1883, 
he was admitted into the Church. He had had to abandon 
his village and all his possessions, and so bitter were his "own 
relatives against him that his father beat him unmercifully 
as he lay fever-stricken and helpless in bed. His wife, whom 
he brought away with great difficulty, was baptised in 
September, 1883, and three more of his relatives in 1884. 
In successive C.M.S. annual reports one meets him again 
and again, as dresser and then assistant house-surgeon at the 
hospital. In 1891, to the sorrow and utter astonishment of 
the missionaries, after actually preaching Christ in their com 
pany, he lapsed to Mohammedanism. They prayed for him 
with unwearied persistency, but heard no more till Miss Hull 
found him, four years later, when itinerating round Haripur. 
Enemies had intercepted his letters to Srinagar, but he warmly 



a 3 o IRENE PETRIE 

welcomed her into his house, and she found that he had long 
since repented of his apostasy, and had preached among his 
Pathan countrymen with such effect that several of them 
were anxious for baptism. 

"So," says Irene, "Miss Hull has brought a family of 
Pathans with her, and has been settling them in a set of 
nice back premises in our compound. Three enter our 
service, two are to be trained for work at the hospital. 
At the end of his visit to us Sayad Ullah himself is to go 
itinerating with Dr. Neve, and then return to his house 
at Mansahra, nearly thirty miles north of Haripur, where, as 
he is a man of considerable property, we hope he will be a 
great help to the infant Church. . . . Sunday, April 26th, was 
an eventful day in the Indian Christian Church here. Miss 
Hull's whole family of Pathans, four men, two women, and 
a two-year-old child, were baptised. It was a specially happy 
occasion for Mr. Knowles, as they had been won by Sayad 
Ullah, the first whom he baptised here. Miss Hull had 
clothed them all in white, and they looked such a fine, 
strong set." 

One has since died in the faith ; but Sayad Ullab, the 
following autumn, once more apostatised, under threat of 
immediate death. Our last glimpse of him is in Mr. Greene's 
annual letter, March 5th, 1897 : "I had been requested to call 
at Mansahra to visit a Christian, who recanted publicly some 
five years ago, and had been received back into the Church 
about five months. We discovered that he was still professing 
in his town to be a Mohammedan, but was induced to confess 
faith in Christ before some six hundred townspeople and 
eleven maulvis. He was publicly denounced as a kafir, and 
within five days he had again recanted to Mohammedanism." 
This straightforward record of the falling away of a man who 
had not only laboured but suffered for Christ, and seemed 
to be a sincere Christian during eight years, takes us back 



SECOND WINTER IN SRINAGAR 231 

from our easy-going Western Christianity to primitive times, 
and emphasises words of our Lord and of St. Paul which 
we sometimes hear without heeding. 

Irene had at this time about fifty regular zenana pupils, and 
the work extended steadily. Early in June she writes : " In 
a new house to which some children pupils conducted me 
there was a very nice group, eager to learn. One passed on 
the whole story of the Prodigal Son in broad Punjabi to 
another, and it was evidently very fresh and very welcome 
to all." At the end of May the one Canadian telegram that 
reached Kashmir during 1896 announced to her the birth 
of a second nephew in Montreal. " Everybody here, British 
friends, servants, native Christians, were so kind and pleased 
at my good news," she writes, "and all through the week 
it has been quite an excitement among the zenana pupils. 
I hear one passing on the news to another in various forms 
of Hindustani, Punjabi, and Kashmiri. ' May God give her 
seventy sons, and may they live lakhs of years ! ' are some of 
the kind and comprehensive wishes expressed." The incident 
shows not only that growing regard for Irene was bound up 
with the fruitfulness of her work, but that a common sense 
of the ties of blood helped to interpret to her pupils the life 
and mind of one so strangely different from themselves. 

In spite of its elevation of 5,200 feet above the sea, Srinagar 
is not only hot but malarious during July and August, as the 
moisture given off by lakes and marshes and inundated paddy 
fields recondenses on the mountain-sides like steam in a cup ; 
making the air heavy and relaxing. Irene, more and more 
immersed in her work, stayed on after the heat had dispersed 
most of the residents in Srinagar, and seems only to have 
yielded to a strong letter written to her by Dr. Neve 
on July 2nd, in planning for two little outings. From 
July 1 6th to 3ist she was in the Sind Valley with Mr. and 
Mrs. Knowles and their little daughter Winifred, " a great 



232 IRENE PETRIE 

ally " of hers. One cannot linger over her description of the 
girdle of snow-peaks, of the many processions of yaks, led 
by fur-clad Tibetans, or the one procession of "American 
tourists, rather a rare species here, whose diamond rings 
and long train of new boxes looked a little incongruous." 
From August yth to i8th she enjoyed some of the most 
glorious views in the world at Nil-Nag, near Islamabad, a 
day's journey south of Srinagar, where a pretty little lake lies 
on the borders of the vast pine-forest clothing the Pir Punjal. 
Here Mrs. Tyndale-Biscoe, whose husband had started for 
Leh on May 29th, was her companion, and here she wrote an 
Indian tale, entitled An Old Padlock. 

The following further sketches of Irene's pupils are gathered 
from the letters of her second and third winter in Srinagar, and 
pass, as in Chapter VIII., from Hindus to Mohammedans. 

The first two portraits illustrate Dr. Gust's assertion at the 
meeting of the British Association in 1895, that there are 
many fellow-subjects of ours in India with whom it is possible 
to form acquaintances and friendships based on mutual 
respect, and to associate on the same terms as with one's 
own countrymen. They also show how absurd it is to say 
that we may as well leave the peoples of India undisturbed in 
the historic religions that they have accepted for centuries. 
Education in Europe involves the loss of caste ; few who lose 
it thus care to undergo the six months of repulsive penances 
by which alone they can regain it on return to India, and so 
an ever-increasing number of the ablest men in India become 
technically outcasts, cease to believe in Hinduism, and are 
either agnostics or members of the Brahma-Samaj community 
started by Rammohun Roy and developed by Keshub Chunder 
Sen, which endeavours to combine into a Theistic creed selec 
tions from the Vedas, the Christian Scriptures, and various 
philosophical systems of the East and of the West. 

In a handsome house outside Srinagar, furnished in 



SECOND WINTER IN SRINAGAR 233 

European style, lived the one pupil who knew English really 
well and had a drawing-room. She belonged to a family well 
known in Calcutta, and her brother was studying in London. 
Her husband, a wealthy Bengali, occupied a high official 
position in Kashmir; and he, too, had been educated in 
London. " Dear Mrs. X.," as Irene often calls her, undertook 
a systematic study of the Gospels, in which her husband joined. 
" I do so want to read the whole Bible," she said one day to 
her teacher, when they met with an Old Testament reference. 
" Could you not come oftener ? " In graceful acknowledgment 
of Irene's instruction she sent an exquisite little goblet of silver 
repouss'e work to her Canadian nephew on his birthday ; and 
a few words from her letter of condolence to Irene's sister 
may be quoted : " I often sit down to write to you, but 
my heart feels so heavy and sore that I have to put it off. 
I cannot think of the loss of my dear friend Miss Petrie 
without pain. She was such a dear and affectionate friend ; 
her last good-bye to me is still in my mind." 

Close to this pupil, in another pretty, luxurious house of 
European style, lived another rich Bengali, educated at 
Edinburgh. A sentry stationed in his hall showed that he 
held an important State appointment. In deference to the 
Maharaja's wishes his wife was in semi-purdah, but wore 
the Brahma-Samaj dress, which is half European and half 
Oriental. Her father had been a leading member of the 
Brahma-SamaJ in Calcutta, and both she and her husband 
belonged to it. She also knew English, and read our 
literature diligently with dictionary and notebook ; dressed 
her little daughter like an English child, and gave her an 
English schoolroom. This advanced lady welcomed Irene 
most warmly on her return to Srinagar, and had many a 
long and serious talk with her. One day she was found 
studying a ten-volumed work of Voysey's, mistaking a treatise 
hostile to our faith for a standard exposition of Christianity, 



234 IRENE PETRIE 

because its author had once been a clergyman. An aggressive 
English Unitarian had placed this in the public library. 

Every year secular education is producing in India more 
Hindus instructed in Western lore ; they sometimes meet the 
Christian teacher with the arguments of European infidels, 
from whose writings they derive their whole knowledge of 
the revelation of God in Christ, imagining that they have 
weighed it as well as their own ancient religions in the 
balance, and found them alike wanting; sometimes they 
are intellectually convinced of the truth of Christianity, but 
without either repentance or faith, offering, like Alexander 
Severus of old, to build a temple to Christ, and enrol Him 
among the gods, but refusing to acknowledge Him as their 
" Master and only Saviour." " My head may be convinced 
by the Christians' arguments, but my heart is not touched, 
is in effect the profession of many who know much and 
yet declare that they are not Christians. And then," says 
Irene, " one feels the impotence of all, without the work of 
the life-giving Spirit. We do want a Pentecost in Kashmir." 

Turning now to those actually Hindus, and as such 
opposed to Christianity, one finds them less bitterly hostile 
than the Moslems. As a rule, idols are not very apparent 
in the zenanas, and as puja is performed quietly in the early 
morning, the visitor sees little of idolatrous rites. But idolatry 
is there. 

The wife of a Punjabi official, a tall woman with a fine, 
open brow and handsome face, well set off by her crimson 
chaddar, had a bonnie little girl about ten years old, named 
Parbuti. She took her one day to a neighbour's house, 
where a small pupil was reading an imperfectly prepared 
lesson to Miss Hull. " Beat her, and she will soon learn," 
suggested Parbuti's mother. " No ; I am trying another way. 
Love her, and she will soon learn," was the reply. "She 
teaches by love ; teach my little girl also," said the astonished 



SECOND WINTER IN SRINAGAR 235 

mother; and in Parbuti Irene had a pupil so attentive that 
she soon earned an English doll as a prize for Hindi 
reading. She worked hard for it, because she wished to 
give it away to her elder sister, who was bewailing her 
young husband, and kind-hearted Parbuti thought the doll 
would be a comfort to her and her fatherless baby girl. 
And the mother begged Irene to send her widowed daughter 
"the Lord's Book," saying, " It will comfort her." Irene had 
taught them for some time and found them most responsive, 
when the following incident came upon her as a shock. They 
were reading the first chapter of St. Mark, and having a 
lesson on prayer. "Do you pray?" "Oh yes, we pray to 
Parmeshwar " (Hindu name for the Great God). " There is our 
prayer " (pointing to an invocation on the wall), " and here is 
his picture." So saying, they produced a hideous daub of a 
monster from the box containing their treasures, and salaamed 
to it. What prolonged, patient effort it must take to eradicate 
such an idea of God ! 

One day a visitor at this house asked Irene to teach her 
also. "She took a lesson," says Irene, "then and there, and 
I gave her a first Hindi reader, and called at her house a few 
days later. We could get no answer at all, and supposed every 
one was out; but it was explained when we next went to 
see Parbuti's mother. Her friend's husband had been very 
angry about his wife's request, declared he would not have 
her learn about Jesus Christ, and tore her reading-book 
to shreds lest it should contain Christian teaching." 

Again, some Kashmiris, whom she had hoped for as pupils, 
returned their reading-books, fearing they might provoke 
their husbands to beat them. 

The following sketch brings out the reward of perseverance, 
in spite of such opposition. In March, 1896, a winsome little 
Kashmiri girl, with her small brother, sat on the threshold 
of a pupil's house and overheard part of the lesson. Presently 



236 IRENE PETRIE 

Irene came out, and having forgotten to call her boatman, 
was retracing her steps in search of him, regretting the time 
thus lost. But what seemed a mistake was an over-ruling. 
The child, perceiving that the " Niki Mem " was going towards 
her own home, darted after her, took her by the cloak, and 
drew her past the temple, with its sound of mumbled prayers 
and group of disreputable faqirs, into a large Kashmiri house, 
of the sort that the missionaries had fewest and wanted most 
of. It proved to be the priest's own house; and here she 
found an eager group, many of whom seemed really to wish 
to learn, as they squatted round her on the mud floor, all 
chattering Kashmiri. Of her second visit she writes : " The priest 
himself was there, and had confiscated all the girls' books, 
because, he said, it was not their custom for the girls to read ; 
they must spin and pound the rice. I felt rather baffled, but 
began to teach a little Punjabi guest, who had a book; and 
meanwhile the old mother gave the priest such a scolding 
for not appreciating the Miss Sahib's visits, that the books 
were produced, and one girl at a time came to read, the 
others pounding the rice with much ostentation close by. 
A bhajan made them all suddenly silent, and I was allowed 
to give to a quiet, respectful audience a Bible lesson on the 
One True God creating the world. When I asked if they 
wanted me to come again, the four pupils were eager in 
assenting." She went again, and found mother and wife 
ready to listen, the priest looking as black as a thunder 
cloud all the time. A week or two later he was out; the 
ladies freely expressed their pleasure in her visits, and one 
rendered the whole lesson from her "stiff and halting 
Kashmiri" into fluent colloquial for the benefit of a visitor. 
By October, 1896, she joyfully reports: "The Kashmiri 
priest's house has become one of the nicest of all The 
women give a wonderfully hearty welcome, and three are 
learning to read, which represents a good break-down of 



SECOND WINTER IN SRINAGAR 237 

prejudice since the time when the priest confiscated their 
books and scowled at me. The old mother is such an 
earnest listener to the Bible lesson, keeps the babies in 
order, repeats emphatically what she approves, and, by the 
way, calls me her mother}' They made Irene a real Kashmiri 
doll as a token of affection. The latest record of this house, 
just seven months after the first visit to it, is as follows : 
" Prejudice has broken down, the priest, though he still looks 
a little sulky, now prompts his womenkind in their lessons, 
and they really drink in the Bible teaching." The old mother 
called down blessings every time, not only on Irene but on 
her sister and her nephews. 

Another most attentive and affectionate pupil was the wife 
of a Dogra priest, court chaplain and representative of the 
State religion at the Maharaja's own temple, whose massive gilt 
dome rises beside the palace. Nowhere had Irene a gladder 
welcome or greater freedom of speech. The priest came 
in and assented, and when she left, politely escorted her 
through the courtyard and gateways to her own servants 
on the ghat. His wife was able to read the Gospels for 
herself in Hindi when they left for the Punjab ; and as she 
studied John xiv. with Irene before departing, she said 
earnestly, "Please pray often for me." 

A group of pilgrims from the almost unknown land of Nepal 
were also most receptive hearers. 

One has heard of husbands desiring that their wives should 
be taught by zenana missionaries. Irene met with a yet more 
striking request in July, 1896. " While I was teaching in a 
Kashmiri house where about twelve women came to listen," 
she says, " an educated man joined the audience, and passed 
on what I said in good colloquial Kashmiri to those farthest 
off, assenting to it all. He then told me that he was the 
master of one of the State schools close by, and invited me 
to go and give his boys a Bible lesson." 



238 IRENE PETRIE 

In December, 1895, a father waylaid Irene, asking that 
his daughter might be taught. She found, in a well-to-do 
Sikh house, a motherless boy and girl. The girl became a 
very bright and charming pupil ; and her brother, who attended 
the State school, always tried to be in when Irene was there, 
and expected to have dictated to him a text gathering up 
the Bible lesson. He and his sister then learned it during 
the week. She had other boy friends in the zenanas who 
listened to the lessons given to their mothers and sisters. 

More and more she desired to get at the Kashmiris, espe 
cially the shy and conservative punditanis ; for, untaught as 
they are, the women of this class, whence .the Mission School 
is mainly recruited, are as clever as the men, and already 
there are evidences of what education may do for them. 
One punditani, a dear, gentle little thing, who brought a 
dali of rosy apples and sugar, and fetched an umbrella for 
her teacher when it came on to rain, paid, at Irene's sug 
gestion, a private visit to the hospital, where her poor ears, 
torn through with heavy earrings, were successfully made 
whole again. 

The concluding Hindu sketches shall be of four ladies of 
quality, who were especially responsive pupils. 

A Gore Brahman of the highest caste of all was a bright 
pupil reading Hindi, who listened at Christmas, 1894, as 
willingly as the Mohammedans listened unwillingly to the 
story of the Incarnation. In February a letter came from 
her husband, who was at the Palace, begging for a doctor 
and a visit. Miss Newnham went at once, and Irene also 
rode off to her distant dwelling, to find her terribly weak 
and suffering. At her request she read aloud the story ot 
the Crucifixion from St. John's Gospel, and most eagerly did 
one, who had heard the Name of Christ for the first time 
only a few months before, follow the story of His Passion 
and cry to Him to help her. When Irene returned it* 



SECOND WINTER IN SRINAGAR 239 

October, 1895, sne introduced a new little son, and listened 
as gladly as ever to the Bible. 

" A friend of hers, another charming, high-caste lady, told me," 
says Irene, " that she was my sister in faith. One day we talked 
of prayer, and she said, * I pray daily to Christ ; but He has 
not answered my prayer, for He has taken away all my four 
children, and He does not grant me another child.' She 
is one of our dearest pupils ; and I tried to tell her of a Love 
that knows best, and of prayers heard, though not answered 
at once, or in our way, and of the little ones in His care. 
How could one believe, beside that poor mother, that unless 
they are baptised Christians there would be no future hope 
for that beautiful earthly love? Such are some of the deep 
and difficult problems of life and death that come up in our 
teaching." 

Another most eager listener was a dear little woman with 
one small boy, who came all the way from the city to visit 
Miss Hull, then out of health, just three days before the birth 
of a little daughter. The next news was of her serious illness. 
Her husband tended her most carefully, allowed Dr. Neve 
to see her, and spoke most gratefully afterwards of "the 
goodness of God and of the merciful doctor sahib." He 
kept her New Testament at his office to read himself; and 
after a lesson about the Holy Spirit, the wife said earnestly, 
" Then He will really come, and always be with us and help 
us, night and day." 

A rais who had been educated in the Delhi Mission School 
invited Irene to instruct his wife in the Scriptures, saying, " I 
have a Bible of my own." During two months she took her 
through a course of instruction following the lines of the 
Apostles' Creed, and then, as her pupil was leaving Srinagar, went 
by invitation to say farewell. " She and her husband gave me," 
she says, " a little ruby and pearl ring as a token of friendship 
and remembrance. He said so prettily : ' We know we cannot 



240 IRENE PETRIE 

and must not give you anything for teaching her ; but this is 
only for friendship. I shall not be poor, and you will not be rich 
if you take it ; but we want you to remember her by it.' He 
also promised to read the Gospels aloud to her in the evenings." 
Six months later she returned, and so far from having 
forgotten the teaching, had been writing out all her lessons 
during her absence. She begged for two lessons a week, and 
though a grandmother, set to work to learn Hindi, taking the 
Hindi Gospels and second reading-book away with her the 
following summer. 

Here is a picture of some very different experiences among 
Mohammedans. 

" My pupils are mostly painstaking, and really interested 
dear things ! and some make real progress. Sometimes one 
has one's struggles with them in this land of distractions and 
interruptions. Picture one of to-day's visits : A very large 
house, with elaborately painted walls and ceilings, and a 
large garden. Groping up a pitch dark staircase, through 
a ' knock-you-down ' odour, one reaches a big room with a 
good many costly things in it, and a generally pigsty effect of 
mess and squalor. Here sit the two wives of a rich Mussulman, 
remarkably beautiful girls, with slender figures and lustrous 
eyes, loaded with many pounds of jewelry, their hands dirty, 
their chaddars draggled, their hair in scores of tiny plaits. 
Last week they were preparing vegetables with the aid of an 
excessively dirty but good-natured old woman, who, with men- 
servants, after the custom of a native house, is constantly 
bustling backwards and forwards, talking, banging doors, and 
interrupting the mistresses in a perfectly inconsequent way 
to ask for keys or pice, or to show a piece of raw meat, or to 
make the room more untidy than it was before by tumbling 
in a lot of crumpled bedding. Presently the baby wakes up 
crying poor little mortal ! The pupil has torn and dirtied her 
reading-book almost beyond recognition ; but I refuse to give 



SECOND WINTER IN SRINAGAR 241 

her a new one without payment, which is counted out in 
minute copper coins. Then the lesson seems to be com 
pletely wiped from her memory, and after half an hour's 
pounding at two lines without much apparent progress, I am 
obliged further to refuse her the knitting lesson she really 
wanted, promising it next week, however, on condition of 
a good reading lesson being ready. By the time I am 
about to give the Bible lesson they have suddenly decided 
that it is a cold day, and that their cotton garments are un 
satisfactory. So a rout-out of their wardrobes follows, and 
after a long interval they rearray themselves in figured silk 
saris and pushmina shawls, and then try and cheer their poor, 
bare feet over the kangres, which have to be re-filled, or 
stirred, or blown, whenever there is no other excitement. 
Just as we again start the Bible lesson a shouting man some 
where below disturbs everything, and the pupils are so 
inattentive that at last I am driven to an awful threat kept 
only for rare occasions. * Do you want me to go, and never 
come back? There are too many attentive pupils to leave 
any time for inattentive ones.' All the indifference vanishes 
now, and with a vehement ' No ! ' they actually settle down 
at last, get the door shut, and listen with respect and, I think, 
interest, which becomes keen when I begin to sing the hymn 
at the end. That they are determined to have, so I save it 
up as something to be earned by listening well. This is 
rather a discouraging sketch ; but the house is a new one, 
and I look forward to the time when they will love the teaching 
for its own sake, as so many have learned to do. And there 
is much to love in the girls themselves." These girls may 
perhaps be identified with a Mohammedan babu's "two 
wives " who seemed, on another occasion, quite terrified when 
the sound of his step was heard; one fled, the other was 
roughly scolded, and burst into a fit of weeping. 

In December, 1896, Irene writes : " Yesterday I had the 

16 



243 IRENE PETRIE 

worst experience of blasphemous opposition I ever knew. A 
Pathan visitor stirred up my pupils. It was frightfully sad, 
one more instance of the strength of evil here, especially 
in that awful Mohammedan system." 

We may compare words in another letter of that winter, 
written when she had been three years in India: "Acquaint 
ance with Mohammedanism is a horrible experience. It is 
truly a vile thing. I wish the globe-trotters who admire the 
pious cant which is exhibited outwardly could know a little 
of the loathsomeness of its real working." 

Yet there were encouragements here. "Another Moham 
medan lady," she writes, "who last year asked me to come 
to teach knitting only, did not care to read, and seemed to 
endure rather than enjoy the Bible lesson, is now both an 
industrious reader and also one who responds most warmly 
when the Bible is opened." 

The Mohammedan of whom we hear most was the wife 
of a prosperous tradesman, "a dear, friendly little woman, 
who listens so nicely," with a daughter six years old. Irene 
describes her first impression of her pupil in November, 
1894, thus : " Like every native room I know, with about 
three exceptions, her room is as untidy and uncomfortable 
as possible; shop stores on dusty shelves at one side, at 
the other an unmade bed, over which the hostess pulls a 
quilt ere inviting me to sit on it beside her. The lattice 
windows are pasted up with newspaper ; the hen and her 
brood promenade the floor." The pupil's first impression 
of Irene, then making her earliest efforts to talk Urdu, was 
conveyed thus to Miss Hull: "She has a nice face, but is 
very young and unlearned." In January, 1895, Irene plunged 
through seas of mud to find mother and daughter hibernating, 
only the tip of a nose visible under the quilt, but ready to 
receive a Bible lesson. Another day she found her more 
anxious to argue than to learn, and posted up in the stock 



SECOND WINTER IN SRINAGAR 243 

Mohammedan objections to Christianity. When Irene returned 
in October, 1895, however, she embraced her effusively, dis 
playing a new baby, became a most attentive and reverent 
listener, and asked to be prayed for regularly. In February 
she specially asked prayer for her daughter, then pining in 
consumption, and was touched with the kindness she received 
at the Mission Hospital, saying, " Our people never do such 
things." The child died in June, 1896. "She has been quite 
a pet," writes Irene, " both with us and at the hospital. Her 
poor mother is in such grief, and the ten-year-old brother 
looked the picture of sorrow. How little one knows, but I 
do feel that their strong love cannot be a lost good, and 
that God in His mercy will provide some good thing for 
that dear little one, so that there may be some happy 
reunion and future knowledge for these who have only heard 
a little, but have listened when they heard ; though they 
have certainly not 'kept the Catholic Faith whole and un- 
defiled.' For oneself, one prizes all the articles of that 
Faith more and more when in such work as this, and longs 
more and more for others to share in them ; but as one knows 
and loves more and more of these people, who know not 
their Lord's Will, one is less and less able to accept the 
terrible sentence passed on them in the Athanasian Creed." 
In October, 1896, when Irene was proceeding as usual 
into the house of this pupil, a door was for the first time 
slammed in her face ; and the husband met her, grunting out, 
"No leisure." "I am afraid it means," she says, "that the 
man, who is a bad husband and no friend to Christianity, will 
not let the poor little wife go on learning." The very last 
zenana visit which Irene paid, on July 7th, 1897, was to this 
pupil, whom she characterises as " one of the oldest and most 
affectionate pupils " she had. 

Our last sketch introduces a husband of a different type, 
a Dogra by race, formerly in the Maharaja's Band, now a 



244 IRENE PETRIE 

tradesman. He had learned much of Christianity in the 
Punjab, and desired a Bible for himself and instruction for 
his wife. Irene writes in May, 1896: "When I took him a 
Bible his whole face glowed, and he willingly gave two silver 
pieces for it, and spoke with real love and reverence of its 
teaching. That afternoon Mr. Tyndale-Biscoe saw him 
reading it aloud outside his shop and praising its truths, in 
the presence of a number of Mohammedans. He showed it 
to Mr. Tyndale-Biscoe, and told its history, and this dialogue 
ensued. "Why did you want it?" "Because I wish to 
read it." " Oh, many wish to read it now. Nearly a hundred 
come weekly to my house to do so. But why do you 
wish to read it?" " Because, sahib, I believe it." "Others, 
too, believe it, but will not confess." "Why should I fear 
to do so, if I believe it in my heart ? " Mr. Knowles read 
regularly with him, while Irene taught his wife. She gradually 
became more keen, learning much from her husband's Bible 
as well as from Irene, who once found her giving lively 
explanations of some Scripture pictures to a visitor. 

A friend who had not been outside Christendom, and whose 
thoughts ran on missions and revivals in a land where "the 
reproach of Christ " is for most a mere phrase, put this question 
to Irene : " Do you have many true conversions ? " Irene did 
not live to receive the letter ; and one can only imagine that 
she would have replied with Ezekiel, "O Lord God, Thou 
knowest." The striking statement of an enlightened Mussul 
man that at the Resurrection many a Christian will rise 
from a Mohammedan tomb is especially true of such work 
as hers. Even here, writing in English and naming m 
names, one dares not reproduce her statement concerning 
several of those described that she had reason to believe 
they were Christians at heart. Miss Kant, of Leh, whom we 
shall meet again in Chapter XIII., wrote thus to her touch 
ing this matter in April, 1897 : "I can well understand that you 



SECOND WINTER IN SRINAGAR 245 

long for open decision for Christ ; but I think we must not 
forget what that means for the majority of the native women. 
It really requires very strong faith and a very great love for 
the Saviour for a woman to come forward openly and pro 
fess her belief in Christ. I think secret disciples of the Lord 
can do much good for Him, too, if they only are in earnest. 
And then our work is only to lead them to Christ ; accepting 
Him is their part, and the desire to confess Him openly 
must be wrought by the Holy Spirit. Of course, it would 
be much more encouraging if we saw more open results of 
our labours ; but the Lord knows best why He cannot grant 
that to us yet. We will take comfort from our mutual experi 
ences, and pray all the more for each other and for the work 
entrusted to us. If only we are faithful in doing the work 
which the Lord wishes us to do we need not worry ; He 
will surely let us see fruit thereof, if not here, then before 
His throne." 

The Church at home and abroad thanks God now for the 
career of more than one missionary who never to his know 
ledge had a single convert for instance, Henry Martyn and 
James Hannington ; and words written by the former will 
close this subject more fitly than any generalities : " Even if 
I should never see a native converted, God may design by 
my patience and continuance in the work to encourage future 



CHAPTER XI 

WITH THE BOYS OF KASHMIR 

'Tis in the advance of individual minds 

That the slow crowd should ground their expectation, 

Eventually to follow. 

BROWNING, Paracelsus. 

TWELVE hundred years ago, when Britain was very 
slowly becoming a Christian country, a twofold work of 
evangelisation and of education went on together, and the 
missionaries were teachers as well as preachers and pastors. 
So it is to-day in India generally, and in Kashmir specially. 
Soon after the arrival of Dr. Neve and Mr. Knowles schools 
for boys were started at Srinagar and at Islamabad, Christian 
homes rather than educational institutions, but influential 
enough to rouse Government opposition in 1883. In 1889 
there were some three hundred pupils. 

Meanwhile, a future Principal, in whose hands the C.M.S. 
School was to become what Irene calls " an ideal missionary 
work among the lads," was studying at Jesus College, Cambridge, 
and making a reputation on the river, being coxswain of the 
victorious crew in the University Boat Race of 1886. One 
of a well-known Oxfordshire family claiming kinship with 
William Tyndale the reformer, he had been solemnly warned 
on going to Cambridge against " the missionary set " as against 
lunatics, but he got into it, nevertheless. After leaving 
Cambridge the Rev. C. E. Tyndale-Biscoe, M.A., became 
curate to the Rev. A. J. Robinson, of Whitechapel, well known 

246 



WITH THE BOYS OF KASHMIR 247 

as a warm friend of the C.M.S. He married, in 1891, the 
daughter of a Birmingham clergyman, who had, like Irene, 
been at the Netting Hill High School. By this time the 
C.M.S. had accepted his own offer of service, and as a scholar 
and athlete, fresh from an English public school and university, 
he had found a large and most congenial task before him 
in helping Mr. Knowles to develop the school in Kashmir. 
It now numbered some five hundred boys, including sons of 
the leading men in the country. The Islamabad school 
was given up, partly for lack of funds, partly because it 
did not seem wise to keep as headmaster there a native 
Christian removed from all the means of grace. But Mr. 
Knowles returned from furlough in 1893 to find that the 
original School in Srinagar had grown into a group of schools, 
and in 1894 he handed over the principalship to Mr. 
Tyndale-Biscoe, remaining Treasurer and Visitor himself. In 
May, 1896, Mr. George Tyndale-Biscoe, Associate of King's 
College, London, came out at his own charges to co-operate 
with his brother as Vice-Principal. He was Acting-Principal 
during the furlough of the latter in 1897-98. Two more 
relatives of the Principal have since joined him an Oxford 
M.A., as superintendent of the technical department, opened 
in 1899, and a Cambridge M.A., a Wrangler, who has become 
weekly examiner (see p. 118). 

Such is the whole European staff, which has superintended 
the following five schools : the Central School, between the 
third and fourth bridge, and opposite the Shah Hamadan 
mosque, of which Mr. Sircar, whom we have already met in 
Chapter VIII. , was Headmaster; the Renawari School, in a 
suburb beside the Dal Lake, close to Hari Parbat Fort, of 
which Mr. Paul Thornaby, a Christian from the North-west 
Provinces, was Headmaster; the Habba Kadal School for 
junior boys, close to the second bridge, of which Poonoo, a 
Kashmiri, is Headmaster ; the Amira Kadal School, close to 



248 IRENE PETRIE 

the Sheikh Bagh and the first bridge; and the Ali Kadal 
School, close to the fifth bridge. 

Of forty-four native masters in July, 1899, three are 
Christians, five Mohammedans, the rest Hindus, nearly all old 
boys, who work loyally and well for much less pay than they 
would get in the public offices. All the schools, both at 
work and at play, are under the constant supervision of the 
European teachers. 

Eschewing the solemn, conventional missionary report, the 
Principal has told the story of the C.M.S. School at Srinagar 
year by year in a most graphic and original way through a 
series of pamphlets, entitled Breaking up and Building (1893), 
Tacking (1894), Coaching in Kashmir (1896), Coxing in 
Kashmir (1897), Paddling in Kashmir (1898), and Towing in 
Kashmir (1900). The names call attention to the fact that 
rowing is as useful as reading in developing ideals of manliness. 

What, then, are the boys when they come to this school? 
What do their teachers endeavour to make them ? How do 
they try to accomplish their endeavour? Does this school, 
taking it as a typical school in the earlier stages of a mission, 
justify the distrust and indifference with which many good 
people at home regard educational missions? 

In race the boys vary even more than the inmates of the 
zenanas, coming from Kashmir, Punjab, Bengal, Nepal, Nagar, 
Dras, Tibet, and Afghanistan. They are mostly Hindus, but 
include some Moslems and Sikhs. Socially they vary from 
relatives of the Maharaja to waifs of the street, from holy 
Brahmins to despised hanjis, but most of them are of the small 
but influential pundit class already described in Chapter VI. 
The school contains faces of all hues, dresses of all kinds, 
long hair, plaited pigtails, shaven crowns. 

"A Kashmiri is as different from a European as a sheep 
is from a war-horse," says the Principal, in a private letter ; 
and it would be hard to imagine a greater contrast to an 



WITH THE BOYS OF KASHMIR 249 

English schoolboy than a Kashmiri boy when he first comes 
to the C.M.S. School. He is clad in the pheran, or woman's 
dress with hanging sleeves, which a conqueror's insolence 
imposed long ago upon the men of Kashmir. His person 
and clothes are so conspicuously dirty, even on great occasions, 
that the Resident, when distributing the school prizes one 
year, was moved to offer a prize of R.2o to the boy who 
appeared to be the cleanest at the next prize-giving. 

He is afraid to climb the hills, for their summits have been 
reserved for the gods, who might revenge themselves on an 
intruder; he is afraid to go out after dark, for the jinns 
or goblins have appropriated the streets then. He is not 
afraid to tell lies, for falsehood and hypocrisy are in his 
blood ; and if his master were unwise enough to believe him, 
he would feel honoured on hearing that he was the best friend 
the boy had ever had, and that love for him came before love 
for his parents. He is not afraid to " sneak," but will come 
to the master with, "Please, sir, I wish to speak to you 
privately," and then in the most plausible way will proceed 
to say all that he can to damage the character of another 
boy or of a master, hoping to curry favour by slander. 

He has a great reverence for the bovine species, for Apis 
is sacred to the Kashmiri, as it was to the Egyptian, and 
in Kashmir "vaccicide" is a capital crime. Once a class 
of pundit lads were listening to the Parable of the Prodigal 
Son. The order to kill the fatted calf made them all rise and 
stamp with indignation at such a profanity, and henceforth the 
missionary had to translate the phrase freely by " Get dinner 
ready." While he has this great reverence for cows, the pundit 
has no reverence at all for women, but dreads the idea of 
female education, lest it should lead to men having to do 
some of the toilsome work now performed by their sisters, 
wives, and mothers. 

He believes that contact with leather defiles, and a football 



250 IRENE PETRIE 

is therefore polluting ; that manual toil degrades, and to touch 
a chappar would therefore lower him to the hanji's level ; 
that any active exertion is unworthy of a gentleman's dignity. 
He is full of self-complacency over being a holy Brahman 
by caste. He has no consciousness of sin as Christians 
understand it, and no dread of defilement from "the things 
that proceed out of the man." 

He will sit at his books all day long and dearly loves 
cramming for an examination. He will sleep and work in 
alternate shifts of two hours the whole night in order to write 
himself F.A., or B.A., or M.A., as the stepping-stone to get 
a snug official post. When he finds games and gymnastics 
on his time-table he remonstrates, declaring he has come 
to school to learn and not to play. He much prefers in 
struction in Christianity to athletics, will ask to read the 
Bible out of school, and will engage in pious conversation 
on the most holy subjects for hours. Then when the unsus 
pecting missionary is rejoicing over an out-spoken inquirer, 
on whom he has expended time and effort for months, he 
receives such a letter as this one actually sent to Mr. Tyndale- 
Biscoe by a Mohammedan : "I believe in Christ, and wish 
to be baptised " ; then came a postscript, containing the pith 
of the communication : " Please find me a lucrative post, a 
house, and a Christian wife." 

Is it possible to turn such lads as these into manly 
Christians? The question had a decided answer a few 
months after Mr. Tyndale-Biscoe's arrival from a young 
officer who stood on the banks of the Jhelum watching his 
efforts to get some high-caste boys to pull an English oar. 
" So you think that you will get these lazy Brahmans to 
row, do you? You might as well try to change a leopard's 
spots or a nigger's skin as attempt that. The best thing 
you can do is to pack up your boxes and go back to England. 
There are plenty of people to be converted there." Others 



WITH THE BOYS OF KASHMIR 251 

spoke in the same cheering way; and when, one year later, 
crews of Brahmans swung past in good style and time, 
another wiseacre pronounced : " Yes, of course you have 
Brahmans rowing in English boats, because they like to copy 
sahibs ; but you will never persuade them to paddle in their 
native boats like the common hanjis." But six years later crew 
after crew of Brahmans might be seen thoroughly enjoying 
themselves as their chappars urged on the swift shikaris. 

One puts this fact in the forefront, rather than the fact that 
at the entrance examination for the Punjab University in 
July, 1899, nine out of ten candidates sent up by Mr. 
Tyndale-Biscoe passed, because in bringing about that 
transformation of character which is the supreme aim of the 
school, mere book-learning is secondary to the discipline of 
alternating study with sports systematically. Getting up 
subjects for examinations will never overcome the tyranny of 
dastur, the hopeless answer to argument and persuasion : 
"Our fathers from time immemorial have been dirty, effeminate, 
superstitious, cowardly, lazy, liars, sneaks, and hypocrites." 

Moreover, book-learning is not to be had at the Mission 
School only. For just as Lady Dufferin's Fund followed 
the pioneer medical work done by zenana missionaries, so 
Government schools in India have followed the pioneer 
educational work of the Church there. And in Kashmir the 
State School has a great advantage over the Mission School. 
It enjoys, besides the active favour of the authorities, Govern 
ment grants that enable it to secure the most expensive 
teachers, and to offer not only free education, but free books 
and scholarships, to a people inclined to be penurious in such 
matters. But being in a native State, the C.M.S. School 
cannot apply for the Government grant that is given to 
mission as well as to other schools in British India. 1 The 

1 This year (1900) the Kashmir State is, however, giving it a grant of 
R.I, 800. 



252 IRENE PETRIE 

annual C.M.S. grant was raised from R.i,8oo to R.3,ooo 
early in 1897, and is now R. 6,000. Even this is scarcely 
half of the whole expense of upkeep ; and in 1898 the fees 
charged amounted to hardly one-thirteenth of the outlay. 
For the balance the Principal and his friends are entirely 
responsible a state of things which may be compared with 
the facts already given about the Hospital. Yet, fees, daily 
Christian teaching, and compulsory games notwithstanding, 
the C.M.S. School more than holds its own. In November, 
1895, Mr. Tyndale-Biscoe wrote in a private letter: "For 
some reason unknown to me, the sons of the big men here 
are leaving the State School and coming to the Mission 
School. One has to be very careful in one's treatment of 
them, as they imagine they are dukes, and if one is too severe 
upon their cheek, they leave." In October, 1898, the number 
of boys had risen to fifteen hundred, and as the accommo 
dation was overcrowded, fees had to be raised to reduce 
numbers. 

While the State School keeps them at the books they love 
from morning to night, athletics have from the first been 
prominent in the Mission School curriculum. As early as 1886 
native friends were subscribing to a cricket club ; in 1892 a 
fire brigade was formed, which has not only done good service 
in the frequent conflagrations at Srinagar, but is an invaluable 
lesson in practical humanity, an almost unknown thing outside 
Christendom. Every day an hour is spent in the gymnasium, 
where the giant stride is the favourite appliance ; every Thursday 
there is compulsory cricket and football en masse] besides 
voluntary games daily, and boating and swimming once or 
twice a week in summer. Now, football cannot easily be 
played in a pheran. 

In other ways unceasing war is waged with dastur. A boy 
must " eat shame," for instance, when his dirty face is publicly 
scraped with a knife. "Our keenness," says the 1899 report, 



WITH THE BOYS OF KASHMIR 253 

" especially in the matter of clean faces and swimming, has lost us 
more than fifty boys. We always lose scholars at every upward 
move, as the parents are so stupid ; but our schools refill, and 
if we keep firm to our resolution and show no sign of budging, 
we always gain our point, and start once more on a higher 
platform, ready to rise again." Such recent incidents as the 
following are turned to account by the master, and the boys 
must learn and unlearn many things when he says to them : 
" Go and help that poor fellow who has fallen over the rocks. 
He lies badly wounded, and no passer-by is concerning 
himself about it"; or, "Row out at once, and bring in that 
sepoy who has been cut off by the flood ; his countryman is 
bargaining with him for seven rupees ere he will stir a finger 
to save him " ; or, " Look at that big coward of a schoolfellow 
who is kicking his mother. Go and duck him in the river 
till he begs her pardon " ; or, " Come down the lake with me, 
and find out how to enjoy an open air holiday, climbing and 
swimming and living under canvas." 

Not in one day but in many days a change comes over 
those who in another few years will be the leaders of their 
people. As surely as Pharaoh's craven bondsmen became 
a nation of heroes under Joshua, after their forty years' 
education under Moses, so surely will the Kashmiri pundit 
become eventually a "Christian knight." 

"The contrast between the ordinary State School trained 
Kashmiri and the manly and courteous Mission School lad, 
whose standard is often a Christian one, is most striking," says 
Irene. " To know many of these fellows is to love them," 
writes the Principal. "They have such kind thoughts, and 
are so thoughtful. One cannot make out why they are not 
Christians ; many of them in their lives are superior to many 
an English schoolboy." 

A Government head clerk recently thanked an " old boy " 
for introducing manners into the office. About a weightier 



254 IRENE PETRIE 

matter Irene writes : " Through various old boys who are em 
ployed in the department we have heard disgraceful accounts 
of the deliberate attempts to bribe and intimidate them to give 
false evidence against the innocent ; and it is good to hear of 
these lads standing firm in the midst of the universal cor 
ruption." " You have made me a man," said one old boy to the 
Principal. " Formerly, if I saw someone lying by the roadside 
I would go on, thinking it was no affair of mine ; now I would 
try to help him." Even more encouraging was it to hear on 
a stormy night when they were finding their way down a 
precipice, "Please, sir, let me go first"; or after there had 
been a row and an inquiry, " It was not his fault, sir ; I 
did it." So the modest and plucky, the frank and truthful, 
the cheerful and helpful, the kind-hearted and loyal type of 
character gradually begins to be. 

" Is this all ? " some may ask. " Is it not much ? " one asks 
in return. But it is not all. Of still more important results 
we must not expect precise statistics. " I take it for granted," 
says the Principal, "that you will understand that I should 
not be here spending all my time amongst the boys every 
day if I had not the one great central truth at heart Christ 
Jesus, the Saviour of the world, whom the Kashmiris do not 
know. My work here and the work of my colleagues never 
will or can be complete till every man, woman, and child 
have become not merely followers in name, but true Christians, 
as we say here, pakka followers of Jesus, the Son of Man, 
the Son of God. Nor can this people be great or good or 
noble until they have God's Holy Spirit in their hearts." 

At the daily Bible lesson the taught are more eager than 
the teacher. It is followed by an address to the whole school, 
illustrated with Scripture pictures. On Sunday afternoons 
there is a Bible class, at which attendance is entirely voluntary. 
The number rose from fifty in February, 1896, to over seventy 
on Easter Day, and in January, 1897, from sixty to seventy 



WITH THE BOYS OK KASHMIR 255 

found their way to it through deep snow. It grew into quite 
a school, in which the Principal was aided by his wife, his 
brother, and Mr. Sircar's eldest son. "These eager boys 
and men, gathered in the Holton Cottage garden, are really 
a wonderful sight," says Irene. Its influence was acknowledged 
in a remarkable way when rival Sunday afternoon lectures 
were started at the largest Hindu temple in Srinagar. 
Attendance at these could, however, be counted on the fingers, 
while the Bible class increased steadily in numbers. 

Prizes for Scripture knowledge are annually offered to all 
the Mission Schools of the Punjab and Sind in memory 
of General Lake, one of the soldiers who won the Punjab for 
Britain, and took the first steps towards winning it for Christ. 
In 1896 nine of the Srinagar masters and elder boys entered 
for the senior examination : one obtained the third prize, the 
rest were honourably mentioned. In 1897 a Srinagar boy 
won the first junior prize. 

Not so easy to state are the effects of Christian influence 
and example out of school hours, and especially in private 
talks with individual boys during holiday excursions. They 
were evident when at a festival of the goddess Rajin the 
schoolboys dared to stand upright amid a worshipping crowd. 
Here are boys reading their Bibles quietly at home, and 
bringing many questions to the Principal ; here is a master 
most zealously and ably translating a Bible lesson from Urdu 
into Kashmiri, developing truly Christian traits of character, 
trying to make the boys love the One True God and one 
another, but still in outward profession a Hindu; here is 
a boy confessing his faith in Christ when alone with the 
Principal, and the first question he is asked is, "Are you 
willing to die for this faith?" For in India relatives have 
no scruples about taking strong measures to avoid the scandal 
of a baptism in the family, and a Christian, determined to 
make open profession, can be, and is, slowly poisoned or 



256 IRENE PETRIE 

starved, and so quietly made away with. Thirty years after 
Elmslie began work in Kashmir not one pundit had been 
baptised. 

If, therefore, the value of missionary work is to be gauged 
by number of converts, undoubtedly the most satisfactory 
missionary method in India is preaching in bazars to men 
who have nothing worldly to lose, and who may have some 
thing worldly to gain by accepting the creed of the ruling 
Briton. And people who only want stirring tales of mis 
sionary success must turn to the triumphs of the Gospel 
among the unsophisticated pagans of Africa and the South 
Seas rather than to educational missions in India. But if it 
is worth while to mould in accordance with Christian ideals 
the most promising young manhood of an important nation, 
as the manhood of our own nation was moulded slowly 
a millennium ago, then what missionary has a grander oppor 
tunity than the master of such a school as this? If com 
fortable Christians at home ask why have not those whom 
he convinces of the truth the courage of their convictions, 
one can only emphasise the answer, Baptism may mean death ; 
it must mean becoming an outcast. None can judge the 
Kashmiri lad who defers the moment of open confession save 
persons whose own religious convictions are in deed, not in 
word, dearer to them than all their property, all their reputa 
tion, all their prospects, all their friends, all their kinsfolk, and 
life itself. 

The leaders of any enterprise become so much a part of it 
themselves that they can hardly appreciate its character and 
value ; and the estimate of it formed by the mere visitor may 
be as one-sided as it must be superficial. Hence Irene's 
descriptions of the C.M.S. School, already to some extent 
drawn upon, are worth quoting. She watched its working 
from month to month as one whose own task lay elsewhere, 
and her enthusiasm for it manifestly grows. " I can imagine 



WITH THE BOYS OF KASHMIR 257 

no finer kind of missionary work," she says ; and to such words 
as these she added actions, giving more and more time and 
effort of various kinds to it herself. 

She tells many things that cannot be repeated about in 
quirers, known even in the mission circle by numbers, not by 
names, so great was the risk not only to themselves but to 
future inquirers had conversions been reported ; of others 
won to inquire through them ; of persecution at home stedfastly 
endured. Even in the busy spring of 1896 she made some 
time to aid in instructing such inquirers individually. 

In January, 1896, after alluding to the new readiness to hear 
in the zenanas, she says : " The change Mr. Tyndale-Biscoe 
speaks of is even more remarkable. In the early days of the 
school he could only give historical teaching from the Bible, 
and that with the utmost caution, to avoid wounding pre 
judices, and always with the chance of flippant argument and 
questioning. Now, he says, he can go right to the point, 
speaking without reserve in all his Bible lessons, and reverent 
listening is invariable. . . . There can hardly be any country 
where open profession by high-caste Hindus would be more 
difficult and dangerous, and yet there are all these oppor 
tunities for teaching and all these earnest hearers." 

In February, 1896, she writes : " A sad blow to the schools 
has come this week, showing the jealousy and opposition of 
the non-Christian powers that be. The headmaster of the 
Maharaja's School has got an order issued by the Council at 
Jammu to say that only those who have been educated in the 
State School shall be eligible for employment in any Govern 
ment office. If enforced, this will practically deprive all Mission 
School boys of the power of earning a living, and already the 
State School boys are jeering at them in the street about it. 
The order seems additionally shameful after all the recent 
smooth speeches and protestations of friendship from the 
Government and the State School." Yet that very month two 

'7 



258 IRENE PETRI 

new branch schools were opened, and four or five more were 
asked for. In the end the order in Council was annulled 
through the intervention of the Acting Resident, Captain 
Chenevix Trench. 

Irene gave her first lesson to some eighty boys in the 
Habba Kadal School on January i6th, 1896, a month after 
her arrival at Hoi ton Cottage. In March she examined the 
boys of the first and second classes in the Urdu version of 
St. Matthew, and corrected papers in Roman history. 

On March 28th she writes : " One feels more and more 
what an immense silent work the Mission Schools are doing. 
One would like all the Christians with tongues and pens and 
purses to see and hear what I have seen and heard. Then 
Mr. Tyndale-Biscoe would no longer wish in vain for some 
University men as assistants, and for sufficient funds. . . . 
Many good people withhold the gifts they might give because 
in the present stage they cannot count out baptised converts." 

During the annual festivals of certain gods the school is 
closed. Recognising that it is out of school that the most 
valuable lessons can be taught, the Principal has proposed, 
as a counter-attraction to these festivals, expeditions to the 
Wular Lake. A few years ago the proposal was met with 
a dead, discouraging silence, and even the handful who 
were coaxed into accepting the invitation backed out of 
the trip, daunted by its possible dangers, at the last 
moment. Nowadays, however, so many want to go, that only 
the most satisfactory boys and most promising oarsmen have 
a chance of being taken. Board and lodging under canvas 
are supplied on condition that the boys will work ; and when 
they must pull hard at the oar hour after hour to get in before 
nightfall, they have no time to think of the ignominy of 
hanji's work and the terrors of twilight demons. Nor do 
they find their footing on the mountain-tops disputed by any 
supernatural powers. So they enjoy a holiday invigorating to 



WITH THE BOYS OF KASHMIR 259 

both mind and body; and the Principal finds these trips 
"most helpful in breaking down the terrible barrier which 
divides the native from the sahib." 

Eastertide coincided with the Hindu New Year in 1896, 
and from April 8th to i8th a party of fifty enjoyed an early 
and lovely spring on the Wular Lake, which is about the 
size of the Lake of Galilee. 

Irene's lively chronicle of the expedition, called An Easter 
tide Holiday in Kashmir ', begins by enumerating its personnel 
the Padre and Mem Sahib with their two baby sons, Miss 
Barclay and herself, nine masters and the little Punjabi wife 
of one of them, about twenty boys, and servants, including 
" the head boatman, whose beard is dyed red in honour of 
Mohammed, and the pundits' cook, a holy Brahman, whose 
ideas of neatness and punctuality would not commend him 
to unholy Westerns." 

The slow houseboat starts a day in advance; then one 
day's hard rowing brings the twelve-oared cutter Fanny, the 
pair-oared Blanche, and other smaller craft to the camping 
place at Zurimanz, a green hollow where a tiny mountain 
stream trickles out into the lake, and the white- and pink- 
robed branches of the fruit-trees wave over brown huts 
clustering together on its edge, gay with countless blossoms 
of the iris, just bursting their sheaths. "The surrounding 
mountain views suggest the Bay of Uri on the Lake of 
Lucerne," says Irene, whom we find now sketching, now 
taking an oar, now giving a Bible lesson to the boys. 

" It is charming to see them all so happy ; it is good to 
look at the Padre Sahib among his boys and to recognise in 
many of them the results of his training. We hope this time 
of coming apart from all their old surroundings may be a 
help to them. The air is grand, and the sound of the waves 
breaking on the shore makes one think of the sea. Bible 
lessons and quiet talks in little groups round the bonfire 



260 IRENE PETRIE 

or alone with the Padre Sahib come home to them as they 
could not do in the city, and their hearty and intelligent 
singing of hymns to the * baby organ ' is a delight to 
listen to." 

Heavy rain during three nights and two days brings out 
the best side of the Kashmiri character a contentment that 
makes light of hardships : nothing seems to damp the spirits 
of the whole party ; the more it rains, the louder the boys 
sing and laugh in their soaking tents. 

Some adventures add zest to the trip. One day the Padre 
Sahib and a party of twenty-eight, with the Fanny and another 
boat, accomplish the unprecedented feat of travelling to 
Baramula and back between 6.45 a.m. and 8 p.m., sixty miles 
in all, and the boys, many of whom have never been so 
far from home before, feel quite like heroes at the great 
journey they have made. 

Another day they cross the lake to Bandipur. Their 
co-religionists there refuse to give or sell them any food, 
and as they cannot touch food prepared by those of another 
religion, they have to return hungry, realising that the law 
givers of Hinduism could never have travelled. While they 
are recrossing the lake a storm comes on, and the Blanche 
has to lay to, and wait for the Fanny to rescue her crew 
and take her in tow. One boy says, " I am not afraid of being 
drowned myself, but I have a little brother, and he will be 
so sorry if I go down." The three women left at Zurimanz 



Looked at the squall, and they looked at the shower, 
And the night rack came rolling up ragged and brown. 



It is very late and dark when at last they hear shouts and oar.i 
plashing, and run down with lanterns to welcome the party, 
whom the villagers put up in their mosque, as the tents 
are soaking. A rumour reaches Srinagar that they have 



WITH THE BOYS OF KASHMIR 261 

all been drowned in the storm, and at the request of Captain 
Trench, the Governor of Kashmir telegraphs inquiries. A 
weeping and excited crowd gather in the capital, to be 
pacified by this telegram from the post-office official at 
Sopur: "Mr. Tyndale-Biscoe and all his pundits are standing 
beside me now." 

The fears thus roused seem to add warmth to their welcome 
when their little procession enters Srinagar on April i8th. 
An Eastertide Holiday in Kashmir concludes thus : " It is 
a thrilling experience to see the crowds on bridges and ghats, 
and to hear the pleased expressions of welcome from those 
within speaking distance. On the outgoing journey the State 
School boys had jeered at the Mission boatloads for doing 
hanji's work ; we decide to return the jeers with cheers coming 
back. As we pass under the fifth bridge we see that that 
whole State School has turned out to watch, and hundreds 
of turbaned heads are clustered thickly on the bank, tier 
above tier. The Fanny comes opposite, a halt is called, and 
with a ' one two three four ! ' the rowers rise to give a 
salute of oars and three ringing cheers, which are warmly 
echoed back from the bank. Beyond the third bridge another 
halt is called, and all adjourn to the Central School, where 
the Padre Sahib addresses the boys, commends their good 
conduct, and reminds them of the thankfulness we should 
feel to the Father Who has kept us in safety. All sing *O 
worship the King ' and join in prayer. Then comes a 
pleasant impromptu speech of thanks to the Padre, and three 
cheers for him and the ladies. Finally, we halt at the 
Sheikh Bagh, the joyful singing of the boys' favourite hymns 
to the plash of oars ceases, and we disperse to take up 
each our own work again, feeling enriched and strengthened 
by our happy time of rest apart with Nature and with the 
Lord of Nature." 

Henceforth the school took a more and more prominent 



262 IRENE PETRIE 

place in Irene's life, and she describes her mornings there 
as the most interesting in the whole week. She taught, 
as we have seen, in the Habba Kadal School, early in 
1896. She thus describes teaching, later in the year, at 
the Renawari School : "I have the pleasure at present of 
taking a little share in the school work, and very delightful 
pupils these intelligent boys are. From one school in a 
distant suburb on the Dal Lake the school boat comes to 
meet me, manned by over a dozen pundits, who, after saluting 
with their oars, row the teacher swiftly, among the willows and 
bulrushes and lotus, to the school, where seventy or eighty boys 
are gathered for the Bible lesson, at which they answer well." 
When deep snow made the expedition to the Renawari School 
impossible, she taught in the Amira Kadal School. She says : 
" I am going through the Book of Daniel, a very interesting 
subject, one's point of view with Hindu boys, who are all 
students of Persian, being strangely different from what it 
would be in an English class. More advanced Scripture 
teaching with smaller senior classes follows, and here a 
knowledge of the Gospel narratives is shown that would shame 
many English children. Finally, there is an English lesson, 
which has its comic side as regards pronunciation." 

Her pupils wrote out and sent in to her for correction the 
texts they learned. She received every week from fifty to a 
hundred of these, some illustrated and illuminated after the 
gaudy and elaborate Kashmiri fashion. Mrs. Grimke had kindly 
sent a number of her well-known polyglot Scripture cards, 
which were given to successful scribes as rewards. A pupil 
who wrote out his text particularly well was one of two brothers, 
sons of a monarch claiming descent from Alexander the Great, 
whose stronghold had been stormed by Colonel Durand in 
the Hunza Nagar expedition of 1891, and who was now 
detained in Hari Parbat Fort as a prisoner of state. Mr. 
Tyndale Biscoe relates how his eldest son was brought to 



WITH THE BOYS OF KASHMIR 263 

the school by the Assistant Resident in November, 1895, 
adding : " I hope he may stay long enough with us to receive 
the full benefit of a Christian education, so that when he 
becomes ruler his subjects may benefit by his enlighten 
ment." 

Sir Lepel Griffin says that the Kashmiri pundits stand 
second in astuteness and versatility to the Mahratta Brahmans 
of Western India only, which quite explains Irene's enjoyment 
of them as pupils. 

On March ist, 1897, the longest shikari on the Jhelum was 
launched. It had been built for the Central School under the 
Principal's direction, and purchased out of the proceeds of two 
of Irene's sketches, one a commission from a Canadian lady, 
who had seen some of her work in Montreal, the other bought 
by Mr. Geoffrey Millais. So almost daily thirty-five pundits 
might be seen paddling the Irene up and down the river, with 
Kashmiri chappars, to the amazement of both Europeans and 
natives. May the spectators some day include the subaltern 
quoted at the beginning of this chapter ! She gave the school 
a second boat shortly after, out of proceeds of a second 
picture bought by Mr. Millais and another bought by some 
residents as a wedding gift to the Accountant-General's 
daughter. Two more sketches were ordered by an American 
sportsman passing through Srinagar, and again the school 
coffers profited. But more and more the demand exceeded 
the supply that her scanty leisure could produce. 

We catch a last glimpse of Irene with the boys out of 
school hours in May, 1897. " The Renawari School took 
Miss Howatson and me in their shikari across the lake to 
the Nishat Bagh, where the lilacs in masses are a great sight. 
They are favourite flowers here, and one sees bunches of them 
in the poorest shops and hous.es, as well as sprays tucked into 
the boys' turbans. We made tea, and I bought some Hindu 
sweets for the boys, who were most polite cavaliers," 



264 IRENE PETRIE 

Mr. Tyndale-Biscoe, who in his annual letter to headquarters 
speaks of Miss Petrie as " a very great acquisition," pictures 
her influence among his boys as splendid, and says the mere 
carrying of her sketching materials on such expeditions was an 
education to them. In his 1898 report he recounts " some of 
the labour lovingly given by her in connexion with the schools," 
saying : " She filled a great want in teaching Scripture, and 
the boys much appreciated her visits. . . . Whenever she could 
find a spare hour she devoted it to painting, for which she 
had a great gift, and sold her paintings for the good of the 
school funds. . . . But above all her special gifts for painting 
and teaching was her personality, ever bright and cheery. No 
matter what her state of health, or weariness of brain or body 
in her work, she was ever the same, ever a beam of sunlight 
and brightness which never seemed dimmed, because she 
lived and worked not for herself but for her Saviour and for 
those to whom He had sent her." 

The attractive power of the "personality" spoken of here 
had struck a London acquaintance, who, after meeting her 
again in 1895, wrote: "Dear, sweet, beautiful creature! 
I thought when I saw her that merely to look at her was 
enough to convert a heathen. There was a look of 
exquisite purity and refinement such as only Christianity can 
produce." 

So little idea had she herself of any capacity for work 
among the boys of Kashmir, that when mentioning the 
C.E.Z.M.S. reinforcements she had playfully lamented thus: 
"It does seem a pity that some of us cannot be turned into 
efficient men, to be twice as useful as a pack of women." 

But remembering the deep-rooted contempt of the Hindus 
for the weaker sex, and the inordinate value they set on intel 
lectual attainment, one can easily imagine that the "Niki Mem," 
with her beaming face, her sweet voice, her culture, her trained 
skill in teaching, her independence, and her gentle dignity, all 



WITH THE BOYS OF KASHMIR 265 

illuminated by her faith in Christ, must have inspired the 
Kashmiri pundits with a new ideal of womanhood, must have 
impressed them once for all with the conviction that Chris 
tianity is no mere system of dogma alien to themselves, but 
the sole power adequate to the task of regenerating their 
nation. 



CHAPTER XII 

THIRD WINTER IN SRINAGAR 

(SEPTEMBER, 1896, TO JULY, 1897) 

Hodit mihi t eras Tibi. 

A VISIT from their diocesan, which marks an epoch in 
the Kashmir Mission, most happily inaugurated the 
winter's work of the little band reassembled at Srinagar in 
September, 1896. 

During the early days of C.M.S. work there young English 
men used to go to Kashmir with the undisguised intention 
of escaping from the restraints, none too strict, of ordinary 
Anglo-Indian life; and the only sign that the sahib 16g had 
any religion was a gong summoning Europeans once a week 
to service in a summer-house, formerly used as a dancing- 
hall. Writing from Srinagar in July, 1871, Bishop French 
says : " British Christianity never shows itself in more fear 
fully dark and revolting aspect than in these parts. People 
seem to come here purposed to covenant themselves to all 
sensuality, and to leave what force of morality they have 
behind them in India." The upper room on the Sheikh 
Bagh that then served as a place of worship was so ill- 
appointed that the Bishop had to send for his own camp-table 
when he administered the Holy Communion there. 1 The 
fierce opposition aroused by his attempt to evangelise the 
Kashmiris has been described already in Chapter VI, 
1 Life, vol. i. ch. xii. 



THIRD WINTER IN SRINAGAR 267 

Even in 1883 Mr. Clark speaks of Srinagar as the one 
place where English Christians were actually prohibited from 
building a church, so bigoted was Runbir Singh. The present 
Maharaja, however, permitted the erection of a humble 
wooden structure on the Munshi Bagh, in the compound of 
the senior C.M.S. missionary, who acts as honorary chaplain, 
except for the few weeks of spring when a chaplain arrives with 
the throng of English visitors, moving on later to Gulmarg 
with them. The Urdu service for native Christians was, as 
we have seen, held in the waiting-room of the hospital. 

Exactly twenty-five years after Bishop French penned the 
sentence just quoted, his successor, Bishop Matthew, came to 
Kashmir to consecrate three churches : a church at Gulmarg, 
All Saints' Church on the Munshi Bagh for the Anglo-Indians, 
and St. Luke's Church on Rustum Gari for the natives 
(see p. 1 1 6). All three were on ground ceded by the Maharaja 
to the British Government, and Mr. Nethersole, State 
Engineer to the Kashmir Durbar, was architect of the two 
in Srinagar. The story of the erection of St. Luke's suggests 
a parable. The walls first raised collapsed, and they dis 
covered that the ground was undermined with Mohammedan 
tombs ; so they set the foundations anew upon a solid rock, 
and now no building in Kashmir stands more secure. It 
is a cruciform structure of red brick, with a vaulted roof, 
ceilings of pretty Kashmir parquetry, lancet windows glazed 
in geometrical patterns, a gracefully proportioned apsidal 
chancel, and a carved screen across the nave beyond which 
non-Christians are seated. " A most lovely church, pinkish 
red inside, like Exeter Cathedral," is Irene's description. It 
accommodates two hundred, and cost about 500, less than 
many a luxurious congregation at home spends on a new organ 
or a new scheme of lighting that is not really necessary. In 
the main it was built out of the fees received by the Drs. 
Neve from their wealthier patients; and the furniture and 



268 IRENE PETRIE 

fittings of this, the first Christian church in Kashmir, were 
likewise almost all freewill offerings of or through those who 
had already given themselves to God for the evangelisation 
of that land. Miss Hull gave the font, Miss Pryce-Browne 
the ewer, Miss Coverdale the lectern. The chancel rails 
were a gift from one of Irene's friends in Philadelphia, who 
wrote to her that "they had already flashed their blessing 
across the seas to America " ; the reading-desk was a gift 
from the Penshurst Gleaners (see p. 210); the Holy Table 
represented the proceeds of a lecture on Kashmir delivered in 
Montreal at Irene's instigation, nearly all these things, given 
by dwellers in three different continents, were of native work 
in finely carved cedar and walnut wood. Irene's own charac 
teristic offering, purchased out of the proceeds of sketches of 
Kashmir sold in India, Great Britain, and Canada, was the 
organ, of solid polished oak with a full and sweet tone. She 
secured the kind interest of Mr. Henry Bird in choosing and 
despatching it from London, and lent it for the summer to 
All Saints' Church, which had been opened on May 3rd. 

The Bishop of Lahore arrived on September loth with his 
chaplain, the Rev. Edmund Wigram, son of the late Honorary 
Secretary of the C.M.S. Other visitors for the occasion were 
Colonel Broadbent, C.B., with his wife and daughter, staying 
at the C.E.Z. House; and the Rev. Cecil Barton (C.M.S., 
Multan), staying at Holton Cottage. Miss Broadbent became 
Mrs. Cecil Barton in October, 1896 ; and in November, 1899, 
Mr. Barton was transferred from the Punjab to Srinagar. 

Early on September i2th Irene and Miss Howatson were 
decorating St. Luke's with flowers. Irene thus describes 
its dedication: "All the Indian and Kashmiri Christians 
came, and a large number of the English inhabitants, headed 
by the Resident, Sir Adelbert Talbot. The choir was led 
by some of our party, and Dr. E. Neve played the organ. 
Pr. A. Neve received the Bishop and six clergy, who came to 



THIRD WINTER IN SRINAGAR 269 

the west, or rather east door, as the church is ocddented^ and 
presented the petition for the dedication of St. Luke's, which 
was read in Urdu. The Bishop went separately to the font, 
the lectern, the place of weddings, the place of confirmations, 
and the Holy Table, praying for a blessing on each. After 
the ante-Communion Service he preached a fine sermon in 
English, which Mr. Wigram rendered into Urdu for the native 
half of the congregation. The Communion Service in Urdu 
followed, and it was touching to see aged Qadir Bakhsh 
coming forward, supported by his son. The dear Bishop, 
who walked part of the way back with me, said he had never 
enjoyed such a service more. He is delighted with every 
thing in both churches." 

Henceforth service has taken place daily in St. Luke's ; and 
from that lofty site its spire witnesses to Christianity through 
out Srinagar. "We hope," says Irene, "it may be to future 
generations what St. Martin's at Canterbury is to England, 
when Kashmir has indeed become a ' Happy Valley,' which, 
alas ! it is very far from being at present." 

The fete for the building fund and organ of All Saints' 
in May had been the event of the Kashmir season. Irene 
had lent sketches to its exhibition, contributed largely to its 
concerts, and helped to sell at its stalls. This church was 
consecrated on Sunday, September i3th. "We have had a 
most beautiful Consecration," she writes. " May Pryce-Browne 
and I have been agreeing that we were never at a more 
personally helpful service. We were a choir of sixteen, 
and there was a congregation of about two hundred. The 
Resident read the petition for its consecration. The offertory 
sentence was 'Cast thy burden upon the Lord' from 
Elijah^ taken as a quartette : soprano, I.E.V.P. ; alto, Mrs. 
G. A. Ford ; tenor, Mr. Barton ; bass, Dr. E. Neve. There 
was a choral Communion, the choir being all communicants 
themselves, as well as a large part of the congregation ; it was 



270 IRENE PETRIE 

quietly and reverently done, and so delightful. . . . The 
evening service was even heartier than that in the morning ; 
many said it was like a home church service. The clever 
bandmaster, who is organist now, and plays up to a first-rate 
professional standard, said it was the best service he had 
ever heard in India. Yet it was certainly no mere perform 
ance, but a congregation all praising God together, as in St. 
Mary Abbots. For anthem we had my most dearly beloved 
air and words from St. Paut, 

O Thou, the true and only Light, 
Direct the souls that walk in night, 

as a quartette, taken by the four singers of the morning." At 
the special request of the chaplain, the Rev. G. A. Ford, 
Irene and Mrs. Tyndale-Biscoe sang some oratorio solos on 
the following Tuesday, at a further service attended by many 
not usually church-goers. 

The Bishop also gave the prizes in the School; visited 
the Hospital, and described it as a model of what a mission 
hospital should be; consecrated the English cemetery, and 
held two confirmations one at All Saints', where the candidates 
included two daughters of a Unitarian who had been under 
the influence of the C.M.S. missionaries ; and one in St. 
Luke's, where eleven candidates, representing seven nation 
alities, professed their faith. Having thus "confirmed the 
souls of the disciples, and exhorted them to continue in the 
faith," that " real father in God to all under his jurisdiction" 
went on his way ; and two years later, on December 2nd, 1898, 
after an episcopate of nearly eleven years, he was suddenly 
called home. He had preached with all his usual power 
on the evening of Advent Sunday about the Church's duty 
to proclaim the witness of Christ's Kingdom to the world, 
exhorting his hearers to be ready, should the summons come 
that night, to answer gladly, "Even so, come, Lord Jesus.' 



THIRD WINTER IN SRINAGAR 271 

These were the very last words of hjs ministry and almost of 
his life, for before he could pronounce the benediction at the 
close of the service he was smitten with paralysis, which 
proved almost immediately fatal. 

The above episode has again introduced the British 
residents at an Indian station. Their relation at Srinagar 
to Irene and her fellow-missionaries may be dealt with further 
here, the narrative being both a contrast and a complement 
to that in Chapter V. 

At home even the least benevolent of the well-to-do are 
brought into some kind of friendly contact with lives less pros 
perous than their own, and do something for their humbler 
neighbours, if only through taking a Sunday school class. But 
in India great barriers of race, creed, and language rise 
between the sahib l(5g and those who serve them ; and the 
missionaries, belonging to the former class and living in 
India for the sake of the latter, appear to be the only 
people capable of breaking this barrier down. The state 
of affairs in Lahore showed us how little actual inter 
course and mutual understanding there may be between 
busy missionaries living in the native quarter and even 
religiously disposed Anglo-Indians in the European quarter. 
Not in India only, but among the darker races generally, the 
average Briton probably hardly realises how much has been 
done by the missionary in opening up a country where he 
finds his work and income, or how much is being done by 
the missionary in preserving law and order within its borders. 
And the missionary hardly realises what keen critics he has in 
his own compatriots ; how much " saving common sense " in 
ordinary affairs of life, as well as devotion to his work, may 
enable him to influence them for good. There is often help 
that he would gladly receive from the station folk, who 
would in their turn find that the givers of such help are 
even more blessed than the receiver. 



272 IRENE PETRIE 

A letter from the wife of an Englishman holding an impor 
tant State appointment at Srinagar, who is herself very nearly 
related to a well-known Indian general and to a well-knc\vn 
Indian statesman, speaks thus of the relation between the 
station and missionary communities there : " I know and can 
fully sympathise with the deep interest which you feel in this 
subject, which bears so closely upon the life of your gifted and 
beloved sister. I have been in various stations in India which 
were centres of missionary work, and have seldom seen the 
same spirit of friendship and co-operation as exists in Kashmir 
between the workers and the ordinary English community. To 
me it seems a pity that the two parties should not always be 'in 
touch,' as both would benefit by freer intercourse, and more 
influence would be brought to bear on the work done by the 
missionaries. . . . That we are more fortunate in this respect 
in Kashmir is, in my private opinion, due to the personality 
of the missionaries themselves, most of whom are men and 
women of culture and good social position, and endowed with 
gifts and qualities which win not only admiration but also 
friendship and support. Foremost among them was your 
sister, and it was with much pleasure that I heard of the 
endeavour to raise a fund to her memory, which I hope will 
meet with due success." 

The residents in Srinagar, who are to be distinguished from 
the great tide of visitors to Kashmir that sets in with spring 
and recedes again m autumn, consist of some fifty or sixty 
Europeans connected with the military and civil service, en 
gineering, and commerce, varying much in character and in 
social position. Both with them and with the Eurasian com 
munity the missionaries cultivated friendship, enlisting the help 
of some of them for work that did not demand their own special 
training or knowledge of languages. There was the Resident, 
who always read the lessons in All Saints' Church, and whom 
the Maharaja had learnt to trust and respect for his known 



THIRD WINTER IN SRINAGAR 273 

religious principles. There was the Assistant Resident, who 
had successfully intervened on behalf of the schools. There 
was the son of a late President of the Royal Academy, 
whose photographs have familiarised not only the scenery but 
the mission buildings in Kashmir to many. There was the 
lady artist, who was Irene's chief ally during the winter, in 
which she was the only zenana worker. These two last helped 
in so many ways that they seemed almost like members of 
the mission circle. There was the venerable Colonel, who, 
with the aid of Qadir Bakhsh, sometimes conducted a service 
for beggars. He delighted in Irene's Jacobite songs and 
well-informed talk about good Scottish families ; she brought 
him heather from the Highlands in 1895, and he brought to 
show her his treasured heirloom, a sword that had belonged to 
Prince Charlie. Other unnamed station people there were of 
whom even the charitable Irene is driven to say : " The worst 
thing of all in Kashmir is the conduct of some of the English 
people who find their way to this remote place. It is grievous 
to hear how the inquiring and intelligent natives point to 
them as the stumbling-blocks in the way of their accepting 
Christianity. I wish they could be packed off to Antarctica, 
or other uninhabited regions where there are no poor puzzled 
non-Christians to be caused to stumble." 

The residents received from as well as gave to the 
mission. Many attended the daily evening service held 
by the missionaries in January, 1896, during the Week of 
Universal Prayer, " several of whom seemed really to care." 
They mustered also in large numbers in the Library, the 
rendezvous of the fashionable world of Srinagar, to hear 
lectures by Dr. Neve, one on " Recent Progress in New 
Testament Criticism," one on "The Resurrection A Fact," 
which attracted English who were not church-goers as well 
as educated natives, and the whole missionary party prayed 
that these lectures might bear fruit. Again, the ennui of the 

18 



274 IRENE PETRIE 

winter 1894-95 was to be relieved by a series of concerts in 
the Library, and they came to the missionaries for really good 
music, Irene on one occasion taking part in eleven out of 
eighteen performances, either as vocalist, instrumentalist, or 
accompanist. Every resident practically was there, and they 
acknowledged this help by devoting half the proceeds to the 
C.M.S. Hospital, the other half going to the All Saints' 
Building Fund. 

Outside the fashionable world were the small officials, some 
of them Eurasians, a class that won Irene's sympathy here 
as in Lahore. She observed that many of them sent their 
children to a Roman Catholic school at Murree, not because 
they were Roman Catholics, but because the education was 
good and cheap ; also that some were too far off to attend the 
Sunday school already described in Chapter VIII. So in 
January, 1897, she started a second Sunday school at the house 
of one of the mothers of these children, and found English- 
speaking boys and girls " quite a holiday after zenana women." 

Her Easter choir of telegraph clerks has been mentioned. 
These young men were often welcomed to Holton Cottage 
for pleasant evenings, to whose pleasantness Irene was always 
ready to contribute. It is amusing to see her on one day 
transposing Adam's "Cantique de Noel" into another key 
to suit the fine voice of the important British Resident at a 
great Oriental court elsewhere in India, and on another day 
improvising a piano accompaniment to the violin of a shy 
Eurasian clerk, who had left all his music " down country." 
Alcohol proves at least as insidious a temptation in India as 
it does here, and the missionaries realised that their friendli 
ness had not been in vain when, after the midnight service on 
New Year's Eve, 1896, five of these clerks signed the pledge. 

One of Irene's fellow-workers remarks that the comparative 
dearth of good music and intellectual interest in Srinagar 
must have been a real privation to one of her antecedents. 



THIRD WINTER IN SRINAGAR 



: 75 



She writes herself: "I always have The Weekly Times from 
home, and Miss Hull and I enjoy it together. Then it goes 
to a nice little couple who are not well off, and greatly like 
a newspaper. I think we missionaries should try to keep 
au courant with what goes on in the rest of the world; in 
such a secluded vale as this we might get groovy." The 
quotation illustrates her retention of a fresh interest in many 
fields of thought and action which undoubtedly gave her there, 
as here, an attractiveness in general society not found in those 
who can talk and think only of their own particular enterprises. 
It also illustrates how she shared these interests with others. 
Absorbed as she was in her work, she still appreciated the 
recreative power of a good book that turned her thoughts 
into quite another channel. In a rare moment of leisure we 
find her feasting on Aurora Leigh, "which is splendid, 
so rich in new thoughts." A propos of a clever but cynical 
short novel of the day, taken up at another moment of leisure, 
she says : " There is so much misery of every kind in this 
bad old world that I always feel angry with the people who 
increase it by writing miserable books " ; and on the other 
hand remarks that "amid the gossip and mischief-making 
of such an isolated station as Srinagar, the lives of my 
colleagues and books like Ian Maclaren's are a tonic." 
The many books sent her as gifts by home friends, added to 
the little stock she brought out, seem to have formed quite a 
circulating library among her English and native acquaintance. 
She had always been quick at finding out and comforting 
those who, in the world's phrase, are "down in their luck," 
and courageous in taking by the hand those " under a cloud," 
and endeavouring to remove prejudice and misconstruction 
a far harder work of charity than subscribing to the relief of 
the destitute. It is naturally impossible to give any instances 
of such fulfilments of the law of love in India ; but sentences 
from letters written to her by Europeans of different nationalities 



276 IRENE PETRIE 

in two Indian cities may be quoted, one a case of trouble 
through wrongful accusation, the other a case of deep need : 

" How kind and sympathetic of you to have written such 
a sweet letter ! . . . Many, many sincere thanks for your help 
in prayer; it is all in all to us just now, and we are most 
grateful to feel God has so blessed us with friends. ... I 
have read your letter more than once, for it is most consoling." 

" Some time back you sent me a very comforting verse to 
think of from the Word of God. Will you please send me 
another message of peace and love. I do feel so thankful 
for the privilege of writing to you sometimes." 

The words of three of her fellow-missionaries will fitly con 
clude this subject : 

Miss Pryce-Browne says : " Irene had a wonderful influence 
on society in Srinagar, not by what she said but by what 
she was." 

Miss Phillips, whom we meet later, says : " Irene's broad- 
minded outlook and delight in all that Was good, and her wonder 
ful power of attracting love, gave her a great influence over the 
whole community at Srinagar. Her tact and sympathy brought 
out all that was best in those she came into contact with, and 
made them think of themselves in a way that stimulated them 
to become their best selves. Upon merely worldly people 
she made a great impression, not by what she said, for she 
never thrust religion upon them ; but what she was compelled 
them to respect the principles she professed. No one else 
could fill the place she filled here." 

Mr. Tyndale-Biscoe, at a public meeting in Kensington in 
January, 1899, spoke thus: "Perhaps Miss Petrie's strongest 
point was the way in which she used her opportunities of inter 
course with the Europeans. Everyone was obliged to allow 
that she was there wholly for the love of God. Artist and 
musician, and most accomplished, she was always well received, 
and won many to care for missionary work. It is not easy 



THIRD WINTER IN SRINAGAR 277 

to keep up such social intercourse when absorbed in that 
work, but one of her talents was being methodical. Looking 
only at the work she did among her own countrymen, one 
could never say her life had been thrown away." 

A new trial to the much-tried Kashmir Mission followed 
quickly upon the bright incidents of the Bishop's visit. 
Since her arrival in India in 1895, Miss Pryce-Browne had 
been much out of health, and when she returned from a 
summer trip to the Toshmaidan worse rather than better, 
the doctors decided that she must go home, "a terrible 
disappointment to her, and a real sorrow to us," says Irene. 
" Though in India for less than a year, and constantly suffering, 
she has done some real and lasting work, and her influence 
has already been one for which many have cause to be thank 
ful." For instance, there are among Irene's papers several 
letters from a driver of the Royal Horse Artillery acknowledging 
missionary magazines, etc. They tell how he was won to 
God through an address which Miss Pryce-Browne gave at 
a hill station in December, 1895, and show that he became 
leader of a little band of whole-hearted Christian soldiers 
in his battery, and was devoting all his leisure to Urdu, 
hoping for work among the natives later on. Her friendship 
with Miss Pryce-Browne had been a great help and happiness 
to Irene, and it was she who sorrowfully escorted the invalid 
to Baramula in October, 1896. 

Of the three young colleagues who had rallied so hopefully 
round Miss Hull in April, 1896, one was invalided home 
within six months, one was laid aside again and again by 
illness, one had less than sixteen months yet to live. Ail 
had been medically passed and fully trained. Let the arm 
chair critics who hint that the lives of missionaries are easy 
take such facts to heart ; and let the supporters of missions 
at home realise the importance of sending out only the robust, 



s?8 IRENE PETRIE 

of making all possible provision for their health and comfort 
in the field, and of insisting that they get rest and change 
enough after their arduous toils in an exhausting climate. 
Missionaries are breaking down at undermanned stations ; 
thousands of cities and villages are still unevangelised ; the 
cry for more workers comes from all parts of the world. 
Of five hundred and forty-five who recently approached the 
C.M.S. with more or less articulate offers of service, only a 
hundred were accepted, of whom seventy-seven had first to 
be trained. And all experience suggests that of the twenty- 
three ready to go at once, some \vill soon be invalided home 
or die at their posts. 

It is right to set up a high standard of qualification; 
and it is equally right to guard against all preventable 
waste of life and health in those sent forth. But great is 
the responsibility of others who hold back when they are 
qualified to go, for they cannot say, The work we might 
do there will be done as well, perhaps better, by some 
one else if we stay at home. There is indeed need to pray 
that in the day of God's power His people may offer them 
selves willingly (Ps. ex. 3). One may doubt, however, if 
Europeans can ever win India or any other heathen land as 
a whole. Their work is rather to win its future evangelists 
from among their countrymen, and as Bishop Selwyn used 
to say, " The white corks are only to float the black nets." 
Lastly, that there is at work a Divine Power that " can save 
by few " is demonstrated by comparing missionary resources 
with missionary achievements. When Gideon, at the head 
of 32,000 men, met the multitudes of the children of the East, 
"innumerable as locusts," at least 135,000 in number, he was 
making no common venture of faith. But less than one in 
a hundred of his warriors stood the test imposed on them, 
and starting with one to four, he was not given the victory 
till he had one to four hundred and fifty of the enemy. 



THIRD WINTER IN SRINAGAR 279 

That history contains a most instructive allegory of present- 
day missionary enterprise. 

On November ;th, as Miss Coverdale was now better and 
able to rejoin Miss Hull, Irene returned to Holton Cottage. 
" Both abodes and work seem to shift and change," she writes, 
" and one readapts oneself without much loss of time." This, 
however, was to be her last move. Her routine of work was 
now as follows : An early morning lesson in Kashmiri with the 
munshi; on five days in the week morning and afternoon 
rounds in the zenanas, till three of her mornings were claimed 
by the schools ; on Saturday, study, 'correspondence, and 
choir practice. Her Sunday was very full, including early 
Communion and morning service at All Saints', either as 
organist or in the choir ; morning and afternoon service at St. 
Luke's, as organist always at one, and after March at both ; 
Sunday school for European children after morning service; 
visits to native Christian women; and Bible classes for her 
own servants and for the Holton Cottage household. 

The following dated glimpses into the zenana work of that 
last winter well illustrate one comment in an article on 
Irene's career, entitled A Heroine of the Cross, by Blanche 
Macdonell 1 : " Hers was a patient, persistent enthusiasm, un 
wearied by disappointment, undeterred by drudgery " : 

August 22nd, 1896: "I have got back to work at once, which 
is always delightful. The pupils are so sweet and nice, and so 
pleased to see me. One old Kashmiri body hugged me, and 
said her liver had been longing for me." 

October 3oth : " In most instances the appearance of the 
Bible is the signal for a hush all round, and the mistress her 
self resolutely checks interruption ; sometimes " because the 
Miss Sahib is reading," but sometimes which one prefers to 
hear " because the Miss Sahib is reading the Holy Book." 

1 In The New York Churchman for Ju:;r n h 1893. 



280 IRENE PETRIE 

November (to the College by Post) : " For almost uninter 
rupted opportunity for work, and many helps by the way since 
1896 began, there is great cause for thankfulness, though there 
may not be much of excitement or romance to relate. . . . 
There is ever-growing interest in knowing and loving the pupils 
better, and watching a growing love in them for what we have 
come to tell them. . . . Occasionally indifference proves worse 
than opposition ; but sometimes one has the happiness of 
watching it changing to interest. In one house the sowing 
once seemed to be by the wayside, and among thorns, for the 
young girls almost hailed the distractions caused by barking 
dogs, crowing cocks, roaring babies, and shouting mothers. 
Now these same girls are models of reverence and attention, 
they coax the poor wee babies into quietness, and begin to 
remember and understand what they hear in their lessons. . . . 
There is indeed a rich field of work in Kashmir and the lands 
near, and our small mission party can do but a little. I 
suggested lately to a pupil leaving Srinagar that there might 
be a lady where she was going who would help her to continue 
learning. 'It is a little village/ she replied; 'what Miss 
Sahib would have time to come and teach us ? ' " 

Annual letter to C.M.S. Headquarters, January, 1897 : "The 
total number of pupils, not all under instruction simultaneously, 
has been about sixty. . . . Both Urdu and Hindi are studied, 
and in some houses conversation has to be entirely in 
Kashmiri. ... In addition to school work and a certain amount 
of miscellaneous teaching, I have been able to pay over six 
hundred zenana visits, when a Bible lesson has been given, 
during 1896. . . . One is more and more glad to be in this 
needy place, though we look increasingly to the help of those 
who cannot be here themselves in intercession for more of the 
life- and love-giving power of the Holy Spirit." 

Press of work from day to day can have left little time for 
preparing all these lessons ; but every hour of patient Bible 



THIRD WINTER IN SRINAGAR 281 

study in former days had its reward now, as Irene brought 
forth out of the good treasure of her heart good things 
accumulated there almost from childhood. Many minute 
notebooks, some filled with memoranda concerning the cir 
cumstances of all her pupils, Asiatic, European, and Eurasian, 
some with skeleton lessons carefully grouped, show that her 
work was as methodical as it was rapid and ardent. 

She had learned to walk on the sunny side, and it is 
only now and then that one gets a glimpse of discourage 
ment and difficulties. One day in January, 1897, we find 
her adjourning with an eager set of pupils to the courtyard, 
because their men relatives were too churlish to make room 
for the Bible lesson. " Snow was falling heavily, but," says 
Irene, " if they did not mind, poor things ! in their cotton 
rags, it was not for me to mind in my nice warm furs." 

Less cheerfully she writes later on : u One learns to expect 
nothing from Orientals " ; and in June, 1897 : " One does long 
that their languages could be more easily read. Even a 
diligent pupil after two years of weekly teaching would hardly 
ever be able to read the Gospels. One envies the simplicity 
of the North American syllabic system, or of the Roman 
character used in Uganda. . . . There seems to be an unsatis 
factory amount of waste labour somewhere. ... I don't see 
any way out of the present groove as yet, but am far from 
sure that endless zenana teaching on the system we have 
to follow here is the most excellent way." And again : 
" Another woman whom I had met and given a Gospel to 
long ago asked me to come, and I found an unusual and 
gratifying state of things. She could not only read, but she 
had read the Gospel, and had a very fair idea of its con 
tents and meaning. She had learned to read in a Govern 
ment school at Sialkot; and it is delightful to think that 
our time together can consequently be spent on real Bible 
study, instead of so much being swallowed up in the endless 



282 IRENE PETRIE 

and sometimes apparently hopeless grind at alphabet and 
syllables." 

Mrs. Tyndale-Biscoe writes : " Irene toiled away so patiently 
and bravely, but it was often very discouraging and uphill 
work ; the hardness of the women and their utter incapacity 
to grasp or even to listen to the Gospel story were very 
trying at times to dear Irene. One was sometimes tempted 
to think she was lost on Kashmir ; yet no work for the Lord 
is in vain, and her call to glory may be His way for her 
to glorify Him. It was indeed a laying all at the Master's 
feet when she came here." 

The onlooker rather than the combatant can foresee 
the issue of such a scattered and prolonged warfare as 
this. Here, for instance, are some significant words from 
an article recently written by a Mohammedan in India, in 
which sullen hostility gives place to passionate and almost 
panic-stricken denunciation of missionaries generally, and 
zenana missionaries particularly: "The missionaries who 
pour like a flood into this country are striking deadly blows 
at the root of our faith. ... If we let them work un 
molested, if we allow English women to undermine our 
faith, in a few years (if, indeed, one Mussulman remain in 
India) our knees will be feeble, our heart faint, our religion 
gone." 

On her return in 1895 Irene had resumed her Bible class 
for Christian women, but some of her pupils had left Srinagar, 
and the small flock of native Christians had become still 
smaller because some had been drawn into another fold. 
She writes: "The Roman Catholics did some sheep- 
stealing recently, and got a ward assistant at the Hospital, 
a very ignorant old Christian, and his boys, little more 
than infants." Mr. Knowles's account in his annual letter 
to headquarters says that the man was bringing so much 
reproach on the Name of Christ by his laziness and constant 



THIRD WINTER IN SRINAGAR 283 

grumbling about the smallness of his wages that he was 
told to go, and went to the Roman priests, who housed him 
and made him very happy for a while by giving him nearly 
twice the pay he had with the C.M.S. missionaries. In 
June, 1896, having tired of the priests, he returned to Hospital 
employment. The incident, which has many parallels in 
India and elsewhere, illustrates that Roman preference for 
fields already worked by other Christian missionaries which 
compelled the gentle and large-hearted Bishop Matthew to 
say in his first Charge : " I deem it my duty to protest against 
this marauding policy, this wanton aggravation of bitterness 
and of those divisions which we deplore." It forcibly contrasts 
with the policy of our own Church in seeking out all over 
the world the wholly unevangelised. 

In November, 1896, Irene passed her Christian class on 
to Miss Coverdale, whose still precarious health made city 
visiting undesirable for her. " It was very sad," she writes, 
" to say good-bye to the class, but one's hands were filled with 
other work, and many new pupils were asking for visits." She 
still had some native Christians on her list. There is, for 
instance, a most grateful letter in Urdu, signed "Your Christian 
sister," from one living remote from any missionary, to whom 
she seems to have found time to write letters and send 
magazines. 

Just before Christmas she had what was almost her only 
experience of village itineration. About twelve miles from 
Srinagar lies Yetchgam. The fact that this means "bad 
village " and is a corruption of its original name Atchchagam, 
or " good village," suggests an unattractive degeneracy in the 
place ; but its recent history is encouraging enough to be traced 
out, as typical of a kind of work that should not be altogether 
omitted in the story of Kashmir. There, as throughout India, 
a very large proportion of the people live in villages. In August, 
1889, two fully qualified medical women, Dr. Butler, and Miss 



284 IRENE PETRIE 

Werthm tiller, of Peshawar, whom we shall meet again, with 
Miss Hull and Miss Edgley, of Clarkabad, a fourth C.E.Z. 
lady, came to Yetchgam. The doctors operated successfully 
on the wife of the lumbardar that is, the hereditary tax- 
gatherer, the headman of the village, on whose character and 
influence its prosperity largely depends. They relieved many 
other suffering women, preached, and left Gospels with those 
who could read. " Man goeth forth unto his work and to 
his labour until the evening, that is God's plan for us," said 
Dr. Butler, as they turned homeward from an arduous fort 
night's work in this and other villages ; and within seven 
weeks her own evening fell suddenly, as we have told in 
Chapter VI. But the seed had not been sown in vain. 
The lumbardar's son read their books diligently. 

Five years after, in November, 1894, Miss Hull went by in 
vitation to Yetchgam with Irene, who says : " We rode through 
the now dry rice fields, where the last of the crop was being 
threshed in primitive fashion, then across one of the flat 
chalk tablelands a few hundred feet above the valley, then 
down to the hollow with its pretty brook and grove of 
grand crimson chenars, under which the tumbledown houses 
were clustered. We had lunch in the lumbardar's garden; 
the feast began with fruit and nuts, then toffee and sweets, 
then curried mutton, lastly chapatis, honey, custard pudding, 
and tea. The family and their friends assembled on all 
sides to see the lions fed. Then Miss Hull and I sang 
bhajans to the guitar, and she spoke on the story of Zacchoeus 
in Kashmiri. Medicines and presents were distributed, and 
we went on to another house, where over thirty (not counting 
babies) gathered and listened with rapt attention to the story 
of the Prodigal Son. We rode home by moonlight." 

In December, 1895, as Irene was leaving the house of 
the Chief Justice's wife, she found the son of the lumbardar of 
Yetchgam waiting for her at the ghat, to secure, if possible, 



THIRD WINTER IN SRINAGAR 285 

through her pupil, judgment in his favour in a case trumped 
up against him. Miss Hull explains the matter in India's 
Women. An influential maulvi had visited the village, and 
the people took the opportunity to lodge a complaint against 
the young man on account of non-attendance at the mosque 
and reading pernicious that is, Christian books given him 
in 1889. A great disturbance ensued, and he was threatened 
with excommunication. He replied : " God has given me 
understanding, which I must use in search of truth ; and 
if that be denied me here, I will save you the trouble 
of turning me out, I shall go myself. But the more you 
persecute me, the more my conviction of Christianity grows." 
In February, 1896, after the case had been pending six 
months, decision was given in his favour. 

On December i4th and i5th, 1896, Miss Hull and Irene 
spent " two delightful days " at Yetchgam, finding " the people 
so simple and so eager to hear the Gospel." Miss Hull 
thus describes the visit : " Dear Irene Petrie and I visited 
a village, where the lumbardar, one of the finest gentlemen 
I ever knew, had started a school, managed by his daughter, 
in their own house. All the chief men in the village 
assembled in its largest room to see Dr. Neve's lantern, 
which Irene worked, while I explained the pictures of our 
Lord's life. At that of the Crucifixion absolute silence 
fell on the room, and we left them to their thoughts. The 
Resurrection and Ascension followed. Then the lumbardar 
rose and said : { Truly we do love Him. It is our one 
thought and hope that lie may come again.' A few months 
after this open profession of his faith he died." 

In Srinagar on Christmas Day the largest number of com 
municants ever gathered at a native service there knelt at 
the Holy Table in St. Luke's. " The message of Christmas 
seems so much richer and more wonderful every year, as 
expressing the central truth, especially when one has been 



2 86 IRENE PETRTE 

trying to give it to the pupils here," writes Irene. "... On 
December 2Qth the whole British community, with hardly 
an exception, accepted Mrs. Tyndale-Biscoe's invitation to 
a carol concert. . . . Mr. Millais lent his American organ, 
and the old English church, an unconsecrated building, was 
decorated with crimson hangings, mistletoe, and pine and ivy, 
and the text, ' Good tidings of great joy to all people.' 
Every seat was filled, and the audience were asked to refrain 
from applause as the concert was sacred. About seventy 
were present, and the concert was repeated for some fifty 
English-speaking native gentlemen." Irene's share in the 
music was a large one. 

So she entered on the last seven months of her life ; and 
none of the friends in England had her more in their hearts 
than two who thus worded their wishes for 1897 : "I earnestly 
hope it will be your best year, my dearest Irene." "May 
the new year of your life be to you one of increasing know 
ledge of the power of Christ's Resurrection." Truly fulfilled 
were both wishes. 

From the day she began Urdu at The Willows Irene had 
been labouring without intermission at three languages. An 
Indian missionary who has passed the first examination in 
Urdu has a choice between a further examination in Urdu or 
one in the language of his own district. Irene having passed 
in Urdu in 1895, accordingly presented herself in 1897 for 
examination in Kashmiri, a tongue in which two Europeans 
had hitherto been examined, some half-dozen only having 
learned it. The language is difficult and uncertain in itself, 
and there are hardly any books to help the student. Nor 
is it easy to express oneself colloquially with the limited 
vocabulary of the uneducated, for whom the more accurate 
terms borrowed from Sanskrit, Persian, and Arabic by the 
translators of the Bible into Kashmiri would be unintelligible. 

In the first months of 1897 she worked for four or five 



THIRD WINTER IN SRINAGAR 287 

hours daily with a munshi whose circumstances were charac 
teristic of modern India. His father, a Brahman of the 
highest caste, forbade him to go to the C.M.S. School, and 
when he went notwithstanding, burned his books and expelled 
him from home for six months, avowing his fear that he 
would become a Christian. Later on he withdrew the pro 
hibition on the ground that the English might rule Kashmir 
entirely some day; but he pressed his son to read the 
Ramayana instead of the Bible. When, however, the Bible 
was read aloud to him, he admitted that it was very beautiful, 
and in spite of himself it seemed to influence the old man's 
life. Seeing his son with Daily Light (Irene's gift), he 
begged him to lay it aside, " for perhaps this book will 
convince you of the truth of Christianity " ; but once more 
he listened, and admitted that it was good. How deeply the 
young man was influenced was shown one day when he said 
quite simply : " I thank God and Mr. Tyndale-Biscoe that I 
have been able to give up lying entirely." He was, however, 
an affectionate and dutiful son, and open profession of 
Christianity must have meant for him death to his family. 

Miss Newnham and Irene went up together for examination 
on March 3oth and 3ist. "It was rather a struggle," says 
the latter, " and I felt strangely stupid over some of the 
papers. I see the force of Dr. E. Neve's prescription of 
fifteen years to get a hold upon Kashmiri." Dr. A. Neve 
and Mr. Knowles were the examiners, and once more she 
came out with honours marks, gaining most over conversa 
tion. " It is a comfort to have done with the examination," 
she writes, " but I have no means done with Kashmiri 
study, and mean to ' munshi ' again." 

She was also making considerable progress in Hindi. " One 
lady," she wrote of her zenana pupils, " wanted me to teach 
her Persian and Pushtu, another Gurumaki, another laments 
that I cannot speak Bengali, so one often feels small." 



288 IRENE PETRIE 

Dr. A. Neve wrote a few months later : " You probably 
know how brilliantly she passed her Kashmiri examination. 
Her examiners rejoiced in the thought that these linguistic 
powers would open to her the hearts of hundreds of women 
in the dark city of Srinagar." 

The very day after the examination, and amid all her usual 
work, she wrote for the mail of April 3rd the Letter to School 
girls inserted at the end of this chapter. The request for it 
from the Headquarters of the C.M.S. had expressed a hope 
that when she came home on furlough she might be able to 
give special help " in interesting bright, keen girls at our 
best schools." They also asked for an illustrated article for 
The Gleaner, which was never written. 

A few days' absence with Miss Pryce-Browne in October 
had been the only break in nearly eight months' work, and the 
examination had left her weary and troubled with an obstinate 
cough. So she was quite ready for the annual school outing 
to the Wular Lake, April Qth to 23rd, which proved pleasanter 
than any of their trips hitherto. Mr. and Mrs. Tyndale-Biscoe 
took forty-two boys, and all went well. " Even I," writes Irene 
on April i5th, "am not ambitious nowadays about getting 
a certain amount done, and so many expeditions fitted in. 
I am just lazing for a while, and already feel a different 
creature. One comes to a point at which it seems impossible 
to go on giving out and teaching without a little pause for 
taking breath and getting change of thought." Dr. Andrew 
Murray's Jesus Himself was her companion on this holiday, 
and she took with her "Biscuit," a horse she had just 
purchased, which new possession enabled her to see more 
of the "Happy Valley" in the next three months than she 
had seen in all the preceding three years. On Easter Day 
Jusuf, the Ladaki, the only Asiatic Christian in the camp, 
made the fourth communicant. In the afternoon Mr. Tyndale- 
Biscoe held his pundits' Bible class, and Irene looked up some 



THIRD WINTER IN SRINAGAR 289 

of the women in the village. None could read, but she had 
an audience of over forty for a Bible talk and the Heart Book. 
They were very friendly, but wofully ignorant. " How well I 
remember," writes Mrs. Tyndale-Biscoe, " Irene singing 

On the Resurrection morning 
Soul and body meet again 

(Hymns Ancient and Modern, No. 499) at our last quiet 
Easter Service in the tent at Zurimanz. It was such a lovely 
Easter, and we were all so happy ! " 

Refreshed by the clear mountain air and by Nature at 
her loveliest, Irene returned to work harder than ever for 
ten more weeks. 

Two incidents stand out, of both of which she writes buoy* 
antly. On June 9th she was one of a party of six men and 
three ladies, "six of whom had attended St. Mary Abbots, 
and six of whom had ascended Ben Lomond," that climbed 
" the Rigi of Kashmir," a peak which Irene had longed almost 
daily to scale for three years. A thousand feet was accom 
plished on horseback, the remaining four thousand feet on 
foot, the whole expedition lasting sixteen hours. 

Then came the Diamond Jubilee celebrations, and her full 
and animated descriptions show that no one entered into 
them more than she did. These few sentences from her 
letters must suffice here : 

"A book given me at the New Year, called The Queen's 
Resolve^ has been well worked in the zenanas, and also at 
the school. When the picture of the Malika Qaisar-i-Hind 
appeared, all the boys quite spontaneously made a deep 
salaam, and some wanted to start for England in order to 
see her for themselves. 

"The festivities included a School regatta, at which the 
Resident and the rest of the sahib 16g attended, and the 
performers, over a hundred in number, appeared in really 

'9 



IRENE PETRIE 

clean things ; a review, at which the Maharaja's troops looked 
very soldierly, though not gorgeous, in khaki ; a fete in the 
Residency Gardens; and a great durbar, a very gay and 
interesting sight, at which the Maharaja entertained all the 
sahib 16g, including the missionaries. At the military sports 
in the afternoon of Jubilee Day a telegram was handed to 
the Resident, who showed it to us at once. It was the dear 
Queen's own message, and we read it with such a thrill, 
within half an hour of its despatch by her own hand." 

Irene's power to do and to enjoy were apparently as great 
as ever. Thrice in her last week at Srinagar she made three 
expeditions into the city in one day ; " organist at four 
services " is the entry for her last Sundays ; the friends who 
feared that day was too arduous for her already could not 
dissuade her from undertaking what was so great a delight to 
herself. " Her bright enjoyment of everything made her 
always the life of any little party," says Miss Hull; "and 
her music was an unfailing source of pleasure to us all." 
" She was the life of the mission," says Dr. Neve ; " and with 
all her inexhaustible activity there was no appearance of rush 
or flurry. She would spend a social evening, entertaining 
us with her music and conversation, and then retire to 
write letters till 2 a.m." " Her amazing energy enabled her 
to accomplish much in her short life," says Miss Pryce-Browne ; 
" and it is hard to imagine Srinagar without her." " In three 
years she accomplished," says Mr. Tyndale-Biscoe, " what 
it would have taken another ten or twelve years to do." 

She herself wrote to a friend who had her inmost con 
fidence : "Ask for me that I may more fulfil those lines, 

Striving less to serve Thee much, 
Than to please Thee perfectly." 

And what the companions of those closing months emphasise 
most, and in a way very significant to those who had known 



THIRD WINTER IN SRINAGAR 291 

the impetuous and ambitious Irene of earlier years, is her 
gentleness and absolute humility and unselfishness, reminding 
one of Tennyson's 

Ere my flower to fruit 
Changed, I was ripe for death. 

There is much to be learned as well as much to teach 
in the mission field, and, as her missionary friend at Agra 
writes : " Dear Irene must have been quick in learning what 
it takes others a long life to complete." " Our darling Irene," 
writes an American friend, " was so true, so heart-whole, so 
simple in her love of Christ, that few stood by her side in 
the work and worship which she offered ; and can we wonder 
that the great love found acceptance without length of 
years ? " 

Growth both in wisdom and in grace is manifest in her 
later letters. Tolerant she had always been, not with the 
shallow tolerance of those who have no deep convictions, 
but with the large-hearted intelligence of a sympathetic nature. 
And many things are in a new perspective for the missionary. 
She says, for instance : " Why must High and Low Church 
people be at war with each other always, when both are so 
good, if only they would be a little broader and more 
tolerant towards each other? It is really pitiable to hear 
the paltry grounds on which a Christian of one party will 
furbish up a criticism on one of another party. One wonders 
how there can be room for all these small spites in face of 
the great non-Christian world." Elsewhere she speaks of 
"good Churchmanship with a Keswick flavour, which is the 
reverse of high and dry," as being what she herself loves. 

"As much as anyone I ever knew, your dear sister 
approved herself a servant of God by kindness," writes Miss 
Hull; and one mark of this was the growing generosity of 
her judgments. That the harsh judgment is as often unfair 



292 IRENE PETRIE 

as the kind judgment is just was a lesson she had fully 
taken to heart. Not only is there the deepening appreciation 
of what was admirable in each of her colleagues, the constant 
record of small kindnesses and courtesies shown to herself; 
but also the qualifying statement when she is obliged to 
mention what is to anyone's discredit, the merciful allowances 
made for those to whom others were merciless. She rose to 
the requirement of the aged St. Paul that " the Lord's servant 
must be gentle towards all." 

And she left many things unsaid and undescribed that 
fill a large place in much private correspondence. "Had 
she," one asks, "no unsatisfactory friends, no trying col 
leagues, no worrying acquaintances, no inconsiderate com 
panions, no stupid helpers, no dilatory tradesmen, no 
careless servants; were hopeless weather, uncomfortable 
accommodation, wearing delays, vexatious losses, bodily aches 
and pains unknown to her experience ? " If they were known, 
she neither brooded over them nor chronicled them. 

Miss Pryce-Browne, who lived in closest intimacy with 
her for six months, says : " Irene's unselfishness and the 
humility that never claimed anything for herself were 
wonderful. Her wide sympathies gave her a marvellous 
memory for everyone's concerns, and enabled her to enter 
into their lives ; and for everyone she had a kind word. Her 
thoughtfulness for others appeared in many little things. In 
trying conditions of work and climate it is hard for a mis 
sionary to be always bright and amiable, as she was. 
Returning from a long and harassing day in the city, she 
would refrain from saying a single word about her own 
experiences, but promptly enter into mine." 

"So many things in her daily life," says Mr. Tyndale-Biscoe, 
" little things in themselves, were the very things which helped 
those around her to live the unselfish and therefore the happy 
Christian life she lived" 



THIRD WINTER IN SRINAGAR 293 

More and more one sees in her the living embodiment 
of St. Paul's portrait of Love, refusing to be affronted or 
alienated, or diverted by passion or prejudice. More and 
more one sees in her the spirit of Christ, discerning and 
calling out what was lovable in all whom she met, and 
loving them accordingly. 

This ripening of character is the only premonition of 
swift-coming death. "Yet," writes Mrs. Tyndale-Biscoe in 
August, "now that we look back upon all, she had seemed 
overwrought of late, and was rather depressed at times. 
She said once, * I feel as if I had come to a blind road ; I 
see no way before me.' Then she did not seem very keen 
about going home next spring. I think she felt she was 
more needed here, and that it would not be right for her 
to neglect her post." 

Her relatives were writing about a probable return to 
England in 1898; but she wrote on October 3Oth, 1896: 
" Here one never seems to look very far ahead " ; and in 
the spring of 1897 : "I am making no definite plans of any 
kind at present, beyond this summer." She never once speaks 
of returning home again herself; but in her latest letters dwells 
again and again with intense pleasure upon the thought that 
in the near future " the dear old Lodge " of so many happy 
memories might once more become the permanent home of 
her sister. 

Her fruit was ripe already, and " when the fruit is ripe, 
straightway the husbandman putteth forth the sickle, because 
the harvest is come " (Mark iv. 29). 

An In Memoriam article in The Intelligencer lot March, 1898, 
picturing those latter days in Srinagar, and the Letter to 
Schoolgirls, which was the last thing she wrote for the press, 
are appended to this chapter. 



294 IRENE PETRIE 

IRENE PETRIE 

BY MRS. C. E. TYNDALE-BISCOE 

It is an impossible task to write anything that can do full 
justice to such a beautiful and bright life as dear Irene's was, 
but I will do my best to give a few little glimpses of what 
she was to us and to the work in Kashmir. 

There are many people who can talk beautifully, and can 
win much praise and respect from the outside world, but 
it is not everyone's life that can stand close inspection. We 
had the privilege of having Irene in our home for a year, 
and can only say that her presence was one continual joy 
to us, and the longer we knew her the more could we see 
how her outward life was fed by the inward Power. She was 
one who had laid all her gifts and talents, which were many, 
at her Master's feet, and had learnt how to pass on the 
Love of Christ not merely by words but by deeds also. 

She would be the last to wish anyone to speak of her 
wholeheartedness, unless it was for some practical purpose. 
So let me recall a few facts in her Kashmiri life, that they 
may be helpful to others. 

i. It is well known how gifted she was in intellect, and 
what a power she had for retaining what she read, so much 
so that she was to us as an ever-ready book of reference. 
Remember her powers, and now look at her work. She 
has for some time been giving a Kashmiri girl lessons 
in reading, and has at last succeeded in teaching her the 
first page of the Urdu Primer ; the lessons are interrupted 
for a short time, and when she returns the girl has forgotten 
everything, and all has to be begun over again. And time 
after time she would visit at the same house and repeat 
the same Gospel message without seemingly making any 
impression. But bravely she would plod on until a gleam of 
intelligence would dawn on the dull faces of the listeners. 



THIRD WINTER IN SRINAGAR 295 

She would often come in after a long and weary day's 
teaching amongst such people tired out and depressed, 
but in a very short time would be her cheery self again, 
once more ready to go bravely on, and to struggle with a 
dulness resulting from generations of mental undevelopment. 
One can understand a person of less ability having some 
sympathy with such dulness, but for one so highly cultured 
as Irene, her patience and sympathy were indeed wonderful. 

2. The ladies' work in Srinagar is increased by the inde 
scribable filth of the city. . . . Think of the refinement and 
comfort to which Irene had been accustomed, and then carry 
your thoughts to the scene of her labours. Kashmir, for 
tourists, may be one of the most beautiful places in the world ; 
but workers in its cities and villages can tell another tale. 

3. There are people full of energy and activity that are 
tempted to look down upon the work of others who are not 
able to do as much as themselves; but not so Irene. She 
was always advocating rest for others, and making out that 
everyone worked far harder than she did, and could speak 
the language far better than she could. Her wonderful 
energy of mind seemed to triumph over physical weakness ; 
she never seemed to know when she was tired or needed 
rest ; and we have even known her start out to her work with 
a temperature over 100, so that we have had to give 
positive orders to her boatmen not to take her to the city. 
She did not intend to be deliberately rash, but her energy 
and spirit were so great that she would not believe she was 
unfit for work. Considering her indomitable energy, it was 
marvellous to see her sympathy for the unenergetic; she 
had all sorts of excuses ready for other people who were un 
able to do as much as she did. 

4. Although so full of her own work, she had room for 
interest in other branches of the mission, and in all good 
works, whether at home or abroad. She rendered us 



296 IRENE PETRIE 

invaluable help in our schools, by taking charge of one of 
them and teaching in a second. . . . One seldom finds 
Christian workers who can take as much interest in the work 
of others as in their own. 

5. Another pleasing incident in her life was her thoughtful- 
ness in little things. She kept shelves and boxes stocked 
with useful articles, ready for birthdays or other special 
occasions; if any of us required anything it was generally 
to be found amongst her stores, and nothing delighted her more 
than to be able to find she could meet our little emergencies 
and supply our wants. 

We can indeed say of Irene that she had 

A mind to blend with outward things, 
While keeping at Thy side, 

for she was always ready to enter into the social gatherings 
of her friends and contribute to their enjoyment by her 
wonderful musical talent, and her sweetness and brightness 
must have left a hallowing influence on all with whom she 
came in contact. . . . 

The Kashmiris have indeed lost a true friend; the work 
a whole-hearted and earnest worker ; and we a bright gleam 
of sunshine, which welcomed us in the morning, and in the 
evening helped us to forget the little worries of the day. She 
was one who had freely received and who freely gave. God 
give us grace to follow in her train ! 



THIRD WINTER IN SRINAGAR 297 



IN THE VALE OF KASHMIR 

BY IRENE E. Vc PETRIE 

" The glory of our Jhelum is its fulness," says a Kashmiri 
proverb about the great stream that winds through this 
valley, till at Baramula it enters the rocky gorge through 
which in a narrower channel it will rush onwards mile after 
mile towards the Punjab. Then the mighty Indus, having 
received all the Five Rivers, rolls seaward through burning 
desert plains. What a contrast between them and the ice 
bound winter fastnesses our Jhelum issued from first ! 

Crossing the river, this first week of spring, one sees eddying 
patches of foam which tell their tale of the force and struggle 
of waters high upon the mountain gullies, where the sun's rays, 
after long sleep, are just now hourly breaking up the masses 
of snow. 

As one thinks of the welcome moisture which will help dried 
and famine-stricken lands far off, the river highway itself seems 
a parable of the Master's will for the flow of His life-giving 
Word in an ever widening and deepening stream through this 
land, that "every thing shall live whithersoever the river 
cometh," as we read in the vision of Ezek. xlvii. That is 
the promise for the future which we hope and expect. As yet, 
however, we seem in Kashmir to be still scarcely emerging 
from the ice-bound stage and the wintry sleep of ignorance 
and superstition, and darkness is only beginning to be broken 
here and there after centuries of sway. 

What is being done in Kashmir to bring the life-giving 
Word within reach of those who need it, and what are the 
difficulties and the hindrances staying its flow? 

Probably you associate with the name of Kashmir the 
thought of shawls and mountains and big game ; and if you 



298 IRENE PETRIE 

sometimes visit the Indian Museum at South Kensington you 
may see sketches of the people, the city life on the river banks, 
and a panorama from a high hill near here of the central valley 
through which the Jhelum flows, and of the great Himalayas 
beyond between us and India. Pictures, however, give but a 
faint idea of the glory of the scenery at certain times of the 
year, and the strange varieties of aspect from plains round 
Srinagar glowing with heat in summer and snow-blocked crags 
and steeps high up where the cold may be Arctic. . . 

People at home sometimes think that life out here must be 
very romantic, and picture Arabian Night palaces and ladies 
gorgeously robed and covered with jewels. A few days of 
plodding through the unspeakable mud of unsavoury streets 
and lanes in thaw time, and a few visits to the abodes of even 
the well-to-do, would soon dispel some of the romantic ideas, 
and leave squalor and shoddiness as the prevailing impressions. 
What grandeur does a load of jewelry convey even when 
real and " Brummagem ware " is not uncommon when the 
lady wearing it has a stained chaddar and dirty hands, and 
when no corner of her house is free from dust and mess ? 

Then, again, there may be, and sometimes are, eager 
listeners, but more often one has to realise that minds and 
hearts asleep to all but the most material things have to be 
treated as we should treat those of a small child. Perhaps 
remembering what it was once to listen to a book or sermon 
far beyond our comprehension, we can sympathise with these 
poor things who all the time have possibilities of such good 
in them. The sun's rays penetrate the ice and snow and 
let loose the waters to revive and fertilise, and the Light of 
the Sun of Righteousness can and will penetrate their hearts 
that the Word may do its work there, though it may be at 
the cost of struggle. 

Let me try and recall as examples of our pupils some houses 
visited during the last few days. Here are. ome Sikh girls who 



THIRD WINTER IN SRINAGAR 299 

come in from rice pounding and water carrying to take their 
lessons, and are always bright and affectionate. After more 
than two years of work they begin to read quite nicely ; 
they love singing, and remember fairly well, and are good 
listeners when a pause from the chorus of babies, dogs, 
cocks, and horses down below makes the Bible lesson 
possible. Some way off is a highly educated Bengali lady 
in a dainty European house, who enjoys advanced Bible 
study, A contrast to her is a policeman's wife from Poona, 
who shares a diminutive hut with a large goat, and seems 
almost too dull to take in anything, though she loves to 
be visited, and perhaps progresses a little. 

From a rickety house a mile beyond, which looks as if 
it must tumble bodily into the river at the next big earth 
quake, issues a gay, little, round-faced Punjabi maiden of 
seven. With refreshing readiness she goes through last week's 
lesson perfectly, and both she and her mother listen reverently 
to the Bible lesson and seem to comprehend a good deal. 
Here is another house, where the woman nurses a pet gray 
cat with a necklace on, while reading fluently in Hindi. Of 
her own accord she has lately begun initiating a neighbour 
into the mysteries of the Shastri character, and yesterday 
the said neighbour took a very satisfactory lesson. 

Thence crossing fields one reaches a village chiefly in 
habited by people connected with the native regiments of 
Dogras and Goorkhas. A dog barks noisy welcome to a 
house where the widow of a native officer lives, whose 
son is a master in the Mission School. Two months ago 
she was quite confined to bed with acute rheumatism. 
Dressings and medicine from the hospital have done 
their work so well that she is about again and in good 
spirits, and the Mission Hospital has once more opened 
a home to the Christian teacher. Two little girls thence 
are now going regularly to school ; and yesterday, when 



300 IRENE PETRIE 

the mother, had her weekly Bible reading, visitors from 
Kishtewar and Nepal came in to listen and learn, too, so 
representatives of four countries were assembled in that one 
little room. Some had never heard the message before, but 
seemed to understand well enough when I showed them 
the little Heart Book> and then, in view of the glistening 
Pir Punjal snows opposite, taught them the prayer, " Wash 
me, and I shall be whiter than snow." . . . 

Now you have heard a few of our ups and downs in the 
daily work here. Will you help us and those we work 
among by praying for the power of God's Holy Spirit here? 
And will you think if you can do anything, either now or 
later on, when after school days you will have more respon 
sibility in shaping your own course? In Ezek. xlvii. we 
read of one sad thing along with the description of the river 
of blessing that the "miry places and the marishes shall 
not be healed." I sometimes think of that when passing 
reen, stagnant pools with poisonous exhalations which lie 
here and there, near the running water of the river, and 
yet separated from it. May it be that none of our lives 
will stagnate into a mere passive state of "hoping we are 
doing no harm," but may we all know something of the 
flow and fulness of the life-giving River shadowed in Ezek i el's 
vision ! 



CHAPTER XIII 

THE LAST TOURNEY 

(JULY STH TO AUGUST 6TH, 1897) 

Ne ditcs pas qdelk est partit : dites qu'elk est arrivtc. 

WE do wrong, as Bishop Westcott remarks, to the great 
promise that the gates of Hades shall not prevail 
against the Church when we interpret it only of successful 
resistance, and not of irresistible advance. Our Lord Himself 
said, " Other sheep I have, . . . them also I must bring." 
St. Paul had hope that as the faith of his earlier converts 
grew, he would be able to preach the Gospel even unto 
the parts beyond them (2 Cor. x. 15, 16). And ever since 
missionaries have looked farther than their immediate sphere 
of work. Xavier pressed on from India to China and Japan ; 
French forsook the partly evangelised Punjab for wholly 
unevangelised Arabia. 

Kashmir is the frontier state of Hindustan, and some 
fifteen hundred years ago it sent out five hundred 
missionaries to promulgate in Tibet the Buddhist creed, which 
is still in possession there, though only its mouldering relics 
now remain in Kashmir itself. Remembering this, the Rev. 
R. Clark wrote nearly twenty years ago : " Had the Kashmiris 
as much of Christian life and power as they have already 
of natural vigour and talent they might stir all Asia for Christ, 
as they have in times past done much to form its destinies." 

301 



30* IRENE PETRIE 

Irene utters the thought of the little band at Srinagar to-day 
when she writes in February, 1895: "Needy as Kashmir is, 
we who are here are often led to think of the still deeper 
needs of those vast Central Asian regions, to many of which 
this Valley is the highway, in which no missionaries of any 
kind are working, and from some of which the request 
for Christian teachers has come more than once." 

As we saw in Chapter VI., the great range of the Western 
Himalayas divides two very different provinces ruled by the 
Maharaja of Kashmir: the Vale of Kashmir, or basin of the 
Jhelum, to the south-west, whose people are Aryan by race 
and Hindu and Moslem by religion ; and Ladakh, otherwise 
known as Kashmiri Tibet, Tibetan Kashmir, or Little Tibet, 
the basin of the Upper Indus, to the north-east, whose people 
are Mongolian by race and Buddhist by religion. 

As long ago as 1854 Mr. Clark and Colonel Martin 
travelled into Ladakh to reconnoitre, and, mainly through 
the munificence of Colonel Martin, a Moravian Mission was 
established at Lahul. Need any reader be reminded that the 
Moravians who went out in 1732 were the first organised band 
of missionaries to the heathen from any reformed Church 
(for the venerable S.P.G. laboured almost exclusively among 
our own colonists then); that the Moravian is still the one 
Church that has missions in all the five quarters of the 
globe; that of its communicants one in 60 (as compared 
with one in 3,500 of other reformed Churches) is a missionary ? 
For 170 years the utter simplicity, unworldliness, and devotion 
of these humble apostles has been a grand object lesson to 
Christendom, and their converts are now three times as 
numerous as the parent Church. 

In 1885 the Moravians occupied Leh, the capital of Ladakh, 
a most appropriate outpost for the spiritual warfare now being 
waged on the confines of the Indian Empire. It is a 
cosmopolitan city, where four languages are commonly spoken, 



THE LAST JOURNEY 303 

and four religions, Mohammedanism, Hinduism, Buddhism, 
and Sikhism, are represented. Here Mr. Redslob started a 
school and a dispensary. Mrs. Bishop describes him as a 
man of noble physique and intellect, a scholar, a linguist, an 
expert botanist, and an admirable artist, whom the Tibetans 
quickly discovered to be the truest friend they had ever had, 
and on whom, says Dr. Neve, they bestowed the title of " Khu- 
tuktus," or " Incarnation of the Deity." Mrs. Bishop also 
pictures the humble, whitewashed mission station, its garden gay 
with European flowers, and the favourable contrast to their 
compatriots presented by the Christian Tibetans. Dr. and 
Mrs. Marx, of Edinburgh, and the Rev. F. B. Shawe, from 
England, joined Redslob later, and by 1890 their work was 
flourishing. But May, 1891, found all the five missionaries 
and Mr. Redslob's daughter dangerously ill with a prevalent 
epidemic. In their extremity of helplessness an English 
surgeon, Dr. Thorold, just starting with Captain Bower on a 
remarkable journey from Tibet to Shanghai, came to their 
aid the day before a son was born to Mrs. Marx. Here, as 
in so many other missions, we see in lives laid down the 
seed of the future harvest, for Redslob, Marx, and the infant 
died, while the two widows and the little girl crept slowly 
back to life. In 1897 the mission staff consisted of Mr. and 
Mrs. Ribbach (on furlough in July and August), Mr. and 
Mrs. Fichtner, Mr. and Mrs. Francke (he was of the same 
family as the famous preceptor of Count Zinzendorf), and 
Miss Kant, a fully trained nurse (see p. 244). 

In 1898 Dr. E. Shawe, Mr. Shawe's cousin, arrived with 
a young wife, who died in giving birth to her first child in 
September, 1899. During 1899 nearly six thousand medical 
and surgical cases were treated in Leh. There are now 
three schools, with an average attendance of fifty children, 
and a Christian congregation of twenty-five. The un 
varnished statement of the report of February, 1899, says : 



IRENE PETRIE 

" Though we cannot boast of great victories, striking results, 
and great numbers of conversions, we are grateful to say that 
the power of the Word is evidently proving itself in some 
hearts." 

One Ladaki, formerly destined to be a Buddhist priest, 
was brought in 1895 by Miss Kant to Srinagar for education, 
and both Mr. Tyndale-Biscoe and Irene characterised him 
as "the best native Christian that they knew." Having 
lived a plucky and consistent life in school and out of it, 
he returned to Leh, saying : " Sahib, I don't want popularity 
or power or wealth ; but what I do want is to go back to my 
people to preach Jesus Christ and His saving power." Irene 
had taught him regularly; he was present at her last Easter 
Communion; and we hear in 1899 of his continuing to speak 
of her with the deepest reverence and affection. Two other 
pupils of hers from Leh were described in Chapter VIII. 

Dr. Neve hopes that the dominion of the Grand Lama 
himself, the one country absolutely closed to Europeans, 
may one day be evangelised by the Christians of Ladakh. 
Meanwhile, Ladakh itself is waiting to be spiritually conquered 
from Kashmir once more. Its religion, appropriately called 
Lamaism, from its lamas or monks, is one of several religious 
systems of which Buddhism is the generic name systems 
which differ almost as widely from each other as they do from 
the original teaching of Siddartha, pictured in the beautiful 
though largely mythical story which Sir Edwin Arnold has re 
told for Western readers. Its leading characteristic in Ladakh 
is propitiation of evil spirits by means of grotesque ceremonial. 
Empty and ruinous monasteries are among many signs of 
its quiet decay at the present time, but what is to supersede 
it ? Islam makes steady progress in Ladakh ; and while " a 
lie which is all a lie " (like demon-worship) " may be met 
and fought with outright, a lie which is part a truth" (like 
Islam) " is a harder matter to fight." 



THE LAST JOURNEY 305 

No wonder, then, that Irene was keenly interested in the 
efforts of the Moravians at Leh. Only six weeks after her 
first arrival at Srinagar she chronicles many particulars of 
the work at Leh which she had learned from talk with Dr. 
Shawe, and several subsequent allusions to it occur in her 
letters (see p. 194). In January, 1895, she relates how Dr. 
Neve and Mr. Knowles had been sending home a strong 
appeal to the C.M.S. to make Kashmir the base of operations 
for a campaign in trans-Himalayan lands open to the Gospel 
and wholly without missionaries. In November, 1895, Miss 
Kant, and in April, 1896, and March, 1897, Mr. Francke, 
visited Srinagar. 

A walking tour among mountains had always been Irene's 
notion of an ideal holiday, and in Feburary, 1896, she writes : 
" Ada Barclay and I are rearing a tall castle in the air for a 
journey to Leh. It is probably very much in the air, but that 
would be a very interesting summer holiday." On May 8th, 
1897, she speaks in almost the same words of a similar plan 
with Miss Tyndale-Biscoe, then visiting Kashmir. On May 9th 
she met Dr. Graham, who was on his way to Leh as State 
surgeon. On June 5th she says : " We still talk of Ladakh for 
next month." On June i9th : "I have no idea where I shall 
be this time next month. Having good health, a horse, and 
time this year, the big march to Leh would be my ambition, 
if it can be realised ; but other ladies with an indefinite appetite 
for continuous exercise are scarce." On June 26th : "It seems 
a pity to go away when Srinagar is still so cool ; but holidays 
have to be taken, and perhaps they are good as a precautionary 
measure even for those who, like myself, have to be thankful 
for very good health. ... I may perhaps still go to Leh." 
On July 3rd : " My plans have been shaped at last by a kind 
letter from Miss Phillips, of Peshawar, welcoming me to join 
their party for a journey to Leh. I owe this to dear Miss 
Hull. She told the ladies, who are great friends of hers but 

20 



306 IRENE PETRIE 

whom I have never met, of my wish to travel in Ladakh. ... I 
have such kind letters of welcome from the missionaries at Leh, 
written when the plan was still only a castle in the air, which 
I feared it would remain a week ago. It is most delightful for 
me to be so happily provided for, and to have the prospect of 
such an interesting journey to regions which I have long had 
a strong desire to see." 

The story of Irene's journey from Srinagar, capital of 
Kashmir, to Leh, capital of Ladakh, will be elucidated by a 
preliminary sketch of the route, taken mainly from Mr. E. F. 
Knight's Where Three Empires Meet, and Mrs. Bishop's 
Among the Tibetans. 

The road, which lies due east along the highway from North 
India to Central Asia, is in many places merely a rough bridle 
path, along precipices and over landslips, diverted by unford- 
able rivers, swept by avalanches, and exposed to tropical sun 
and arctic gales. It is open to travellers during the later 
summer months only, and even then is impossible far 
vehicles, and in many parts dangerous for horses. The 
journey is divided into nineteen marches, which means that 
260 miles a distance equal to that between London and 
Newcastle is traversed in a longer time than the journey 
from London to Bombay now occupies. 

Its first stages, up the Sind Valley to Sonamarg (" golden 
meadow," so called from the crocuses which stud its fields), 
are by luxuriant pasture, dark pine forest, and towering snow 
mountain, through some of the loveliest and most diversified 
scenery in lovely Kashmir. A sudden ascent from Sonamarg 
leads out of the Vale of Kashmir by the Zoji-La that is, the 
Zoji Pass the lowest depression in the Western Himalayas, 
11,500 feet high, their average height being 18,000 feet. 
This may be described as a gigantic step into the highest 
inhabited country in the world. Keen winds rush with 
tremendous force between the vertical slate cliffs on each 



THE LAST JOURNEY 307 

side of it, and it is "a thoroughly severe pass." No part of 
Ladakh is less than 9,000 feet, and many of its people live at 
an elevation of 12,000 to 15,000 feet above the sea. When 
they visit Srinagar (5,200 feet) they declare they are stifled by 
being on such low ground ; while the missionaries admit that 
the high altitude, to which these Tibetans have become inured, 
is wearing them out ; and travellers find that the air passages 
become irritated, the skin cracks, and ultimately the heart's 
action is affected. Sandy plateaux, barren mountains, and 
flaming aridity are the features of the route through Ladakh, 
the one extensive oasis on the way being at Kargil. This 
cloudless, rainless wilderness, where burning sun alternates with 
biting blasts from snow slopes and glaciers, and the absence of 
perspective in the thin, dry air makes small and distant objects 
seem near and gigantic, strangely fascinates the traveller. It 
is peopled by a race who do all they can to make their 
surroundings yet more fantastic, and who are as great a 
contrast to the Kashmiris as their land is to Kashmir. Their 
irredeemable and grotesque ugliness is heightened by their 
costume ; but they are healthy, hardy, and long-lived ; for 
Orientals, fairly truthful and honest; peaceable, cheerful, 
contented, and industrious. In order to keep down population 
in a country affording but meagre sustenance to its people, 
one-sixth of them become monks and nuns. Ladakh formerly 
acknowledged the Emperor of China as its suzerain, was 
annexed by the Sikhs in 1834, and handed over to Go lab 
Singh in 1847. His successor still acknowledges the Grand 
Lama as its pope by sending yearly gifts to Lhasa. All over 
the land are chortens, or cenotaphs (white-washed, globular 
monuments crowned with little pinnacles, containing the ashes 
of lamas), and manis, or mendons (walls from two to nine feet 
high, and sometimes half a mile long), on which the Buddhist 
invocation, Om mani padme hum (" Oh the jewel in the lotus"), 
is repeated again and again. 



3 o8 IRENE PETRIE 

After two more passes, the Namika-La (13,000 feet) and 
the Futu-La (13,400 feet), the road descends to Leh by the 
Valley of the Indus. 

The most weird and ghostly spot on the whole route is 
Lamayuru, whose scenery is so bare and wild that it suggests 
a landscape on the dead moon. Past Lamayuru the road 
leads through a hot and glaring desert, the sky changes 
from turquoise to copper hue, and a haze of the finest 
granite dust fills the air. At last the traveller emerges 
from the narrow gorges of the Indus on the wide expanse 
of a valley in which Leh appears, nestling beneath a huge 
monastery perched on a beetling crag. Being at an elevation 
of 11,500 feet, the city itself stands higher than the summit 
of Mount Etna, and the distant snow mountains closing in 
the views from all its streets must recall Innsbruck. The 
Empress of India is represented there by the British Joint 
Commissioner, who settles all disputes arising between the 
Maharaja's subjects and those of the Emperors of China 
and Russia; for in summer it is the meeting-place for the 
Central Asian caravans ; but as it is nearly 1,000 miles as 
the crow flies from the sea, and about 500 miles from the 
railway, it may be regarded as one of the least accessible 
cities in the world. 

Irene began this arduous expedition in the best of spirits on 
July 8th. In a letter written that day (which reached Canada 
five days after the startling telegram announcing the bare 
fact of her death) she does indeed remark: "Fever has 
been epidemic, and I have not quite escaped lately. However, 
we look forward to losing all the ' temperatures ' among the 
hills." Her friends seem also to have had some misgivings 
about her. Miss Hull, who refused to believe that one with 
Irene's exquisitely fair complexion could be as " tough " as 
she said she was, had observed that in one year she had done 
three years' work, getting up early and sitting up late; and 



THE LAST JOURNEY 309 

that sometimes she returned from the zenanas so dazed 
with fatigue that she seemed neither to see noi to hear any 
thing that was passing around her, yet woke up presently to 
become "the life of the party during the evening, the spirit 
within her habitually sustaining her infirmity. Earlier in the 
summer Irene had said to her, " I feel a great longing for a 
good rest " ; and, had she known how much fever her colleague 
had, Miss Hull would have restrained her from starting. But 
she was on the sick-list herself that day. Mrs. Tyndale-Biscoe 
says : " Dear Irene had for so long been full of her trip to 
Leh. . . . All the Holton Cottage party were to start together, 
as we were going to Sonamarg j but on July 8th my husband 
got fever, and wa had to defer our trip. So Irene started 
alone. . . . She had been rather run down, and let out, so 
unusual for her, that she had slight fever, but was full of 
getting away to fresh air. She looked very tired the day she 
left, and I put it down to all she had been doing." 

Preparations for the journey had been no light undertaking. 
They had to obtain a special parwana that is, an order for 
transports and supplies from the tehsildar, officers in Her 
Majesty's service being the only people allowed to travel 
without this, and to take all requisites, even eggs and milk, 
with them. "Yet," Miss Hull says, "up to the last day in 
Srinagar Irene was visiting her pupils, and, amid all personal 
preparations, sending off pictures to the Simla Exhibition to 
bring in some help to the schools, which were so much on her 
heart ! " The larger of the two pictures she sent to this, the 
thirtieth Annual Exhibition of the Simla Fine Arts Society, 
was sold at once, the smaller one subsequently. Their 
proceeds, her very last gift to the C.M.S. School, are acknow 
ledged in the 1899 report. And as she went down the river, 
fatigued, fevered, and agitated about keeping her fellow- 
travellers waiting through an unexpected delay, she was writing 
at length concerning "a pet scheme" for putting Hanover 



3io IRENE PETRIE 

Lodge at the disposal of "the dear inmates of Holton 
Cottage " when they left Kashmir on furlough in the autumn. 

The first twenty days of the journey are described in 
Irene's own graphic journal, supplemented by various letters. 
For the closing ten days of her life there are the full records 
penned to tell her nearest and dearest all they most wanted 
to know by companions who cared for her as lovingly as they 
themselves could have done. The impression made by the 
whole narrative on those who have already seen it was uttered 
not by a sentimental woman, but by a London business man, 
who wrote : " In reading this story of her last journey one 
seems to forget that it is the description of a summer holiday 
expedition ; an inner meaning comes out of it, and one feels 
that the ascent of those great mountain passes was indeed the 
ascent to the Gate of the Heavenly City of one who was sc 
fit to enter there." 

IRENE'S LAST JOURNAL.* 

" Thursday , July 8tb, is, after the manner of summer days in 
Srinagar, scorchingly hot, and the final preparations for a long 
journey, after all the days of winding up work, seem rather 
like a bad dream. However, all is made easy and pleasant 
by the kind aid of the friends at Holton Cottage. Farewells 
are said to them at midday, on embarking in the dunga, which 
carries tents, furniture, luggage, and the writer to Gunderbal. 
The Dal Lake is glowing, and the mountains are misty in the 
sunshine ; willow-trees and weeds give all a green effect, as 
the waterlilies are over, and the time of rose-coloured lotus 
and ibrown bulrushes has not yet arrived. The inhabitants 
seem to have plenty to talk about, as usual, as the boat scrapes 
under the bridges of the Mar Nullah Canal; and its roof 

1 Passages from letters are distinguished from the journal by being 
enclosed in brackets, 



THE LAST JOURNEY 311 

makes the ripe mulberries rattle down like a shower of hail 
from overhanging trees. Alas ! as we emerge from the canal 
the whole country appears like one vast lake, and it becomes 
evident that instead of getting to our destination by sunset, 
when the other boat, coming up the river from Baramula with 
the Peshawar ladies, is to meet us, we shall be many hours 
late. As a matter of fact, it is Friday morning before either 
boat reaches Gunderbal. [I am in a little of a plight, as the 
servant engaged to attend on me has disappeared, and my 
temperature goes up to 103, a point at which one does not 
enjoy cooking, washing up, or bed-making particularly. How 
ever, the boatman does anything he can, and I am wonderfully 
better next day.] The rushing Sind River, coming straight 
down from the snows, makes Gunderbal far cooler than 
Srinagar, though it is only fifteen miles off. 

" July gth. [I have a very pleasant meeting in the morning 
with Miss Werthmiiller and Miss Kutter, both from Canton 
Berne, and Miss Phillips, out since 1884, with whom I 
chum in one of the tents. All are of the C.E.Z.M.S., and I 
think we shall be a veiy happy party. The Swiss ladies 
are great walkers and mountaineers. Miss Phillips is not 
very strong, and travels in a dandy, in which she kindly 
insists on putting me for a part of our first march. My 
dear Biscuit is on his best behaviour, and my syce, who 
knows the whole country well, is a great help in many ways. 
The Peshawar ladies have brought a nice little Pathan cook- 
bearer, and their horse and syce.] The first day's march 
to Kangan is cheered by the scents of wild roses and rich 
jasmine, which drape the trees with snowy clusters for many 
miles. Halting to pitch tents within view of the crags of 
Haramuk, we are hailed by a kind greeting and invitation 
to dine from Captain and Mrs. Albert Tyndale-Biscoe, on 
their way down from Sonamarg." 

[In a letter to Elliott Miss Phillips thus describes the 



IRENE PETRIE 

meeting : c< It was just four weeks before she was called 
Home that your beloved Miss Irene Petrie stepped off her 
boat to greet us. I remember being struck by her brightness 
then, as I was often afterwards, and we had a delightful 
afternoon together. ... I soon got to love her, she was so 
thoughtful and did so many kind things unobtrusively. It 
was a great pleasure to me to watch her sketching, and how 
she loved singing ! " Mrs. C. E. Tyndale-Biscoe writes : 
"A letter from my sister-in-law with whom Irene dined at 
Kangan, says, ' That kind Miss Petrie gave me another lesson 
on the guitar last night. She told me her temperature was 
up to 103 the night before, when she was all alone in 
the dunga. I did feel sorry for her, but she seemed to 
think it rather a joke, and appeared as well and cheery as 
usual' "] 

"J u ty lotft. The ascent to Gund is a typically lovely 
march, between fresh green rice fields, trickling streams, 
blossoming trees, the rushing river, grassy slopes, forest-clad 
heights, and beyond, crags and snowy summits. Here, under 
walnut-trees, tents are pitched for Sunday p , July nth. 

" Monday, July i2t/t, is happily fine for that most beautiful 
of marches, the ascent to Sonamarg, and grand indeed the 
snow peaks and glaciers look above the endless pine forests. 
In two places the roaring Sind River has burst right over 
the path, and farther on we have our first experience of 
the snow slopes on avalanche tracks before reaching the 
green meadows of Sonamarg. 

"J u ty I 3^- Our last ride among the pine forests to Baltal 
is a very lovely one. Exquisite alpine flowers and asparagus 
fern grow in clusters under the trees. Here and there 
avalanches have fallen right across the river, which has forced 
a way through, between high cliffs of ice and snow, leaving 
a big snow slope on the bank, by which we are going. 
Many of the mountains have pinnacles like the Chamonix 



THE LAST JOURNEY 3*3 

Aiguilles. Our camp is just at the foot of the Zoji-La, 
opposite the peaks (17,000 feet), which overshadow the Cave 
of Amarnath, whence the Sind has it source. Though only 
9,000 feet above the sea, we find the breezes chilly already. 
[We have got on so far most comfortably and happily. I 
am with such nice, kind companions, and the mountain air 
is a wonderful tonic. I hope this grand trip will set me 
up for many a long day to come.] 

" July i4t/i. By 5 a.m. our procession is starting, and the 
four ladies, dandy, two ponies, six servants, ten baggage 
ponies, and ten coolies, wind across the first glacier of the 
Zoji-La in a thin line. After a long pull of 2,000 feet up 
the steep, zig-zag path, we give the green and wooded land 
of Kashmir a last look, and turn into the long valley between 
peaks 14,000 feet high and upwards, which is the summit of 
the Pass. Here for many hours we tramp along the snow. 
At first no water is seen in the hollow, then at its bottom 
the glacier is broken, and the streamlet of the Dras River 
appears, trickling between vast blue cliffs of ice, to the north 
east, for we have crossed the water-shed. Our horses look 
remonstrance for being brought into such places ; the little 
terrier from Peshawar is trembling with fright and cold in 
the bearer's arms. It is like nothing we have seen before, 
except pictures of Greenland. The river grows bigger and 
more tumultuous, and the horses are led through the water 
breast high to the path beyond. An oasis where the snow 
is melted, and pretty yellow and white anemones have come 
hurrying out, enables us to sit down for lunch ; but the water 
we boil for cocoa seems curiously cold, till we realise the 
effect of 11,500 feet of altitude upon boiling point. At last 
we reach spongy meadows, with only occasional glaciers. 
One or two of these are a test for the giddily disposed, as 
the path is only a foot wide, and below the ice slopes with 
tremendous steepness to the perpendicular cliffs rising from 



3 14 IRENE PETRIE 

the rushing river. At 4.30 p.m., after about ten hours' walking, 
we reach Matayan, where the stone-built, flat-roofed thana 
for travellers has already a Central Asian look. Here our 
tents flap vigorously in the bitter wind, and we pile on all 
our wraps. The village is small, but quite a concourse of 
patients . assemble, to whom Miss Werthmiiller, the ' doctor 
Miss Sahib,' ministers. 

"July i$th. Weather looks forbidding, and we feel rather 
tired still. However, Matayan is not attractive enough to 
detain us, and we start on again, down a bleak valley, brightened 
only with a yellow, flowering, poisonous kind of samphire. 
During the twelve miles' march to Dras we pass a solitary 
village of Pandras, where the poor, half-starved looking people 
must get a very scanty living on the late crops of barley 
growing on the few ledges which can be irrigated and culti 
vated among these bleak heights. It is a relief to get into 
the more open valleys and see small villages and patches of 
green. The people must lead a strange, isolated life, and their 
haggard faces and ragged, patched garments suggest great 
poverty ; the coolies brought in response to our parwana 
seem far weaker than Kashmiris. They wear conspicuous 
Mussulman charms, and carry a steel and tinder-box for 
kindling light with flints. Fuel is very scarce, the willows 
in a tiny plantation by the thanadar's house being almost 
the only trees in the land. But all that we see gives a 
pleasing impression on these Dras people. Two years ago, 
when Dr. Neve passed through, he was greeted by an old 
patient, who wished his little son to be given a Christian 
education. This boy, Karema, has been living at Holton 
Cottage ever since, and attending the C.M.S. School. All 
like him as a bright, willing little fellow, and hope he may 
become a true Christian and go and teach his own people 
some day. As yet, however, he has much to learn. Lately, 
when asked if he knew why the missionaries had come to 



THE LAST JOURNEY 315 

Kashmir, he replied that it must be because they could not 
get bread enough in their own country, an answer which one 
understands after visiting Dras. The thanadar is a Punjabi, 
and his ladies beg us to go and see them. Miss Werthmiiller 
and I pay them quite a long visit. They produce their stock 
of literature a volume of Hindu mythology with pictures, 
written in Sanskrit characters, which they can read, and a 
Kashmiri New Testament, which unhappily they cannot read. 
Christian teaching is evidently quite new to them, but they 
are delighted with some of Mrs. Grimke's Hindi texts, and 
with the promise of a Hindi Testament, which I hope to 
send them later on. 

"July i6t/t. We march twenty miles, nearly all on roads 
so bad that it is getting dark when we reach Kharbu. 
Leaving the broad Dras Valley, we are shut into a long, 
cheerless gorge, surrounded by bare, towering heights. At 
intervals the monotony of the path along the precipice 
becomes broken by a waterfall, which the ponies have to be 
led through, while we cross by a bridge made of some three 
thin, round, pine branches, with a few scraps of basketwork 
laid on them and held down by stones. Mountain travelling 
accustoms one to many things one could not dare in cold 
blood at home. Masses of wild roses in full bloom adorn 
the scene, many lizards inhabit the rocks, a large kind of 
magpie ventures close to us, and the voice of the cuckoo 
is heard higher than any other. 

"July 17 th. At an early hour tents are struck and sent 
on, and we try to cover as much ground as possible before 
the great heat sets in, for we have descended to 8,300 feet. 
Moreover, supplies are running short, and it is important 
to reach a place for Sunday where the servants can get 
a good meal, which they cannot do in these poor little 
hamlets. The road seems rather worse than yesterday's, 
its last stage being along the Suru River. But it is refreshing 



3 i6 IRENE PETRIE 

to look at the green villages about Kargil, and our camp 
on a hillside among poplars is a nice resting-place for 
Sunday -, July \%th. We read the service in the only shady 
nook that can be found a large stone by a stream under 
scraggy willows. The midday heat is intense, and we are 
glad to enjoy some cooler breezes in the starlight after dinner, 
till startled by a stream of water which has just broken 
through a nullah higher up the hill, bringing a small river 
right through our tents. 

"July iqth. Continued fatigue, fever, and the uncertainties 
of the next march, owing to the destruction of Kargil bridge, 
detain us for one more hot day, and we reap the benefit of 
the Kargil postmaster's intelligence in stopping various letters 
addressed to us at Leh. [We are all very glad of two 
days' rest here, though in this strange, barren land of huge 
mountains and roaring rivers the sun is shining with such 
strength as one has imagined in an Arabian desert only. 
The air is marvellously clear and dry. Our servants are all 
doing well, the ladies are delightful, and we are very thankful 
for freedom from accident and mishap so far.] 

"Jufy 2oth. There is nothing for it but to make a long 
detour up the Suru Valley, where at Kinor, fifteen miles on, 
the river can be crossed by another bridge, shaky enough, 
but just able to bear our procession in small detachments. 
We come under the brow of some perpendicular mountains, 
reminding one of pictures of Sinai, and arrive after dark at 
Tikzan. 

11 July zist. A gray day with showers unusual experience 
for these parts makes our march particularly pleasant. We 
begin with a steep ascent of 800 feet to a plateau, where are 
wild roses of all shades of pink and white ; then comes a 
descent into a valley; then another ascent of 2,000 feet 
and a delightful breezy walk over the hills, with splendid 
views on all sides. A curious rocky valley with reddish cliffs 



THE LAST JOURNEY 317 

like pillars leads down past the old Sikh fort to Paskim, 
and there, soon after our arrival, we have the pleasure of 
seeing Dr. Arthur Neve, Mr. Millais, and Mr. G. Tyndale- 
Biscoe, who have come from Dras by another pass, and are 
on their way to Nubra. They dine with us, and we hear 
how one of the shakiest of the bridges on this side of the 
Zoji-La was washed away the day after we crossed, and 
the sahibs had to wade through the roaring current ; also 
how a hundred patients had come to the doctor in Dras, and 
forty in Kinor that morning. 

"July 22nd. It is somewhat exciting to know that to-day 
we shall reach the Buddhist country. At Shergol we see 
the first monastery, some flags waving before it. Then, as 
the valley opens out, the rocks and mountains begin to 
assume the fantastic shapes associated with Tibet, and we 
feel more than hitherto the curious effect of the clear, rarified 
air in the deception it causes as to distances. The huge, 
spire-like rock at Mulbekh, with the monastery perched on 
its extreme pinnacle, seems higher than Ehrenbreitstein, and 
more striking in outline than Gibraltar. Here we see 
chortens and manis raised by the piety of many bygone 
generations and red-robed monks, and pigtailed men with 
jolly, smiling faces and willing ways. . . . The three sahibs 
invite us to dine in their cosy little camp. 

"July 2$rd. We follow the course of the Wakka for some 
miles farther, then the path leads by a small side stream 
along a gloomy nullah, walled in by absolutely bare rocks, 
and overlooked by one gigantic, perpendicular peak, with a 
horse's skeleton in the foreground. This is the Namika-La 
(13,000 feet high), and a more dried up, desolate place it 
would be difficult to imagine. The forbidding look of these 
mountains in the fierce noonday glare reminds one of the 
scenery near Aden. The Pass is easy throughout, and we 
enter another valley, in which are some more spire-like rocks. 



3i8 IRENE PETRIE 

crowned with ruined buildings; they must have been placed 
there by people as skilled in rock-climbing as the little 
Tibetan goats. Under one of these we pitch our tents, 
by a second village called Kharbu (11,780 feet high), 
shut in by the weirdest rocks and peaks, among which 
the watercourses, with fresh, running streams, have been 
cleverly led on all sides. The reds and yellows and purples 
of the hills at sunset are extraordinary ; but the would-be 
sketcher is completely baffled by the scenery here. All 
previously conceived ideas of sketching seem as upside down 
as everything else in Tibet. The queer shapes, utter absence 
apparently of atmospheric effects, unprecedented colours, 
and extraordinary dryness of the air, which arrests the flow 
of one's pigments, are difficulties hitherto undreamed of. 
European travellers of any kind are not common, and ladies 
with paint-boxes appear strange monstrosities in the puzzled 
eyes of the ladies of these parts, who come to say l ju ' 
(' Salaam ') very politely. The people all seem friendly ; and 
the thanadar, having received a letter about us from the 
Leh friends, is most attentive. Either from the elevation or 
the sun, both Miss Phillips and the writer are on the sick- 
list, so a three days' halt for recruiting is made. 

"July z^th is, alas ! almost a lost day. Few things have 
such a vexatiously incapacitating effect as this sun-fever ; 
the only longing is to lie in a heap, seeing, hearing, eating, 
doing nothing. 

" Sunday, July 2$th. The breezes are fresher, the invalids 
are better, and the able-bodied have discovered a charming 
little cathedral, a semi-cave in the great rock above the 
watercourse, with embellishment of delicate ferns and alpine 
flowers. Here, at 11.30 and 6.30, in a veritable temple not 
made with hands, the three sahibs, who reached Kharbu 
yesterday, join the four ladies for two very happy services. 
Dr. Neve is chaplain, the other sahibs read the lessons, and 



THE LAST JOURNEY 319 

a chapter of Ian Maclaren's Mind of the Master^ which I 
had brought with me, forms our sermon. I jot down a few 
Cathedral Psalter chants, and we venture on a fully choral 
service. Dr. Neve says it must be the first time the Psalms 
have been sung thus in Tibet, and these must be the first 
Christian services ever held in Kharbu. May they not be 
the last!" 

[" I can see Irene now dear girl ! leading us in our service 
of praise," writes Miss Phillips. "The hymns she chose 
were ' The sands of time are sinking,' ' For all the saints 
who from their labours rest,' and 'Peace, perfect peace, in 
this dark world of sin ? ' "] 

"July 26th. We enjoy a quiet day at picturesque Kharbu 
getting various sketches. The pretty green oasis, with waving 
barley in the fields and hedges of wild roses, is such a welcome 
break among the bare, stony hills around. Another great 
spire-like rock, crowned with ancient fortifications, which 
seem now quite inaccessible, forms the most striking feature 
of the scene." 

[She wrote her last letter to her sister that day, saying : 
" We are pretty far in the wilds now ; really among the lamas 
and monasteries and chortens and manis. This is indeed a 
queer land, unlike anything else. Even the rocks look 
perfectly uncanny. . . . You and the dear ones are constantly 
in my thoughts, and nearly every night I dream that we 
are in London together. It is so funny to alight from a 
Metropolitan train, or turn aside from a Piccadilly shop, as I 
did this morning, and open one's eyes in a tent in Tibet. . . . 
Miss Phillips, about whom we were rather anxious, consulted 
Dr. Neve, who recommended resting till Tuesday and taking 
our journey as easily as possible. So we shall hardly reach 
Leh before the 3ist, but still hope to see something of the 
missionary friends and their work. Dr. Neve has put me 
also on a course of quinine, so I expect to have no more 



320 IRENE PETRIE 

fever, and already feel quite well. We are all enjoying our 
stay in this interesting place."] 

"July 27//i We march farther up the valley, and ascend by 
an easy slope the Futu-La. The peaks all round are magnifi 
cent, and from the top of the Pass there are grand views of the 
ranges on all sides. Unlike the Zoji-La, these two last passes 
are free from snow. The chortens and manis on every side 
become countless as we descend two thousand feet to Lamayuru, 
which must therefore be specially holy. We go up to pay our 
respects to the monks and nuns in the queer-looking rookery 
of a monastery. Two wild, dirty figures, bare-headed and 
clothed in red rags, receive us, and conduct us through the 
doorway, with its big prayer-wheel, up narrow stairs and 
passages, past dark, gaping holes and clefts, and the proverbial 
fierce mastiff of Tibetan gonpas. A lock and key of unique 
design fastens the chapel door, and when this swings back we 
pass into a dimly lighted chamber, hung round with coloured, 
Chinese-looking scrolls; low kneeling-stools being ranged up 
and down the floor for the thirty or forty monks whose duty 
it is to pray for the community, they in their turn supporting 
the monastic institutions. Upon the altar, raised on gaudily 
painted boxes, are set small water vessels and oil lamps, all in 
burnished brass. Vases of flowers and fans of peacock feathers 
and paper lanterns are prominent. In the midst of these is 
an offering of grain to the long row of gaudy idols behind the 
altar, amongst whom Buddha and Chamba are conspicuous. 
A copper vessel is opened to display the ever-burning lamp 
a lighted wick floating in oil. We are shown the musical 
instruments gongs, trumpets, bells, rattles, shawms and 
the books. Permission is given to make pictures, and Miss 
Kutter and I have a busy twenty minutes photographing 
and sketching, in spite of the unspeakable stuffiness of the 
atmosphere. We ask after the nuns, and they produce one, a 
giggling young lady also dressed in red rags, who proudly 



THE LAST JOURNEY 321 

stands beside the lamas to be photographed. . . . The Lama- 
yuru people are not troubled with shyness. All round our 
tents they cluster, and two girls, with the assurance of Ladaki 
ladies, come inside bringing roses, and then squat down to 
watch us brushing our hair. AVe get rid of them happily 
by presenting each with an English pin ! " 

Besides the journal, which ends here, there are sketch-books 
containing more than a dozen water-colour sketches made 
by Irene during this journey : in the foregrounds manis and 
chortens, in the middle distance grotesque rocks of crudest 
colouring, in the distance towering snow mountains all rapid 
work en route, but full of vigour and spirit ; and one who 
knows the region says : " She has quite caught the rich colour 
ing peculiar to Ladakh." There are half a dozen pencil 
landscapes, too, with full memoranda for carrying them out 
in colour later on, and telling outlines of picturesque figures 
at many places, and curiosities from Lhasa seen at Lamayuru. 
The last sketch was made on July 3oth. 

In a letter written to Mr. C. E. Tyndale-Biscoe on July 27th 
Irene says : "We hope to reach Leh on July 3ist, get about 
four days there, and then return. The entire change is doing 
us all a world of good, and we are such a happy party." 

This same day she was eagerly planning that when the 
Swiss ladies turned back, she and Miss Phillips would go on 
together to Himis, which would have involved the great 
fatigue of riding a yak. There are two jottings in her diary 
for the coming August: "August tfh. Godson," to remind 
her of the birthday of the little son of Mr. Sircar, who had 
left Srinagar for the Baring High School at Batala some time 
since; and "August ZQth. Hindi Gospel for Dras thanadar's 
ladies," to remind her to follow up what had been her very 
last bit of missionary work. " Returning from Leh,' ; writes 
Miss Phillips, who sent the promised book, " I went in to see 

21 



IRENE PETRIE 

the women at Dras, and told them about her having passed 
away. They seemed to have been much impressed by her 
visit." In a letter to her sister of July iQth Irene had said 
she would be thinking specially of her elder nephew on August 
22nd (his third birthday), and had ordered the Child's Bible 
for him from London as her birthday gift. 

So truly in the midst of life she was in death ! " It is 
almost impossible," wrote Miss Coverdale, reporting to head 
quarters, "to realise that it is Miss Petrie who has gone 
and will never come back to us. She seemed so unlikely 
to die (if one may say such a thing) so full of life and 
energy and plans, not at all intended for death." 

But for her that toilsome journey had been one prolonged 
battle with a malady well known to be most fatal to the young 
and strong. "She started in spite of fever," says Dr. Neve, 
"justified, perhaps, in thinking that a change of air and a holiday 
would put her all right." " She suffered with fever off and 
on most of the time," say the Swiss ladies, " but was the life 
of the party, equal to more than any of the other three." It 
seemed to be no more than an ordinary attack of fever, not 
at all uncommon on the road from Srinagar to Leh. What 
could not be discovered yet was that while she was suffering 
from ordinary fever in the fierce midsummer of Srinagar 
the germs of typhoid had found their way into her system, 
doubtless through the foul smells of that unclean city. The 
exhilarating mountain air, and possibly her own spirit and 
determination, had retarded their development. 

Higher and higher she went, deeper and deeper into the 
heart of the mighty mountains it had been the dream of her 
life to see, intent only on the idea of renewing her strength 
that she might continue to tell those least likely to hear it from 
others that God loved them. And neither she nor anyone 
else knew how few were the marches between her and Home 
as she nightly pitched her moving tent. We have seen that 



THE LAST JOURNEY 323 

love of home was one of her ruling passions, and among the 
very few possessions she took with her to Leh were the 
portraits of her parents and her sister Evelyn. She had 
given up the earthly home freely and for ever; but now, 
her work being accomplished, she was to rejoin those dearly 
loved ones in a moment, and to be, like them, for ever " at 
Home with the Lord." 

After the happy services in "Kharbu Cathedral," as they 
called it, the three sahibs had gone on their adventurous way. 
A week or two later they approached Leh, expecting to see 
there the colleague whom they regarded, says Dr. Neve, as 
" the strongest and most able of the lady zenana visitors." 
But when they drew near the city a messenger met them with 
fatal news, and they entered it to find only a new-made grave. 

On July 2yth Irene had used for the last time the pen whose 
speed had always been a proverb among her friends. She 
had then done over two hundred miles of the journey, 
reckoning their detour. Sixty-six miles remained, of which 
Miss Phillips writes thus: 

"On July 28th Irene seemed perfectly well. I had been 
ill, and I was so touched by her thoughtfulness. We had to 
cross a very high pass. Being in a dandy, I travelled slowly ; 
and though I said nothing about it, I much dreaded the possi 
bility of an attack of illness when alone. A few miles on, 
dear, sweet Irene came to me and said : ' I am going to stay 
with you all the time. You shall not be alone at all to-day.' 
I remember so well her joy on reaching the top of the pass, 
and seeing the glorious views all round. 

" On July 2Qth we had a long and difficult march. After 
starting about 6 a.m. we found, four hours later, that the 
Indus had overflowed its banks, and it was necessary to go 
through the water. It was too deep to ride through, so 
she was carried over in my dandy an uncomfortable and 
rather dangerous experience. Then we had to cross a 



324 IRENE PETRIE 

perilous track on the face of the rock. It was fearfully 
hot, and she said to me, 'I am feeling this terrible sun 
so much.' I had to go on without stopping, as my men 
carried me very slowly. She stayed in the shadow of 
a great rock, and overtook me at the entrance of our 
camping-ground. We were both tired out, and after tea I 
begged her to go to bed. ' No,' she said ; ' it is so dull in 
bed. I could not bear it.' So she took a little sketch of 
the mountains in the glorious sunset glow." (One, if not 
two, vigorous water-colours of snow peaks rising beyond the 
gloom of dense woods represent that evening's work.) 

"About 8 a.m. on Friday, July 3oth, we passed through 
the picturesque village of Bazgo. 'I must just sketch this/ 
she said; and springing from her pony, she sat on a stone, 
and took a rapid pencil-sketch, putting in notes to guide her 
as to future colouring, and expatiating on the beauty of the 
scene. . . . She arrived at Pyang just as it was getting dusk. 
I had been there an hour, and ran out to meet her. She 
said, * I am so tired,' and cried a little. Miss Werthmuller 
suggested that it would be better for her to stay at Pyang 
till Saturday afternoon. 

"Saturday, July 3ist, I stayed with her, and the others 
went on in the early morning. At midday she said she did 
not think she could sit on her pony, and asked whether I 
thought we had better stay another day. All the servants 
and food had gone on ; it was a desolate place ; her tempera 
ture was 104, and I knew there was a doctor in Leh, twelve 
miles away. So I sent for the headman of the village, and 
told him he must get men to carry her on her bedstead ; 
and at 5 o'clock, when it was cooler, I took her off." 

Miss Kant thus describes her arrival : 

" Dear Miss Petrie had written to me about coming up 
to Leh this summer, and I was looking forward to her 
visit with great pleasure. . . . We expected her party during 



THE LAST JOURNEY 325 

the forenoon of Saturday; but only the two Swiss ladies 
arrived, telling us that Miss Phillips and Miss Petrie would 
not come in till the evening, as the latter had suffered 
very much from fever during the last three days. This 
news rather alarmed me, and I thought it would be better 
if Miss Petrie would share my own room, instead of 
being in a house in the compound with the other ladies, 
as I should be better able to look after her and 'mother* 
her, especially as Dr. Neve had told me that she had been 
really overworking herself before leaving Srinagar. How glad 
have I been that God did put this into my mind ! We 
went out in the evening to meet the two ladies, and were 
greatly alarmed first to see Miss Petrie's riderless pony led 
in by the syce, and presently to see her carried on a bedstead. 
But in her lively manner she made light of it, and wanted 
to walk the rest of the way. She was carried into the com 
pound, and just rose to walk into my room, which she was 
never to leave. ... I found her temperature alarmingly 
high, and at once went for Dr. Neve. 

" On Sunday she wanted to get up for the English service, 
to which she was eagerly looking forward, and was greatly dis 
tressed when I said that Dr. Neve did not wish her to rise till 
he had seen her. Flowers from my little garden gave her so 
much pleasure, and she repeatedly said she felt as if she were 
in old England again." 

Miss Phillips says of that Sunday : " She seemed so lively 
and bright that there was difficulty in keeping her in bed. 
Mrs. Francke told me afterwards they thought she could not 
be ill at all. ... I told her all about the service, which seemed 
to please her. Miss Werthmiiller and Miss Kutter had to 
return to India on Wednesday ; but I felt I could not leave 
her, so stayed on and helped to nurse her." 

Only on that day was the real nature of her illness susperted. 
On Monday, August 2nd, Dr. Neve left her in the hands of 



326 IRENE PETRIE 

Dr. Graham, State surgeon at Leh, a man as able as himself, 
having arranged that special messengers should recall him at 
once if matters took an unfavourable turn. Her fine constitu 
tion and the skilled care of Miss Kant gave Dr. Neve every 
reason to expect that the fever would run a normal and favour 
able course, approach the crisis on his return some ten days 
later, and detain her in all some six weeks at Leh. Not being 
absolutely certain yet that it was typhoid, they never told her 
what they feared ; and the only thing that seemed to distress 
Irene herself was the breaking up of others' plans through her 
detention. On Tuesday she remarked that the illness must 
have been sent to teach her patience, words showing that she 
had no idea that her end was drawing near. " I was, however, 
strongly impressed," says Miss Phillips, " with the conviction, 
not that her life was nearly over, but that some great change 
in it was at hand ; that she would not resume the old routine 
in Srinagar. She seemed to be recapitulating and weighing 
all her work there, as if she were closing a chapter." 

We return now to Miss Kant's narrative : " Monday was a 
trying night, and Miss Phillips, to whom she seemed greatly 
attached, sat up with her. ... On Tuesday afternoon the 
home mail arrived. It contained a photograph of her younger 
nephew (a baby scarcely a year old) in his mother's arms. 
How she did love to have this picture ! I am truly thank 
ful that it arrived on that day; had it come a day later, I 
fear she would hardly have had power to recognise it. I put 
it on a little table beside her bed, with a vase of sweet peas, 
mignonette, and carnations. Her eyes rested on it again and 
again, and her frequent remark was, c Are they not dear, sweet 
things ? ' I am so glad our Heavenly Father gave her this last 
taste of earthly love ; she did so fully enjoy it, and was so 
thankful for it. On Wednesday there were marked signs of 
sinking strength. ... In the afternoon I read her the first 
page of her sister's letter, and she enjoyed it much, looking 



THE LAST JOURNEY 327 

forward to the rest, which we were never able to give her. 
She remarked, 'I did worry very much about several things 
during the first day, but I have asked our Father to take it all 
away, and He has done so, and now I can be quite contented.' 
It was so touching to hear her expressions of thankfulness 
for the little I was able to do for her. We could not do very 
much, but I know from all the members of our mission that 
what we did was done in Christian love, and it was a pleasure 
to be able to do it. A remark of hers on Wednesday, when I 
was doing something for her, was, * I am so glad the Lord sees 
everything you are doing for me. I am only one of the least, 
yet He has said He will reward what ye do for one of the 
least.' This was about the last really intelligent utterance. 
On Thursday consciousness was fading away more and more. 
All through Friday she was perfectly unconscious and did not 
speak one word." 

On Friday morning Mrs. Fichtner wrote to Mrs. Tyndale- 
Biscoe that Irene was lying unconscious, but that Dr. Graham 
saw no actual danger; and Miss Phillips wrote a letter to 
her sister, suggesting that on its receipt i.e., six weeks later 
a telegraphic message of love should be sent from Canada. 
But in the late afternoon Dr. Graham noticed a failure of 
the pulse that made him send instantly for Dr. Neve, express 
ing a fear that he might not be in time. This was the first 
note of real apprehension. In the evening she began to speak 
again, making an inquiry about her pony's feed on the level 
of ordinary talk that reassured Miss Phillips, who went to 
bed feeling quite happy about her. But the experienced 
Miss Kant saw an expression in her face showing that the 
words merely reflected what had passed in her mind before 
consciousness failed, and said this was the worst sign of all. 
Miss Kant continues : " Dr. Graham seemed more hopeful 
when he left her at 10, but gave orders that he was to be 
summoned again at 12. I then put her in charge of Mrs. 



IRENE PETRIE 

Francke, and for some time after heard her trying to sing. 
Then all was quiet, till suddenly Mrs. Francke called me. I 
was at the bedside in a moment, just in time to see the 
last breath taking its flight from this earthly body." 

She was spared the pain of parting tears, 

She was spared all mortal strife ; 
It was scarcely dying ; she only passed 

In a moment to endless life. 

The last words she listened to before she became un 
conscious were these : " Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, 
whose mind is stayed on Thee : because he trusteth in Thee." 
The Christmas child, whose name was Peace, who gave her 
life to preach the Gospel of Peace, who would, we are told, 
always be remembered first of all as " the peacemaker," 
entered into the peace of God under the shadow of the 
great monastery with its vain dream of the peace of Buddha. 

Very unusual had the issue of the illness been. After 
an abnormally lengthened preliminary stage, suddenly, ere 
the crisis was reached, heart failure supervened, due partly 
to the great altitude and fatigue of the journey, partly to 
reaction, after fighting the malady inch by inch instead of 
succumbing to it at once. Four restless days of fever, 
nearly two days of unconsciousness, then, without gasp or 
struggle, almost imperceptibly, her spirit passed, summoned in 
a moment, from the promise of many years of happy, fruitful 
work, into the immediate Presence of her Lord. Most literally 
fulfilled was His promise : " If a man keep My word, he 
shall never taste of death." To her, even more than to 
most, gradual loss of health, slowly failing power to accom 
plish what she willed to do, prolonged helplessness, would 
have been a keen trial. Moreover, this life had been sweet 
to her, and ready as she was to die, she, who was dear to 
so many, and to whom her chosen work was so dear, had 
many reasons for desiring to live. So for her, and surely it 



THE LAST JOURNEY 329 

was a. token that God had pleasure in her single-hearted 
service, there was no " sadness of farewell," no vain longing in 
the last hours for her dearest, no sense of our sorrow in losing 
her. One Friday she was sketching meadow and mountain 
with her wonted delight, next Friday she was breathing out 
her life in song in the hour of release from all suffering. 
For full of hopes and plans for the morrow as she was, her 
work had already been faithfully done, and " she fell asleep 
like a tired child on her father's knee." Such is the simple 
description of her end given by the young wife of Mr. 
Francke, who adds : "I think it a great blessing to have 
been allowed to be present when this blessed child of God 
was called Home. ... All who witnessed it will never forget 
the impression it made." 

And for her who lay now, they said, " with a lovely flush 
on her cheek, looking so beautiful that it was hard not to 
believe she would presently awaken as from happy dreams," 
for her who had all her life made music, this same Mrs. 
Francke gave her harp-case, and out of it Mr. Francke and 
Dr. Graham wrought the coffin ; and only Christian hands 
bore her to her grave in the Moravian God's Acre outside 
Leh, to rest beside the noble Marx and Redslob. 

On Sunday evening, August 8th, all the missionaries and 
all the native Christians gathered in the little chapel, with 
Captain Stewart, the Queen's representative at Leh, who 
had sent most beautiful flowers and had desired to be one 
of the bearers. After a Tibetan hymn Dr. Graham read 
the Anglican Burial Service, the four ladies sang " For all 
the saints who from their labours rest," Mr. Francke gave 
an address, and then they sang in Tibetan the beautiful 
aria "Wo findet die Seele die heimath, die ruhe." The 
service was concluded in the God's Acre with "Jesus mcine 
Zuversicht" in Tibetan, followed by Mr. Fichtner reading 
the Tibetan litany, portions of Scripture, and more German 



330 IRENE PETRIE 

chorales. Dr. Graham then finished the Anglican service, 
and the ladies sang "Peace, perfect peace." 

So Irene " sleeps to wake " where the giant mountains she 
had from earliest childhood longed to see keep watch and ward 
over the little grass-grown grave. Miss Kant planted clematis, 
" caring for it as if it had been the grave of her own sister " ; 
and every Easter Day the Moravians meet on that spot to give 
thanks in a special liturgy for those who have departed in the 
faith since the Feast of the Resurrection was last celebrated. 

On Sunday, August i5th, there were memorial services at 
Srinagar. " I preached a funeral sermon at St. Luke's," says 
Mr. Knowles, "from the text i Cor. xv. 19, exhorting the 
congregation to remember that the better part of our hope 
in Christ is laid up for us in heaven. Miss Petrie, I know, 
felt this very much, or she could not, as she told me once, 
have done the things she did. The hymn after the sermon, 
1 For ever with the Lord,' was one of her favourites." At the 
evening service in All Saints' Mr. Tyndale-Biscoe preached 
from i Cor. xv. 58, referring to her bright example and the 
Power that led her to leave all for Christ's sake, saying that 
while many are ready to scoff at missionaries and suggest that 
they have ulterior motives, no one could say that it was desire 
for position or love of travel that brought her to Kashmir. 
She had heard the call of Christ Himself, and obeyed it. 

Before the darling youngest child, for whom she had 
cherished so many fond hopes, was given to her, Irene's 
mother carefully copied out in her graceful writing a poem 
called " The Missionary's Grave," which concludes thus : 

Here a soldier's ashes rest 

In this desert spot of ground ; 
Long the foe around him pressed, 

Now he is with glory crowned. 
Let the world its heroes praise, 

Round their tombs its laurels twine ; 
May the Christian's fighting days 

And the Christian's grave be mine ! 



CHAPTER XIV 

AN INSPIRING MEMORY 

If I could have such a memory of one as dear to me, I think the joy 
would outweigh the sorrow. A Letter of Condolence. 

One death in the mission field is worth six lives at home. T. V. 
FRENCH, Bishop of Lahore. 

" T RENE PETRIE was universally and deeply lamented," 
JL says the historian of the C.M.S., and it is no mere 
stereotyped phrase concerning one who had, like King David, 
bowed the heart of all who knew her. Few taken so early can 
have been more widely mourned, can have left so far-reaching 
an influence. The news came as an enduring personal sorrow 
to very many to whom she was " our beloved Irene," and 
ever extending circles all wept and bewailed her, beginning 
at Leh with those who had nursed her so tenderly, one of 
whom had first seen her that day four weeks ago, the other 
had taken her as a slight acquaintance into her room to 
mother her less than one week before. " What one felt and 
still feels about it," wrote Miss Kant to Mrs. Tyndale-Biscoe, 
" one can hardly say. It is too much for words. She had 
grown so dear to us during the few days she was amongst us." 
And the doctor, who had done all that human skill could 
do for her, wrote thus to a medical confrere : " Why such a 
strong, earnest, clever, happy worker should have been taken, 
our short sight cannot see. For India's sake I would most 
gladly have taken her place." 



332 IRENE PETRIE 

The news reached Srinagar, and " it was as when a standard 
bearer fainteth." Dr. Neve wrote in Picturesque Kashmir 
(p. 123): "Our stay in Ladakh was saddened by the illness 
and death of Miss Irene Petrie, a charming and accomplished 
young lady " ; and in his annual report : " The Mission 
Hospital has lost a true and generous friend. An honorary 
missionary of rare gifts and accomplishments, a good linguist, 
unselfish, sympathetic in manner, given to good works, her 
sudden Home call has left a gap in our small mission band 
which it will be hard to fill " ; and in a private letter : " All the 
mission will feel it, not merely for a few weeks, but for months 
and years. But surely one will ever be thankful for having 
known her, till thf time of the ever-blessed reunion takes place." 

Mr. Knowles wrote to headquarters : " I scarcely know 
how to write. . . . 'Tis hard to say, and still harder to feel, 
God's will be done. Miss Petrie was such a true friend, 
such a devoted worker, such a real helpmeet in the work. 
Only a little while was she spared to us, but her goodness 
and her earnestness will live in our memories for many a 
day. Only a short while was she spared to the work, but 
her ministration among these people of Kashmir will endure 
for a long time as a power in the lives of many of them." 

Miss Hull wrote : " The news came to me as a most 
terrible shock, and it seemed so much to change and sadden 
one's life that one so bright and full of life and energy should 
have so soon ended her earthly course. I have indeed lost 
in her a most kind and loving friend, whom I shall sorely 
miss. ... I trust I shall come in time to rejoice with her 
who rejoices now in her Saviour's Presence ; at present the 
sense of loss prevails over everything." At a meeting in 
London in 1899 she said: "Irene Petrie's short and bright 
life and work among us will always be a holy memory." 

Mr. Tyndale-Biscoe wrote : " Kashmir has lost the truest 
of friends. For many months she has been a true, loving 



AN INSPIRING MEMORY 333 

sister to us, and we have shared one another's joys and 
sorrows." 

Mrs. Tyndale-Biscoe wrote : " It seems impossible to 
realise that dear Irene has gone from us. Such a wonderful 
life of usefulness and brightness, spent in love and thought- 
fulness for others; herself always last, or rather nowhere at 
all. She has left a very great blank in our home; she was 
so entirely one with us. ... But we both feel that it is one 
of the happiest calls Home that we know, for one so ready 
and just a little tired with the burden and heat of the day." 

Miss Coverdale wrote to headquarters : " We could ill 
spare her, and are inclined to think that God's work here 
must suffer through her removal; but we know that He 
would not have taken her if His work or plans would be 
hindered thereby. It has been my sad duty to tell all her 
zenana pupils, and without exception there has been great 
lamenting." 

Miss Howatson wrote on January loth, 1898: "I visit 
several of Miss Petrie's zenanas, and it is a great happiness 
to me to hear the oft-repeated words of praise and love spoken 
of her by her pupils. She is much missed and mourned 
by them. Some of the women, when they first heard the 
sad news, shed honest tears of sorrow, and we wept together. 
But one brave little Mohammedan girl said, 'Never mind, 
Miss Sahib. Surely she is with God now, for see how she 
loved and served Him here on earth.' " 

The news reached the homeland, and fresh as if she had 
not been four years away was the grief over what one 
neighbour called " the overwhelming calamity of her ever- 
to-be-lamented early death." 

" I feel completely stunned," wrote a friend living in 
Switzerland. " Her dear, sweet face is looking at me now 
from my writing-table, where I have always loved to have 
it, and seems to say, It is not true." 



334 IRENE PETRIE 

" She was such a bright, devoted young creature ! It seems 
as if a star had gone out," wrote a London friend. 

"The world seems emptier since your sweet sister left it," 
wrote the author of C.M.S. Sketches. 

11 Our dear, bright, splendid Irene," wrote the distinguished 
artist who had painted her portrait, "how dearly we loved 
her ! How we admired and prized her ! One feels every 
thing poorer without her." 

" I cannot express the feeling that comas over me when 
I think that I shall never more look upon that lovely form 
or listen to her voice," wrote a life-long friend, who only 
survived her a few months. 

"Like everyone else who came across her," wrote her 
friend at Mitcham, " I found her friendship and the winning 
influence of her bright spirit inexpressibly helpful; and it is 
hardly possible to say how much we owe here to the work 
she did in helping to start and promote missionary interest 
among our girls. They loved working for her; and it was 
very touching to see the real sorrow with which they heard 
of her death." 

The following words, pathetic in their very simplicity, were 
written by a Highland woman, in whose cottage Irene had 
twice spent some days : " Dear, dear Miss Petrie has gone 
home sweet, loving, kind, gentle, noble Miss Petrie ! When 
I read it, I just sat down at the fireside and wept till I 
was tired." 

The news reached friends in Canada, the United States, 
New Zealand, Japan, and in each place the sound of 
lamentation was taken up. 

" It seems impossible," wrote the friend in Japan whom 
we met in Chapter IX. invalided home, " to believe 
that it can be true. She looked so bright and young, 
as if she might have so many years of beautiful work 
before her." 



AN INSPIRING MEMORY 335 

But in this chorus of voices lamentation is not the dominant 
note, nor even admiration, nor love, though these notes ring 
out loud and clear, as is seen by the following expressions of 
appreciation of what she did from India, and of affection for 
what she was from Britain. And all these things were written 
by those to whom she had no tie of blood, for she was as poor 
in relatives as she was rich in friends. 

A Canadian traveller, who arrived in Srinagar with an 
introduction to her, says : " I had the great privilege of 
meeting her. She was one of those rare and precious beings 
whom to know is to love. ... I was struck with the rare gifts 
of both head and heart that Heaven had favoured her with. 
She took such an intelligent interest in her work, and at 
the same time was so bright and cheerful and full of human 
sympathy and kindness." 

A London friend, who visited Kashmir in 1898, says : " I 
had a longing to see Kashmir ; but it seemed so sad to come 
here with no bright welcome from dear Irene, that I almost 
shrank from it. ... I have asked many people about her, 
and I am much struck by worldly people as well as mis 
sionaries witnessing to the great charm of her sunny bright 
ness and sympathetic thought for others. They tell me 
how gifted she was, how ready to join in all the harmless 
amusements of the station, while the missionaries testify to 
her thorough, unfaltering devotion to duty and power of 
winning the people." 

Another traveller in India says : " She was so talented ! I 
thought her gift for languages quite marvellous when I went 
with her to the zenanas and school one day. Her life seemed 
to me a very complete one, and she was an example to ns all 
of diligence and love." 

Dr. Graham says : " Her example and influence have, I 
know, told widely." 

Miss Phillips says : " Her reputation in India was that of 



336 IRENE PETRIE 

a splendid worker. Her sweet, fair, beautiful life will bear 
much fruit far and wide." 

Out of many, we quote these brief expressions of affection 
by two friends in England and America, by a schoolfellow, and 
by an aged neighbour who had known from childhood Irene's 
mother as well as Irene : 

" My love for dear Irene was very great." 

" She was to me exceedingly precious, and her friendship 
one of God's blessings." 

" It seems too sad poor, sweet thing ! to think of her 
being ill and dying among strangers. I did love her so ! " 

" I do think I loved Irene as if she had been my own 
daughter." 

Then above the regret, the admiration, and the love, rises the 
chord of inspiration, in which blend the quickened faith that 

Transplanted human worth 
Will bloom to profit otherwhere, 

and the rekindled desire to follow Christ here as she followed 
Him. Again and again in letters about her occur such phrases 
as "called to higher service," "quickly promoted"; and to 
many the thought of the larger life beyond seems to grow 
luminous as they contemplate a life begun thus on earth. 
Not only she herself, but her special gifts and acquirements 
must surely live on. 

Here, from widely different places and people, are one or 
two expressions of this faith and this desire : 

"Though her visits to the zenanas are over, her work, we 
know, is not done." 

" How truly she is still living and speaking, though not still 
here ! " 

" How very near she seems ! " 

" Somehow, she often seems so near now, as if one could 
talk things over with her. No more human limitations for 
her immortal spirit, but strength always to do." 



AN INSPIRING MEMORY 337 

"It seemed to me unlike a death. She was needed by 
her Saviour to rnew her work in a higher sphere." 

" As I think of our beloved Irene at rest, I think of her 
also as having been removed from work below to something 
nobler and perhaps more difficult above, for which our Father 
has seen her still better fitted. I do not believe her active, 
clever, capable, spiritual mind and her loving, earnest, ardent 
soul have ceased to work for the Master she loved and lived 
for, and for the souls for whom she willingly laid down her 
precious life." 

" What a beautiful, consecrated life it was ! What a glorious 
life it is, freed from all earthly bonds, and having entered into 
the fuller service of Heaven ! " 

" Heaven is getting richer." 

" I think of her as a power not less but rather more than 
ever active in the Master's service; and the thought seems 
to bring with it a greater longing than ever not to suffer 
oneself to fall too far behind her, or to become too unworthy 
of her influence, her example, and her love." 

"Called away in youth, yet leaving so intensely bright a 
memory that she will live long in influence." 

"She will ever be an inspiration for all that is good." 

" You will like to know what an inspiration she was to me, 
and how often the thought of her, with her brilliant gifts and 
attractive, sweet ways, given so absolutely to God's service 
in Kashmir, has given quite a new colouring to missionary 
life and its possibilities, and an impetus to my missionary 
interest. Her example must have stirred and quickened 
very many; and her so sadly early, and to us mysterious, 
Home call will, I trust, result in many pressing forward to 
try and fill her place." 

" I so often think of her longing that the women of Kashmir 
should know more of the Love and Holiness of God ; and 
have often prayed for this, and for the many houses she 

22 



338 IRENE PETRIE 

visited. It is such a privilege to be able to help her work 
by continuing to pray for it," says an Irish friend. 

" Let us pray every day for all those dear women over 
whom she yearned, who heard the sweet Word of Life from 
her," says a correspondent in New Zealand. 

And the three next quotations are from letters of Canadians 
who knew her by report and by her writings only : 

" It is good to know that such lives are possible." 

" I had come to feel that I knew and loved her too." 

" What a lovely life hers was ! May her memory abide 
as a blessing in the land for which she sacrificed herself so 
freely!" 

This last letter is from Srinagar : "I came to Srinagar 
motherless and fatherless, and thinking myself friendless, 
as everyone here was a perfect stranger to me. But I was 
not friendless long, for the Master had one of His own 
disciples ready to love and care for me. This one chosen 
to be a friend in the truest sense of the word was Miss 
Petrie. To know her was to love her, and I loved her 
from the first. All my little troublesome thoughts used to 
vanish on seeing her face with an ever welcome smile, and 
hearing her voice; and I always left her feeling better and 
braver and happier after our meeting, and for her love 
and sympathy. She became a part of my daily life here, 
and I never could imagine Srinagar without her. Your 
dear sister's life here has been, to everyone who knew her, 
a pattern of holiness, love, and charity. It is my constant 
prayer now that I may be helped in my endeavour to follow 
in her footsteps, and be as worthy and ready to enter into 
His gates with thanksgiving as she was." 

At the Church Congress in London in 1899 a note of 
encouragement for our generation was sounded when, turning 
from mere ecclesiastical questions and controversy about 
religion, they considered Experimental Religion itself as a 



AN INSPIRING MEMORY 339 

force manifested in the practical work of the Church at home 
and abroad. One of the strongest papers on this subject by 
a well-known layman led up to the following climax : " Whence 
come the increasing number of missionaries, men and women, 
many at their own charges, leaving refined and cultivated 
home circles to spread the Gospel of Christ ? Whence 
come the Pilkingtons, and the Fremantles, and the Irene 
Petries ? " 

A striking proof that her life had touched other lives to 
bless them was seen in the impulse in different quarters to 
perpetuate Irene's memory by doing something for Kashmir. 
Any costly, conventional monument would have been contrary 
to her character and wishes. In addition, however, to the 
simple tablet near to the organ and to the marble com 
memorating her parents and sister in the parish church of 
Kensington, a brass, with inscription in Urdu, has been 
placed in St. Luke's Church, Srinagar, by two fellow-mission 
aries " in loving memory of Fanny Butler and Irene Petrie." 

But to us she seems to say, Kashmir had my life; may 
it not have some of your service, or at least some of your 
substance ? 

One girl friend, whose proficiency on the violin had made 
her a valuable ally to Irene in the concerts she so often 
organised, proposed to her music pupils most of them 
children, none of them personally acquainted with Irene 
to undertake the support of an orphan girl, saved from the 
famine, as an " Irene Petrie " scholar in Miss Hull's board 
ing school. This " Inasmuch Society," whose existence be 
came known to me quite accidentally, has since adopted two 
more children, and members who cannot contribute the penny 
a week asked for, promise at any rate to pray regularly for 
their little proteges. 

The Irene Petrie Memorial fund was the outcome of 
proposals independently made by various friends. Of late 



340 IRENE PETRIE 

years the C.M.S. has given to individuals, parishes, and 
local unions, contributing a fixed sum annually, the privilege 
of appropriating one of its workers abroad as their " own 
missionary." A sum will, it is hoped, be raised, to produce 
annually an " Irene Petrie Fund," which shall be used by 
the C.M.S. to provide Kashmir with one more missionary. 
A considerable amount has now been collected, and some 
of the gifts are noteworthy enough to be mentioned. The 
earliest offering was the first of three gifts, amounting to 
several pounds in all, from the children of the Latymer Road 
Mission School, mostly gathered in coppers. A factory 
girl, who was a diligent student in the College by Post, 
spent some of her scanty leisure in earning half a crown 
to give. Almost the last act of a friend over eighty years 
of age was to write a cheque for the fund, and speak in 
eager appreciation of Irene's work. Another gift was sent 
by the daughter-in-law of William Carey's colleague Marsh- 
man, writing in extreme old age, little more than three 
months before her death, and recalling Irene's interest in 
spiritual things as a member of her Bible class when a 
very young girl. Of the largest gifts, one was a thank- 
offering for recovery from critical illness, " in loving memory 
of Irene " ; one was part of a large sum dedicated to foreign 
missions in consequence of zeal awakened by a talk with 
Irene before she went to India; one was from a lady whose 
own hope of offering for work in Kashmir had been 
thwarted ; and a sum of nearly thirty pounds was the result 
of a collection made in Montreal by a Canadian who knew 
Irene only by repute. 

Montreal has given yet another gift to Kashmir. Chapter 
VI. told how the John Bishop Memorial Hospital was 
endowed for Dr. Butler, and in what loss and disappoint 
ment that promising enterprise ended. Since then the 
erection of a Jubilee State Hospital for women in Srinagar, 



AN INSPIRING MEMORY 341 

and the enlargement of the women's wards in the C.M.S. 
Hospital, has lessened the need of it there. The C.M.S., to 
whom, with the consent of the C.E.Z.M.S., Mrs. Bishop 
transferred its endowment in 1899, are therefore re-erecting 
it at Islamabad, and sent out in March, 1900, as its future 
medical officer, Miss Minnie Gomery, M.D. She is the 
daughter of a clergyman at Montreal, and in her medical 
course at Bishop's College she carried off every prize for 
which she could compete, and ended by winning the gold 
medal. As a young medical student looking forward to 
missionary work, she heard so much about Irene that she 
desired to go to Kashmir, of all fields. The Montreal Branch 
of the Gleaners' Union have pledged themselves to support 
her as the gift of Canada to Kashmir, and as one result 
of Irene's missionary career, Dr. Butler has at last a worthy 
successor. 

Irene always diverted attention from herself to her field, 
saying in her letters, " The work, not my work, remember." 
Thither, therefore, we will, in conclusion, follow Dr. Gomery. 

" The impression of Irene's beautiful life lives on, and helps 
us in many ways," writes Mrs. Tyndale-Biscoe in October, 
1899. "What she was to us and in our home I never can 
express in words. Whenever I hear music and look on 
lovely scenery I seem to miss her most; but they are all 
such happy memories, one can feel thankful they have been 
given to us." 

" One of my Mohammedan masters," writes Mr. Tyndale- 
Biscoe in December, 1899, "was telling me how his little 
sisters and mother missed the visits of Irene, and were often 
talking of her. Thanks to Miss Petrie and Miss Howatson, 
he said, his sisters now read very well ; and he intends (their 
father being dead) to give his sisters in marriage to educated 
men, who need companions and not furniture ; and holds to 
his disapproval of child-marriage, though people are saying 



342 IRENE PETRIE 

it is a shame the elder one is not married yet. The little 
girls, now fourteen and twelve years old, are teaching others 
to read, and one of them taught the master himself the Ten 
Commandments in rhyme ; he then taught them to his boys 
at school. Their volunteering to make garments for a neigh 
bour aged ninety-eight, to save her a tailor's bill, was a little 
act of kindness so unprecedented in Kashmiris that it formed 
another proof that the hours of patient labour in that house 
had not been lost." 

The following incident is related by the wife of a 
master in the C.M.S. School, who, as Miss Rudra, was an 
assistant C.E.Z, missionary at Srinagar. She is the daughter 
of a Bengali clergyman, and sister of a master at the S.P.G. 
College at Delhi. " I visited a pupil of your dear sister's," 
Mrs. Singh writes, " a girl of twenty, who said, with tears in 
her eyes, that she had known of many teachers coming to 
her house to teach, but that no teacher was like her own, who 
taught the way to God, without money and without price. 
I am quite sure that the seed which is sown in such hearts 
as these will never be choked, but will some day bring forth 
fruit unto eternal life." 

Within a fortnight of her departure from Srinagar Irene her 
self wrote : " One is quite content if one is allowed to scatter 
a few seeds, and to help to lay foundations for the people 
who come after to make something of." Seedtime has come 
in Kashmir ; but it is still dark winter, and only when summer 
brings harvest can results be estimated. Such shrewd 
observers as Sir Herbert Edwardes and Bishop Cotton uttered 
their deliberate opinion that missionaries as a rule underrate 
the amount of their success. And our Lord Himself 
illustrated the saying, whose truth He endorsed, " One soweth 
and another reapeth." When, after three years of sowing, He 
lay in the tomb, the world said that a first promise of success 
had been followed by utter failure. Yet, in consequence qf 



AN INSPIRING MEMORY 343 

His sowing, the apostles reaped three thousand souls in one 
day. The world had not allowed for His " glorious Resurrec 
tion and Ascension, and the Coming of the Holy Ghost," 
and its appreciation of His life work was utterly at fault. 
So now the world entirely fails to gauge the forces at work 
in such a field as Kashmir. And when the missionaries of 
the future seem suddenly to enter into the labour of the past 
and present missionaries whose story has been told here, 
even the Church will be astonished, instead of recognising 
in their swift success the inevitable result of all the previous 
patient toil. " The husbandman waiteth for the precious fruit 
of the earth, being patient over it. ... Be ye also patient ; . . . 
for the coming of the Lord is at hand." " The King is 
coming," wrote Irene, very shortly before her Home call. 
And the one certainty is that in due season they will reap, if 
they faint not 

Half a century ago Sir H. Lawrence, one of those Christian 
Governors who sought to establish the rule of Christ as 
well as the rule of Britain in India, was asked by the 
Maharaja of Kashmir to suggest a design for his newly 
issued coinage. He gave him the letters "I.H.S.": in 
Greek, the first half of the Name that is above every name ; 
in Latin, the initials for "Jesus, Saviour of men." Every 
time, therefore, that a Kashmiri handles the silver coin of 
his country, he touches the superscription of the true " King 
of the Nations " (Rev. xv. 3, R. V., margin), and unconsciously 
passes on the symbol of a sure and certain hope that the 
troubled history of Kashmir leads up to the hour when there, 
as in all the world, a King shall reign in righteousness. 

THE END 



Printed by Hazell, Watson, & Viney, Ld., London and Aylesbury. 




BV 3280 K37C3 1905 TRIN 
Car us~Wilson, Ashley, 
Irene Petrie, missionary to 
140023