/
*-■
UJ>di*
THE LIBRARY
OF
THE UNIVERSITY
OF CALIFORNIA
PRESENTED BY
PROF. CHARLES A. KOFOID AND
MRS. PRUDENCE W. KOFOID
Sunshine and Shadow
on the
Tibetan Border
By
FLORA BEAL SHELTON
Cincinnati:
Foreign Christian Missionary Society
COPYRIGHT, 1912,
FOREIGN CHRISTIAN MISSIONARY SOCIETY.
x5Yf
DEDICATED
TO
WHOSE THUNDER I STOLE AND WHOSE ENCOURAGE-
MENT WHEN THINGS WENT WRONG MADE
THIS WORK POSSIBLE.
Preface
A great man might write this preface and tell you
a lot of great and good things about this little book ;
then you would be bitterly disappointed when you
turned the pages and found only real things; things
that happen every day; hard things, prosaic things,
suffering and pain ; suffering and death with no hope
of a hereafter, pain without cessation and relief. Such
things as these are in the book, but also the wish goes
through and through it that the tiny golden thread of
love, of the Infinite Love that prompts all good, may
shine for you and teach a greater meaning to living
and the greater usefulness of a life spent in the serv-
ice of the Nazarene. Fw>ra Beai, Shei/ton.
M317291
Contents.
PAGE
Foreword, 11
How Our Workers Came to Go to Tibet, - 15
What and Where Is Tibet, - - - - 22
How to Get to Tibet, 31
Tibetans without Medical Science, - - 43
The Entering Wedge, Medicine, - - 52
Itinerating on the Roof of the World, - 58
How We Live, 69
The Man with the Broken Head, - - - 78
A Tibetan Sunday-School, 82
A Mission Day-School, 89
"Our Little Doctor," - 97
Tibetan Women and Their Home Life, - - 109
Tibetan Characteristics, - - - - 117
Results, 123
Good-Bye to Batang, 129
The Present Situation, One Year Later,
the Close of 1912, 133
List of Illustrations
Mr. Ogden Baptizing First Converts, Frontispiece
FACING PAGE
"Johnny," 16
Nomad Tent, 24
Chair Travel, 24
A House Boat, - 32
Missionaries at Batang, - - - - 32
A Chain Bridge, ..... 38
Pine Trees, --40
Tibetan Teacher, 44
A Load of Tea, - - - - - - 48
A "Chorten," 48
"Tsuden," 56
Tibetan Woman Carrying Water, 56
Down the Yangtse in a Coracle, - - 60
Musk-deer Hair Cushions, 60
A Black Tent, 64
A Group of Robbers, - 64
Our Mud Palace, 72
A Tibetan House, 72
9
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
FACING PAGE
The Man with the Broken Head, - - 80
A Tibetan Beggar, 88
Mr. Ogden with Prayer Wheel, - - 96
House in which Dr. Loftis Died, - - 96
A Tibetan Tower, 112
Batang Hairdressing, - - - - 112
Jan Tsen's Son, 128
Over a Snow Pass, 128
New Missionaries, 136
10
Foreword
OUR PIONEER MISSIONARY.
"Go Ye."
Away to the north traveled a man with a woman
up the Han River for days and days, then in wooden-
wheeled carts drawn by oxen over the rutty roads
of China, on and on to the north until they arrived
at the Monastery of Kumbum. The man was a lin-
guist, the woman a doctor. For a few years they
studied, taught, and healed the people there, but it
was not enough. They had gone to that portion of
China with one aim, to reach the city of Lassa; with
one hope, to take the Christ to the Tibetans ; with one
ideal, to plant a mission in that land. After a time the
little son was born, and when he was a year and a half
old it was thought they might go out. Medicines,
food, bedding, and all they possessed were loaded
upon the pack animal and the long journey begun.
Over mountains in cold and snow and hardships
that can not be known, for days the little caravan
wandered, slowly, slowly, yet preaching, doctoring ; "in
perils oft," until finally most of the friends who had
known and started with them had turned back and
they were among strangers, in a strange land. One
day, high upon a range of mountains, the little lad
ii
FOREWORD
sickened. It was too great, that journey for him, and
he died. With sad hearts and trembling hands the
box that held the little store of medicines was emptied,
and the father and mother laid him to sleep on the
mountain-side alone, and they went on. Days and
days more of travel until they had lost all they had
and were left footsore and weary, alone and walking,
as they could get no help from the Tibetans, who
feared them. One afternoon they neared a village
and the man said to the woman, "Wait here and I'll
wade the river and get help from the village on the
other side." The woman waited until the shadows
grew long, but he did not return. Often she said to
me, as we saw a mountain-side, grass-covered and
brown, "That looks just like the mountain-side where
he left me alone that day and never returned." The
rivers are swift in that land among the snows. The
woman waited, and then saw that she must help her-
self and find some help or shelter for the night. She
found a few to aid her, and finally, with the help of a
friendly Chinese trader, came to safety and arrived at
Tachienlu, where an English mission family took her
in and cared for her. In a few months she came home
to Canada and America with the ideal still not for-
gotten, and though broken in health, weak in body,
with a zeal, heaven-inspired, interested people in the
land of Tibet. In a short time — a space of a few
years — she was ready to return, sent back again to es-
tablish the mission of which she and the man had so
long dreamed. It was not as she had planned, but
God's ways are not always ours. Not long did she
12
FOREWORD
stay with the mission, for her work was done. The
little station was established, and she saw the two fam-
ilies there before she left it. Then she was permitted
to come home to Canada to die. Widely separated
are the three last resting places, but there — over there,
there is no separation and no darkness. Dr. Susie
Rijnhart is the woman of which I write.
13
SUNSHINE AND SHADOW
CHAPTER I
How Our Workers Came to Go to
Tibet
"The dice of God are always loaded."
Emerson was right when he used the words at
the head of this chapter. In spite of all forces and
all human plans the one great plan is always carried
through. The Foreign Christian Missionary Society,
when appointing Dr. Shelton to go to Nankin, China,
to relieve Dr. Macklin, did not dream of a mission sta-
tion in Tibet — nor did we who afterward went to that
far field.
It was in the year 1899 that the Disciples in Amer-
ica first heard of the country of Tibet and its need of
help, and began to demand that a mission be opened in
that country. Dr. Susie Rijnhart had come out from
that land alone, having lost her husband and baby
there, and for four years had been speaking and plead-
ing for workers for this remote field. Her own health
was not of the best, but a determination to plant a
mission among Tibetans never left her and she planned
better than she knew.
15
SUNSHINE AND SHADOW
In 1902 she spoke at the Iowa State Convention of
the Disciples of Christ, held in Des Moines, and raised
six hundred dollars, with which she bought medical
instruments for use among the Tibetans. At this time
Dr. Rijnhart had been under appointment by the For-
eign Christian Missionary Society for more than a
year, waiting and asking for some one to go with her.
She wished to go at once to Tachienlu, West China,
and wanted a doctor and his wife to accompany her,
as she believed that the Gospel might be preached to
the Tibetans more easily through the medium of med-
ical work.
The Secretary of the Foreign Society wrote and
asked Dr. Shelton if he would consider going to Tibet,
as another man could be more easily found for Nankin.
As a matter of fact, Tachienlu sounded little farther
than Nankin to us, and we telegraphed we would go.
On September 27th we arrived in San Francisco and
met Dr. Rijnhart for the first time. As there was no
minister in the party Dr. Shelton was ordained by W.
M. White, J. Durham, and E. W. Darst of the First
Christian Church in the city. Dr. Rigdon presented
us with some medical books and a number of instru-
ments before we sailed.
As the steamship China left the pier and we realized
that we were out in that big, big water and America
was fading away, it seemed very lonely, indeed, and
we, that is, I, was dreadfully homesick, but it soon
changed to another kind of sickness which kept us
fully occupied for a while. During the days of sea-
sickness, and afterwards throughout the long sea voy-
16
"Johnny," formerly our cook, now a most efficient medical as-
sistant, who has made eight trips entirely across China in the
interests of the mission.
HOW OUR WORKERS CAME TO GO TO TIBET
age, we were greatly comforted and cheered by a
dear old lady and gentleman who were going back
to China to end their days as missionaries among their
chosen people.
When we reached Nankin one of our Chinese
young men, a Christian, a graduate of Christian Col-
lege, a Chinese scholar as well, who spoke English,
volunteered to go to Tachienlu with us. He was a
most valuable man, and it meant much for him to leave
his work and his people and go with us. His preach-
ing was the finest that had ever been heard in Nankin,
and great crowds came to hear him.
Last, but not least of our party was "Johnny," an
English-speaking Chinese cook and the most useful
man of all.
We reached Tachienlu, March 15, 1904, after a
long, difficult journey overland of nearly three months.
We arrived in the midst of a snowstorm, and it seemed
pretty cold to the two southern-bred Chinamen. Mr.
Moyes, of the China Inland Mission, met us with the
mail and we had letters from home. He had kindly
fixed up some rooms in a Tibetan inn for our accom-
modation, and papered the walls with Chinese paper,
but they would not let him scrub the floors, as the land-
lady said it never had been scrubbed and she could n't
let it be done. So we put matting on the floor to keep
the dirt from getting between our toes and lived there
until in May, when we got a house of our own.
Dr. Rijnhart at once opened a dispensary, and Dr.
Shelton and I began to study Chinese.
In the fall of 1904, when we wanted to study
' 17
SUNSHINE AND SHADOW
Tibetan, all the printed helps we had were a small
primer by Mr. Amundsen and the New Testament,
written in the classical Tibetan, which was not at all
like the spoken language. The boys in the mission
school had nothing at all. Their first lessons must be
written by a Tibetan teacher and committed. So the
Society was asked to send a man, especially for liter-
ary work, and we were glad, indeed, to hear that Mr.
and Mrs. J. C. Ogden, of Kentucky University, were
appointed May 12, 1905, and were to sail early in Sep-
tember for China.
As Dr. Rijnhart was engaged to Mr. Moyes, and
it was only a matter of a few months until she would
be leaving the mission, we rejoiced greatly to hear
of the new people coming.
In September Dr. Shelton and Johnny left
Tachienlu for Shanghai to escort the new people to the
border. Mr. Moyes and Dr. Rijnhart went to Chentu
and were married in October, 1905. Mrs. Moyes re-
signed from the mission in December, 1906. After
the return of Dr. Shelton with the Ogdens, Mr. Yang,
the Chinese evangelist, left for Nankin to care for his
wife and mother, so the mission was only a small band
at this time — four of us, besides our baby Dorris and
Johnny.
In September, 1906, Mr. Ogden and Dr. Shelton
started for Batang, five hundred miles from Ta-
chienlu, on the Tibetan border. There was a ces-
sation in the fighting; the country was practically
tranquil and once more under Chinese control. Gen-
eral Joa had just captured Shangchen and was still
18
HOW OUR WORKERS CAME TO GO TO TIBET
stationed there. When the two men arrived in Batang
they were most kindly received and found many old
friends and acquaintances who had been to the Ta-
chienlu dispensary.
They stayed four days, examining the country and
studying the conditions of the place and people, one
day going down the Yangtse River, on another going
up the valley to see the country in that direction.
They found the population of the city to be wholly
Tibetan, outside of the officials and soldiers, and that
all the inhabitants in the surrounding country were
Tibetans except a few Chinese, who had lived there for
thirty or forty years and had even forgotten their own
language.
So close to the border of Tibet was the city of Ba-
tang that they believed more Tibetan work could be
done and more Tibetans reached than at Tachienlu,
and though travelers were not permitted to cross the
line at that time, they believed that in a few years they
could safely go into the country, and would be invited
to do so, which has proved to be true.
During the spring of 1907 a suggestion came from
the Society to close Tibetan work and join the China
Mission, on the plains in East China, as it was so diffi-
cult to get men and supplies to such a distant station.
Dr. Shelton and Mr. Ogden both wrote, uncondition-
ally refusing to leave their beloved Tibetans and sacri-
fice the years of study and the friends they had made.
Then a letter came from the President of the So-
ciety saying he had been praying that the answer
would be as they had sent it, and granting them per-
19
SUNSHINE AND SHADOW
mission to go eighteen days farther inland to the city
of Batang and there establish the mission perma-
nently. That meant some preparation. So the two
men went to Chungking to purchase two years' sup-
plies of soap, sugar, candles, etc., and buy saws and
tools for the cutting of timber and building of houses ;
for in the new land they must become hewers of wood,
drawers of water, brick-makers, lumber-cutters, tile-
makers, furniture-builders, teaching the Chinese car-
penters how to build even a wash tub before a good
bath could be taken.
Mr. Ogden brought the supplies up river and came
through Chentu, hiring three Chinese carpenters to
help in the proposed building.
Boxes holding seventy-five or eighty pounds must
be made and packed with household goods, medicine,
instruments, books, bedding, pictures, and dishes.
The boxes were covered with wet skin which soon
dries and becomes very hard and keeps all dampness
from the contents. This covering also prevents the
boxes from bursting to pieces if a carrier yak should
get on a stampede.
We left Tachienlu July 7, 1908, and reached Ba-
tang July 24th. Johnny had already been there and
had cleaned two rooms in half of a Tibetan mudhouse
for us to occupy. Mr. and Mrs. Ogden prepared to
go with us, but decided to wait for Dr. Loftis, a new
medical missionary under appointment. Their plans
were again changed, however, and they came on to
Batang, arriving October 31st. We were all together
once more and looking for the new doctor's coming.
20
HOW OUR WORKERS CAME TO GO TO TIBET
Pioneers are very necessary, but I like to read
about them much better than I like to be one, and we
were the pioneers of our Mission and of all Missions
to Tibet, with the exception of Mr. Muir and wife of
the China Inland Mission, who were six days ahead of
us in arriving at Batang, and who were joined some
two years later by Mr. J. Huston Edgar and wife, with
little Elsie and Chalmers, also of the same mission.
Mail comes once a month, a man is hired to make the
trip to Tachienlu and return, and it takes about thirty
days, unless he is a very fast walker. The city is
Oriental and has everything that goes with that word :
dirt, heat, flies, mangy dogs, naked babies, half-
clothed men and women, no rain for months, and the
chaff from the wheat threshing flying everywhere.
But our trials are few ; they might be more. So long
as we are all well I do not mind. Then there are
the babies — bless them! — they never allow us to get
lonesome.
The first great event that happened at Batang was
the birth of little Ruth Ogden, the first foreign baby
born in that city. There are three babies now in the
mission — Dorris, Dorothy, and Ruth. They do n't at
all mind the dirt, and the heat, and what we call dis-
comfort. It does n't matter to them if the streets and
roads are feet deep in dry dust, or whether it is warm,
or whether it is cold, they are always happy and make
the sun shine for us.
21
CHAPTER II.
What and Where Is Tibet?
"And whether crowned or crownless when I fall,
It matters not, so God's work is done."
"Tibet is a high tableland entirely surrounded by
mountains, inhabited by nomad tribes," is what the
geography used to say, and that is about right as far
as it goes. There might be a few additions, for and
against, but it answers very well for this unknown
land which most travelers are compelled to see around
the edges with little dips inside, while very few have
been permitted to get in at all, let alone stay in
for any length of time.
The country of Tibet is a great tableland with
very few valleys below ten thousand feet, and many
mountain ranges traversing it that are much higher
than that, and in them, perhaps, will be found the cul-
minating point of the world, though as yet no traveler
has proved that true.
Surrounding this plateau is China on the east, with
her dislike of foreign customs and people, India and
Nepaul on the south, Nepaul being a Chinese prov-
ince by conquest, a large army capturing it about one
hundred and thirty years ago. Nepaul pays tribute
every thirteen or fourteen years to China, its people
marching the long, weary way from that country to
22
WHAT AND WHERE IS TIBET
Pekin, taking two or three years to make the journey
because China demands it, that they may see her
vastness and power. The journey could be made by
sea in six months. Their representatives have trav-
eled this long journey heretofore with hundreds of men
and animals carrying their loads of coral-shelled co-
coanuts, jewels, and elephant tusks as tribute to the
emperor.
India has forbidden the entrance to Tibet of even
the Moravian missionaries, who have camped on the
southern borders for more than fifty years awaiting a
chance to enter. Persia and Turkestan, with their
exclusive heathendom, are on the west. Russia is on
the north, in her inaccessible sullenness. So it is well
named the "Hermit Nation," for all forces, natural
and physical, have tended and helped to make it so.
Yet early in the fourteenth century a Jesuit Father
is supposed to have reached Lassa, the sacred capital.
Then in two or three centuries more Catholics entered
the country, and later an Englishman or two came
close to the Sacred City. In 1844 and 1846 Hue and
Babet, French missionaries, reached Lassa from China,
but were soon sent out again.
The Tibetans have been very jealous for their
country, as in their sacred books the lamas warn the
people that the foreigner must not be allowed to settle
in their land, for if they do, their own religion is
doomed. But of late years a native of India, Nain
Singh, who studied the language in that country, went
to Lassa disguised as a lama and added much to the
knowledge of that forbidden land before he was dis-
23
SUNSHINE AND SHADOW
covered and deported. Also our own Rockhill, writ-
ing of his travels on the eastern border, has given
much knowledge to the world. And the Swedish trav-
eler Sven Hedin, who has been in from the west,
discovered the sources of the three rivers, the Indus,
the Sutlej, and the Brahmaputra, has written much on
his travels, and his books are of inestimable value in
giving to the world knowledge of Tibet.
The country, being so high, is cold, though to the
south the valleys are warm and sunny, and barley,
wheat, and buckwheat are raised by the people who
live there. However, the higher portions are cold, so
cold that the punishment often given to criminals is to
send them to a warm region, just as the Chinese send
theirs from the plains where there is plenty of rice and
sunshine into the bitter cold of the mountains. Where
it is impossible to raise grain the people live in black
tents of yak hair and tend their cattle, and sheep, and
goats ; eating butter, cheese, and milk, and raw meat,
clad in their skin gowns, hardy and wild as their own
yak and native land.
The source of the Yangtse is still to be discovered.
It extends away into mountains beyond Batang per-
haps a thousand miles.
The population of Tibet is estimated from three to
six million, and the many lamaseries, or monasteries,
of Buddhist priests contain perhaps one-seventh of the
population.
Gold has been found along the eastern border and
a little lead and iron, but no coal or silver as yet. A
caravan route of trade has been established for two or
24
A nomad tent in a valley among the mountains.
Chair travel on the road to Batang.
WHAT AND WHERE IS TIBET
three hundred years from Tachienlu to Lassa, the
Chinese tea and cloth being traded for the Tibetan
furs, musk, yak-tails, and borax. Among the larger
lamaseries is the one at Litang, containing thirty-
seven hundred lamas. The one at Batang had almost
three thousand, but was entirely destroyed at the time
of the Chinese invasion and will never be rebuilt. The
ruins of the lamasery, as they stand now, cover nine
acres, while a little distance below is a steep cliff, above
a sharp bend in the river, where no Chinamen dared go
in those days when it was in the height of its power,
or they were unceremoniously dumped over the cliff
into the river.
There are still many small monasteries around on
the mountains, but no large ones, and it is the policy
of the Chinese Government to keep the number of
priests below one hundred in each one, so that they
can never grow strong and rebel against the Chinese
again.
Perhaps a bit of Batang history would not be un-
interesting, as our mission is so closely connected with
the country, and the political events as they occur have
more or less influence on the station. In the winter
of 1904 and 1905 there was trouble at Tyling, some five
days' journey to the north and west of Tachienlu, over
the mining of gold. The Chinese demanded the open-
ing of the mines and sent men to dig the metal. The
Tibetans did not want the mineral dug, as they said
the Chinese would take all the seed away and there
wouldn't be any more gold. So government troops
were sent in, and some fighting occurred, with a few
25
SUNSHINE AND SHADOW
killed on each side, with this result, that the Tyling
lamas sent emissaries to the other monasteries and
among the people in the west, asking aid to help them
throw off the Chinese yoke.
For a hundred years or more China has been fight-
ing in this part of her dominion, sending in a few sol-
diers and advancing one step at a time, holding the
conquered territory. At this time Chinese Commis-
sioner Fong was stationed at Batang, and the Tibetans
refused to believe that he was the real representative
of the emperor, either knowingly or unknowingly
taking that position. His policy was to limit the num-
ber of priests in the lamaseries; so he announced the
fact that three hundred lamas were enough for any
city the size of Batang, ■ and asked the rest, about
twenty-five hundred, to take unto themselves wives
and go to work.
That sounds all right in theory, but the lamas do
not yield to that kind of advice very readily, as they are
supposed to abjure all women, do no work, and lead
holy lives of meditation and prayer. So these priests
went among the people up and down the river valleys
and in the vicinity of Batang, rousing them, inciting
them to fight against the Chinese, so that in April,
1905, relations between the Chinese and Tibetans were
getting very much strained. Commissioner Fong was
afraid to go and afraid to stay. He had a bodyguard
of about sixty soldiers and a great show of foreign
guns, but not a single round of ammunition. Finally
he decided to flee, and one morning he started. The
people knew he was afraid. He had gone only a
26
WHAT AND WHERE IS TIBET
little way from the city when the Tibetans com-
pletely surrounded him, coming down from the moun-
tains and up the valleys, from behind him and in
front of him, all shouting and firing from every place,
at one time, so it seemed. His chair-bearers were in-
stantly killed, then all of his soldiers, as they were
neither able to run or fire a single shot. Fong got
out of his chair, turned his face toward Pekin, wor-
shiped the emperor, whose relation he was, and so "ko-
towing," died. These men, all but the commissioner,
are buried where they fell, close together, a tablet
marking the immense tomb, which is built of stone and
the carved slabs from a "mani" pile. This occurrence
greatly encouraged the rebellious Tyling lamas and all
the Tibetans.
In Tachienlu, where the mission was located at
this time, excitement ran high, rumors came that the
Tibetans were coming to sack the city, coming clothed
in skin gowns, but would return in silk garments.
Many people took their valuables and fled the city.
Pekin ran over with excitement all at once, and sent
several thousand men, with General Ma commanding,
to fully subdue that corner of Tibet. He at once de-
stroyed the lamasery, but the lamas, knowing that
they were in for it, had fled before his arrival, taking
their most valuable possessions with them. Now he
revenged the death of Fong mightily. Several hun-
dred men were beheaded. Many homes were left
desolate. Heads fell so thick and fast there was no
one to bury the bodies, and no one cared. Their
friends were afraid to come and get them. The hun-
27
SUNSHINE AND SHADOW
gry dogs had feasted every day, even the Chinese sol-
diers eating their dead enemies' hearts and livers. The
heads of the chief men, when severed, were placed on
trays and presented before Fong's coffin as an offering
to him.
In the city General Ma beheaded both of the
Tibetan governors, though they had tried to prevent
the killing of the commissioner. This is the Chinese
custom, however. If a man can't govern his people
he must pay the price, and it is usually his head.
Two Catholic priests were killed before General
Ma arrived, their buildings destroyed, and all their
followers who would not retract were shot. The land
and houses of all those who helped in the rebellion,
or those supposed to have helped, were confiscated
by the Chinese Government. The Catholics were
afterwards given the second governor's house and
grounds as part compensation for damage done to
them, as well as a hundred and twenty thousand taels,
which the French Government demanded besides.
General Ma now left and General Joa took com-
mand in 1906. He besieged the city of Shangchen
for three or four months. Shangchen is seven days
to the south of Batang. All the people had shut them-
selves in the lamasery and could neither be dislodged
nor starved out, but finally, after three or four months'
siege, the source of the water supply was found cut
off. Then they decided to open the doors and run,
but as they left the building men, women, children, and
lamas were hacked to pieces, some six hundred being
slain.
28
WHAT AND WHERE IS TIBET
The big monastery, with its valuable books, paint-
ings, and scrolls, fell into the hands of the Chinese.
The brass and bronze idols were broken in pieces and
carried to Chentu, the capital of Szechuan, on men's
backs and by yak loads and coined into Chinese half
cent copper pieces. The big painted idol of the
Buddha was captured, and the general told the people
they could have it for three thousand rupees, which
was promptly paid.
For this great victory General Joa was created im-
perial commissioner for the defense of the western
frontier of China. During these years, up to 191 1, he
has been fighting and conquering city after city and
tribe after tribe in this part of Tibet. Eighteen days
beyond Batang, at Chamdo, he has placed a garrison
of Chinese soldiers ; the telegraph line is being ex-
tended toward Lassa. During the fall of 19 10 the
Chinese soldiers he had stationed at Shangchen, to
the number of about two hundred, rebelled against the
Chinese Government. Eighteen of them, their major,
and two of the captains were recaptured, and General
Joa meted out their punishment, which was a severe
one.
Many years ago what was called the border of Ti-
bet was the top of a mountain-pass between Tachienlu
and Yachow. Years later the border was moved again,
as the Chinese crowded more and more into the west-
ern part of the province. It was then placed at a little
stone bridge just beyond Tachienlu. Some two hun-
dred and fifty years more of fighting and conquest
and trying to people the valleys with Chinese farmers,
29
SUNSHINE AND SHADOW
resulted in the line being placed just beyond Batang.
The Tibetan population, however, extends westward
to the old border. Though Tibet has been called a
part of the Chinese Empire, it has been practically in-
dependent. But after the English expedition under
Colonel Younghusband to Lassa, in 1905, the Chinese
awoke to the fact that something must be done.
Russia, on the north, was jealously watching Eng-
land, while England, on the south, was busy guessing
what Russia meant to do ; so they both stood off and
gave China her opportunity. At present all cities of
the least importance for strategic purposes are manned
by a garrison of Chinese soldiers. The ruling officials
everywhere are Chinese, so that now after the last
year's fighting Tibet is practically all under Chinese
control, while the Dalai lama has fled the country and
his people, and is now a guest in India.
In the summer of 191 1 General Joa was created
viceroy of the Province of Szechuan, and with his
conquering army has left Tibetan country for a resi-
dence in the capital city, Chentu.
The future history of the country, as well as the
ease or hardship that the mission may have to endure,
depends much on his successor. At present the land is
leased for the hospital building and the way seems
opening for a greater work.
30
CHAPTER III.
How to Get to Tibet
"Raise the stone and thou shalt find Me,
Cleave the wood and there am I."
"Going to Tibet," so said the letter, and the news
fell as a thunderbolt out of a clear sky. "Why, the
man is wild; he has just finished his medical course
and must make a name for himself; he had better be
buried alive than to go to that country." So thought
all the friends of the young doctor and his wife when
they had decided to go to this distant station.
Leave-takings are not happy occasions, and it was
not easy to leave fathers, mothers, brothers, and sis-
ters. God seemed very far away and love for human-
ity dwindled immensely after the first heroic part was
over. The Rocky Mountains seemed very high and
the city of San Francisco very far from everywhere,
especially Kansas. Six days of sailing and the harbor
of Honolulu came in view. Land looked very good
and extremely solid after so much water. Leper Is-
land was faintly visible in the distance. To this island
are sent lepers from the United States, with a doctor
to care for them and a superintendent to govern them ;
and those who are able work a little, but the support
is mainly from the government.
3i
SUNSHINE AND SHADOW
As the steamer came slowly up to the pier, out
swam the Hawaiian lads in water from thirty to forty
feet deep, clad only in breech-clout, diving and swim-
ming like frogs, and yelling, "Drop a dollah right
heah." As the passengers threw the dimes and nickels
over to them they would catch them in their hands
and mouths or dive to get them before they reached
the bottom.
The ship anchored for the night and everybody
went on shore to feel something substantial under foot
once more and get a view of the beautiful island so
full of romance and tragedy. The next day, on leav-
ing, all were garlanded with the bright red and yellow
flowers in accordance with the old Hawaiian custom.
Thirteen more days of ocean travel, the old ship
finding her path through the trackless waters, and the
harbor of Yokohama was reached. The busy, won-
derful little Japan came into view, but it takes a whole
book, a writer, and an artist to tell of that country.
The travelers, homesick for something from home,
bought what looked like a russet apple, but it turned
out to be a pear that tasted more like a turnip than
anything else, and also something that looked like
chocolate creams, which proved to be dough of some
kind.
Though Japan was full of charm and beauty, the
travelers must go on. There were a few more stops
in the Japanese harbors and four days more were
necessary before Shanghai could be reached. There a
week was needed to purchase food and necessaries
for the long Yangtse River journey. We boarded a
32
The houseboat in which we traveled down the Yangste on the
way home. The captain's wife is on top of the boat, and the
babies' heads in the window.
The Foreign Christian Mission at Batang in a great bronze tea
caldron found in the ruined lamasery. Taken a few months after
arriving in the city.
HOW TO GET TO TIBET
small steamer which carried us to Nankin, where we
stopped for a while and paid a most interesting visit
to the great mission station located in that place, and
met noble men and women who make it so, and whom
it is an honor to know.
A month or so could be well spent in study and
packing and repacking for such a journey. Small
steamers carry us past Wuhu, then to Hankow, where
we all change to a smaller steamer and are carried to
Ichang, a thousand miles inland. Traveling has been
easy, so far as railway, steamships, and river boats
have made it so; but now the real journey begins.
And now good-bye to civilization, in a measure, for
a Chinese wooden houseboat has to be hired, and one
of these should be seen to be appreciated. It is a
square-framed, heavily-built, five-room affair, pulled
by bamboo cables up the river for seven hundred miles.
The rooms are very small, and partitions thin. The
captain and wife and children, if there are any, live
in the back room ; the crew under matting in the front ;
the cargo is placed beneath the floor. Food is cooked
on a small charcoal stove, with a tin oil-can for an
oven, or in the Chinese iron pan in the front of the
boat. The beds are built in, or cots are used, and
things made as convenient as possible for the four
weeks to Chungking.
The rooster is killed and blood sprinkled on the
prow, paper cash is burned, little red candles are
lighted, and the gods invoked for a safe journey. All
goes well until there is a rapid to go through, then
excitement runs riot, the water rushes and foams and
3 33
SUNSHINE AND SHADOW
roars, the coolies on the bank pull and struggle, with
a taskmaster to lash them if they don't work; the
ropes strain and crack, drums beat, and inch by inch
up the river the boat crawls.
The coolies tracking are more often the ones who
get drowned, as the ropes occasionally break or throw
them down the cliffs into the water. As the travelers
watched, one poor fellow tumbled down the sandbank ;
his shin was badly bruised, but he must keep up with
the others. Sometimes the ropes break, and — whiz,
bang, whirl — back you go; the boat turning round
and round every way, with no one to control it. Some-
times in one minute all that has been gained in half
a day is lost; then, if a rock gets in the road there
is apt to be a hole in the boat, and the cargo hung
up to dry for a few days. So the days and weeks go
by, rapid after rapid is climbed until the journey is
over.
Some way they find out that a foreign doctor is
on the boat ; after the boat stops they call him to dress
a man's face that has been badly cut by a fall on the
rocks. Another poor fellow comes limping along, all
the toes of one foot rotted off except the big one. He
states that a rock had fallen on it eight years ago,
and it had never been washed in all that time. An-
other coolie came with an arm that had been smashed
between two boats. It smelled very badly, as it was
so infected ; but he could not stop to have it properly
bandaged, as his boat was going on and he must keep
up or lose his pittance of cash.
Chinese gunboats are stationed all along the bank
34
HOW TO GET TO TIBET
to capture the pirates who frequent the banks as well
as the lonely ports along the river.
One morning it sounded as if the boat was being
hammered in and as if the crew were all fighting ; such
stamping and talking and shouting we had never heard.
It turned out that the cook had not fixed the food to
suit one man, and all were taking a hand, pushing
each other in the stomach, and pulling pigtails.
Though one can get many kinds of Chinese prod-
ucts to eat at the stopping-places, it is well to have
on hand some good American food from Shanghai,
as the native material does n't taste like home food,
at least during the first year out.
Chungking is reached and a stop of a few days
made, some supplies purchased, and the journey re-
sumed. Still three weeks more of the old Yangtse
and the bamboo ropes that might break and don't,
of the rocks you might have bumped into and did n't,
and dry land is reached once more.
Chungking is the last station, where the French,
German, and English gunboats are anchored. At Kia-
ting the river is left for good, and the overland jour-
ney for twelve days to Tachienlu is begun. - Oh, it
was good to see the growing mustard and beans ! The
air was heavy with the fragrance from the blossoming
fields, and there was solid earth beneath the feet of the
coolies who carried our chairs, instead of the muddy,
treacherous Yangtse water. The travelers realized
they were not in any sense either aquatic birds, beasts,
or fish, but of the earth earthy, with hearts that grew
warm on the soil. Four days to Yachow, through
35
SUNSHINE AND SHADOW
fields and level stretches of sweet-scented flowers,
though sometimes the scents got mixed and the flowers
lost when we met a man carrying buckets of dis-
solved filth from the pits of human refuse, which is
used in fertilizing their gardens and fields.
Every night a stop in inns, where everything was
dirty and where it was impossible to find a clean spot
anywhere. The surroundings consisted of foul beds
made of boards with a piece of matting on top, a table,
and square chair ; floors that had never been scrubbed
since America was discovered and some time before;
a water-closet under or near the room ; a barn or pig-
sty fully occupied on the other side. But, riding all
day we were hungry enough to eat anything and tired
enough to sleep in spite of the eyes that peeped through
the paper windows.
Miles and miles through rice fields flooded or be-
ing plowed, the roads are only narrow paths between
the fields, where a tumble might prove disastrous or
land the traveler knee-deep in the soft mud. Small
mounds or hills terraced with as many as thirty or
forty terraces to the top, every inch of ground being
used. Thus four days to Yachow; from there to
Tachienlu eight more days of chair travel were re-
quired. So on we go up and down the mountains, in
torrid valleys, and over snow-capped hills ; around cor-
ners, where the chair hangs over space and the rider
can only shut his eyes and trust to the straw-shod
coolies that carry him. A fall, a slip, the breaking of
a string — and down, down into a cloud-mist he would
fall, and the alighting would not be easy.
36
HOW TO GET TO TIBET
Mountains, mountains everywhere. Two high
passes ; at least they seem high to Kansas people. At
the foot are ferns, flowers, bamboo, and summer
weather ; at the top snow and the wind blowing a hurri-
cane. Tops were carried off the chairs, and the bearers
were afraid to speak, for fear of arousing the wind-
devil, who was supposed to lodge somewhere on that
mountain. He did n't seem to need rousing, but acted
as if he and all his family were awake.
Over these two passes many men, women, and
children go all the year, carrying heavy burdens of
tea, salt, coal, and wood. It is a common occurrence
on that road to pass a dead coolie by the side of the
path, or even in the path, where they literally die in
harness.
Often and often it looked as if the path led right
up against the side of a mountain, and there would
be no way out and no way to go on. But there was al-
ways a way out or through or over. The last few days
before reaching Tachienlu the steep hillsides were all
cultivated for the raising of corn. There was not in
a decently flat position enough ground for a potato
patch, and it was a mystery how the men and women
climbed and stood to hoe the crop, with the land
slanting at an angle of sixty degrees.
Three days this side of Tachienlu, at Lutingchow,
is a bridge made only of heavy chains stretched across
the river, some three hundred feet in length and fifty
feet above the water. A few loose boards are laid
upon them for use in walking from one side of the
river to the other, and all the traveler can do is to
37
SUNSHINE AND SHADOW
shut his eyes and go on — as the bridge has been known
to give away and drown a number of coolies who were
carrying their loads of two hundred and fifty or three
hundred pounds of tea.
But the city is finally reached, where a halt of a
few days must be made to rest and take baths and
get washing done. Food must be prepared, some
more stores bought, "ula" must be asked of the Chi-
nese official and the Tibetan king, and all got ready
for the final trip over the twelve mountain passes to
Batang. A week is needed at least, and more if the
traveler is very tired. Finally the day arrives for the
going, and after a few hours' wait it is announced
that all is ready. The chairs for the women and chil-
dren, the riding-horses for the men, the yak and mules
for the loads, and away the caravan goes. It 's a
gradual climb of a few hundred feet upward from
Tachienlu to the first mud inn for the night. The
country is no more Chinese, but entirely different,
wilder, less populated, and the houses are of mud and
stone, with flat dirt-roofs. It is time to stop for the
night ; the beds in their skin-laced bags are taken off
the yak, the food is also unloaded, and it is luck if
one of the animals hasn't taken a run and dropped
the boxes, and the jam has n't made a loving acquaint-
ance with the tea, and the coffee and sugar mixed be-
fore it is wanted. Wash-pans and combs are brought
out, and all have a good wash and get ready for sup-
per, which the Chinese cook is preparing in a big sheet-
iron pan belonging to the inn or on your own small
cast-iron stove, if you are lucky enough to have one.
38
The great chain bridge at Lutingchow, about 300 feet long and
50 feet above the water.
HOW TO GET TO TIBET
A grand view of immense snow mountains is to be
had from here ; in the meantime the cots are made up
ready for the night, and after supper you are glad to
roll in and sleep. Early next morning the Tibetans
are awake, eating, and ready to start, and you must
get up, for it is a long journey that day. Faces are
washed, beds put in the skin-cases again, breakfast
eaten, and the cavalcade is ready once more. The
chair-coolies step along at a good pace, while the yak
go slower, to graze a bit, as they have no food at all,
only as they can gather it when they stop for that pur-
pose or as they walk along. A halt is made at noon-
time for rest and food, and in some mysterious way it
is discovered that a doctor is one of the travelers. A
man comes bowing to the earth, begging him to go
a short distance to see his wife; he goes, only to find
that she is a leper, and he can do nothing. They have
suspected as much, but hope the foreigner's medicine
could cure even that. Then the woman cries and
pleads that if he can not aid her, to give her husband
and two babies something, so they can not take the
dreaded disease.
Two women come, of a little better class, and draw
near a bit shyly and ask if he has medicine for a pain
in their heart. They say it hurts so all the time in here
(with their hands over their breasts), and they would
like a relief from the pain. He asked what was the
trouble, and one told him that her husband was dead,
and the other that she was a widow, and her only
son had just died with the smallpox. Oh! there is
39
SUNSHINE AND SHADOW
only one thing to ease such aches as that, and they
don't know!
On the travelers go again, and see something queer
in little boxes hanging to the telegraph poles. Look-
ing a little closer, it proves to be human heads! A
great warning to trespassers. Some one has been cut-
ting the wires, and the Chinese official has cut off a
few Tibetan heads and hung them up on the poles.
Now the travelers are on the summit of a great
grassy-topped mountain, and the caravan of yak have
stopped to graze and the chairmen to rest a little. More
than ten kinds of flowers they see and gather as they sit
on the ground to eat their lunch away out in the lonely
wilds. The world has never seemed quite so big be-
fore, and they have never seemed so far away from
everything as they sit in that vastness, surrounded
miles away by glistening snow-ranges — and only the
little group of four. How small they seem, and how
great the immensity around them. By and by they
come to a solitary hut away up there, and the women
run inside at the sight of the foreigner and his camera.
On inquiry it was found that a few soldiers were sta-
tioned here to keep the bold robbers in subjection,
though from all appearances they looked as if they
might be the ones in subjection and kept in solitary
confinement.
Again it is night, and your travelers have stopped
at a few low houses at the foot of a great pass, fifteen
thousand feet above sea-level, which must be crossed
on the morrow. It seems very difficult to sleep, and
they all keep turning and turning, gasping for breath,
40
Some of the pines with their background of mountains seen on
the road to Batang. Little Dorris and Dorothy on a fallen log.
HOW TO GET TO TIBET
and about three o'clock even the Tibetans are getting
up and getting ready to go on ; they have had a hard
night too. It finally dawns upon the travelers that it
is the altitude that has produced the sleeplessness and
the flopping and gasping so much like a fish out of
water, so that hereafter greater sympathy for a fish
will always be felt. It is the highest sleeping-place on
the road.
Onward and onward they go over the bare and
lonesome pass that is lonesomeness personified, down
into a beautiful valley with a cluster of houses, flocks,
and herds. Next day the road is through great pine
forests, where you think of Robin Hood and his merry
men, and your heart jumps into your throat whenever
you hear a rustle in the forest by your side or meet
something that suddenly appears in front of you, for
you are afraid it might be some of those fierce, wild-
looking robbers, and you wonder if you 'd scream or
try to swallow your rings; or if you would be brave,
and if the man behind you with the rifle would shoot,
and if he did, would he kill the robber or would he get
away and nobody get hurt?
So on they go past the great lamasery at Litang,
with its hundreds of lamas, its great golden roof, and
its sacred book of one hundred and eight volumes,
which is printed there ; where it is so high there is no
timber, and only dried cow-dung is used for fuel, and
the principal food of the people is raw yak and sheep-
meat.
Then one night in a tiny village the caravan stops
and finds a grave that is not Chinese, neither is it
41
SUNSHINE AND SHADOW
Tibetan, for around their homes you see no burial
places. They burn the body, or they feed it to the
birds, or throw it into the river. This is a mission-
ary's grave, and over his resting-place rises the great
snow-capped king of all the mountains between Ta-
chienlu and Batang — a fitting monument for a hero
such as he. Alone with one companion, he fell ill
of typhus, and died there, and his grave has been the
farthest missionary outpost until the resting-place of
our own Dr. Loftis and baby James Ogden mark one
more step in the conquering army. Very slowly the
advance moves ; yes, between the two stations a three
days' journey and ten years' time.
On they go for eighteen days, over mountains,
through valleys, until it is the last day. Now shut
your eyes, for when you come around that mountain
you will see Batang. Open them and look at the little
cluster of bright-yellow mud-houses. See the barley
and wheat being harvested, and women carrying great
loads of it in on their backs, chanting as they go, or
on the flat roof beating it out with flails and singing,
"Om mani, Om mani, padme Ora, padme Ora," a vari-
ation of the sacred phrase, "Om mani padme hum."
Batang has been reached. What comes next?
4*
CHAPTER IV.
Tibetans Without Medical Science
"Strength for to-day is all we need,
For there never will be a to-morrow;
For to-morrow will prove but another to-day
With its measure of joy and sorrow."
Perhaps there is no nation on the globe knowing
so much of the construction of the human body as
the Tibetans, and who have so little medical knowl-
edge or so few remedies. The facts about anatomy
are learned from one of their modes of burial, the
body being dissected and fed to the birds. Butter is
the universal medicine; it is used as a salve for ani-
mals as well as men, for sickness and broken bones.
Illness of all kinds is believed to be the work of devils,
or demons, and to exorcise them it is necessary to have
a holy man, so at the first symptom of approaching
sickness tjiose who can afford it send for a lama to
read prayers over them.
A firm belief in the fact that his enemy can pray
him to death is inherent in every Tibetan, and often
all a man has to do who has a grudge against another
is to send his enemy word that he is praying daily for
his special guardian idol to kill him; and this fact,
coupled with the fear of the idol, usually accomplishes
his purpose.
43
SUNSHINE AND SHADOW
A big, strong man, a teacher in the mission, got ill.
He seemed to have an attack of pleurisy and got well
of that, but still got thinner and thinner, and seemed
to have no ambition or willingness to want to live.
Dr. Shelton couldn't find out what was the matter
with him or that anything was the matter with him,
physically. Finally, one day he asked him what in the
world was the matter with him, anyway; why he
did n't go out to the hot springs and take a bath, and
go about his business. He shook his head and said:
"It 's no use ; I 'm going to die. You know that enemy
of mine who is angry with me because the Chinese
official made him return the mule his people had
stolen? Well, he sent me word he was praying every
day to his idol to kill me, and I can't get well." Dr.
Shelton laughed at him and asked him if he didn't
know better than that, and that such a thing was an
utter impossibility, until the man grew ashamed and
tried a bit, and was soon on the high road to recovery.
But as he and all his house had no doubt as to what
the result would be, it was quite possible to bring about
the wish of his enemy.
Another old teacher, whose son-in-law had gone
to Germany with Dr. Tafel, received word that his
daughter's husband was expecting to marry a German
girl and never return again to Tibet or send any more
money to his wife or her father. The old man was
furious and said, with clenched teeth: "You tell him
that I '11 kill him. I '11 pray every day to my idol to
make him die. I can do it, and he knows I can."
The medicine most resorted to seems to be pills
44
A Tibetan teacher in the mission and the man who thought he
had to die, as his enemy was praying him to death.
TIBETANS WITHOUT MEDICAL SCIENCE
made of the prayer, "Omi mani padme hum/' written
on tiny pieces of paper and rolled up to be swallowed.
They also use pills made from a holy man's urine
mixed with clay. Otherwise, sprinkling with holy
water by the lamas, reading of prayers day and night
from their sacred books, the banging of cymbals, ring-
ing of bells and beating of drums for driving the devils
out of the person, are the most common methods of
doctoring. The noise itself would almost kill a well
man, let alone cure a sick one.
Perhaps a few little incidents that occur almost
every day, and only the ones the missionary finds out
— and they are not all, by any means — will help you to
see the need of a mission placed just here.
A little girl of thirteen was on the mountain watch-
ing the cows. The robbers came, and she refused to
run away, so they gave her leg a gash with a sword.
Her people found her and, to stop the bleeding, plas:
tered the cut full of cow-dung. She was brought to
the dispensary. If she had been brought in the first
place the healing would have been a simple matter,
with clean washing and bandages; but it was quite
another question to cleanse the wound now and heal
it without inflammation.
On one of the little mountain trips the men were
called in to see an old woman of seventy years. They
found her in a barn, sitting in the filth of ages which
just can not be described. She had been upon the
mountain after wood, and had fallen and broken her
thigh. The leg lay at an angle of thirty degrees, the
bone sticking entirely out through the flesh. As it had
45
SUNSHINE AND SHADOW
been done several days, it was horribly swollen, and
the smell frightful. It was impossible to effect a
cure; they could only wash and cleanse it and leave
a bit of salve for alleviating pain, and go on. Only
an old woman, yes; but her capacity for suffering is
not less than yours or mine.
One morning about ten o'clock a man came to the
dispensary saying his two-year-old baby had fallen
into the fire the evening before and his limbs were
burned badly, and would the doctor go; the child was
hurt so they could not carry him on their backs down
the mountain. Medicine and bandages and necessary
instruments were thrown into saddle-bags, some food
gotten together quickly, a bed strapped behind the sad-
dle, and the men were off up the steep mountain to
remain the night and alleviate that tiny baby's suffer-
ing. It had been burned now almost twenty-four
hours, with no help at all, and nothing whatever to
help ease the pain, and even a little burn hurts so badly.
They found the baby burned down the front of both
little legs and a bit across the abdomen. He was soon
well enough to be carried down the mountain to the
dispensary to have the burns dressed.
One morning a lama, called a living Buddha, came
and asked the foreign doctor to ride to a village a day's
journey away, over a nearby mountain, where a mud-
house had fallen down and some people were hurt.
No white man or Chinese had been in that wild place
before, and going seemed hazardous. They asked that
only one foreigner come, and perforce the doctor was
the one to go. A native evangelist, two soldiers, and
46
TIBETANS WITHOUT MEDICAL SCIENCE
the lama made the rest of the crowd ; and when they
came to the first village they stopped for breakfast.
At first the people were frightened nearly out of their
wits, but when they found nothing was going to harm
them they brought the best they had for the travelers ;
butter, tea, tsamba, and a kind of sour milk-cheese was
set before them. Poor as these people were, they gave
the big lama a catta (a scarf of loosely- woven silk)
and three rupees for his blessing. Soon they were in
the saddle and traveling onward again, and arrived
about five o'clock at the village. They found six had
been killed and three hurt by the falling of the heavy
mud-walls. When Dr. Shelton started to see the man
who was hurt so badly, they would n't allow him to
be seen, but made excuses of all kinds and were afraid,
even after sending a day's journey for help. The for-
eign doctor turned away and said, all right ; he did n't
want to visit anybody unless he was wanted. Then,
they begged him to wait until the next day. He agreed
and went to the shed on top of the house to sleep, and
was awakened by the mud and water falling on the
bed, as it was raining. The big lama was awakened
too, and the two began talking. He asked Dr. Shelton
why he did such things for people and got no money
for it, and why he left America, and what he wanted
to come to their country for, anyway.
That was the opportunity, and he was told why
and for what reason and for whose sake, and how
it was made possible by the followers of the Nazarene
at home, who for His dear sake gave that the Tibetans
47
SUNSHINE AND SHADOW
might know. The lama listened and said, "That is
just like our religion, only we don't do it."
The next morning in a thick fog they came for the
foreigner to see the man. He found him lying on
a pile of dirty, filthy sheepskins, both legs and arms
broken. They had been broken for eight days before
his coming. An effort had been made to set the bones
by putting on very small splints and wrapping them
as tightly as could be, pulled around and around with
a narrow rawhide string of yakhide, with some of the
hair still clinging to it. Some of the bones had been
replaced fairly well, and one arm was tied to the ceil-
ing. All were compound fractures. Chloroform was
given and the wrappings removed. The swelling was
fearful, and the pus flew in every direction. The
stench was dreadful. After the man had recovered
from the effects of the chloroform he said he felt
better. Then Dr. Shelton asked why he would not
see him as soon as he arrived. "Oh," he said, "they
had heard that foreigners slit the flesh with knives
and rubbed the medicine into the cut." Then they
also believed that a stranger coming off the road is
covered with devils, and if he came at once into the
presence of a sick person they would all pounce upon
him and kill him.
The next morning the hands and feet were better
and the swelling had gone down some, but the poor
fellow was covered with lice and had rheumatism, and
there was little hope that he could recover. But they
asked the foreign man to come again, who replied he
would return whenever he was wanted; but in three
48
o
TIBETANS WITHOUT MEDICAL SCIENCE
or four days a messenger came, saying the man was
dead and returning the medicine that had not been
used.
Perhaps for pure, concentrated suffering the fol-
lowing incident will suffice.
There was a Tibetan woman who brought milk to
the mission every day. True, it had a layer of dirt
in the bottom and was never guilty of any cream on
top, and had always to be boiled. Perhaps it was
diluted with water and bean curd, and was a mixture
of goat and yak milk. It was rather white; but it
was called cream and used as such. For two morn-
ings the woman failed to come. About noon of the
second day her sister came and said her house had
fallen down and they had all been burned. The place
was two or three miles distant, so we took a sedan-
chair for the baby and me, while Mr. Sanders, Mr.
Ogden, and Dr. Shelton walked, carrying their guns,
thinking to shoot a pheasant for supper. It was a
beautiful day and quite a rest to get away from the
filth and stench of the city. When we came near the
house the chair was put down, and we all walked up
the mountain a little way to where the people lived.
It is impossible to find words to picture the awful
misery and suffering that we saw. The house was
built on the hillside, of stone with mud mortar. The
floor was made of round poles about the size of a man's
arm, laid on some kind of crosspieces. On these poles
a few skins were laid, and this was their bed, for they
slept on that corduroy floor. In one corner was a
pile of dirt and three or four stones, and on these had
4 49
SUNSHINE AND SHADOW
been placed a big, flat, iron pan of boiling water.
Some way the floor had fallen in, taking all of them
with it, as well as the hot water. The goats and yak
were kept in the basement of the building. Filth had
accumulated for years, for the idea of cleaning a barn
had not yet occurred to these Tibetans. For forty-
eight hours those burned people had been sitting on
the ground in agony which can not be told. They had
no relief whatever; no vaseline, no oil, not even a
clean rag with which to bind the burns. Beside the
woman on the ground was the iron pan with water
and cornmeal, and some kind of a green vegetable
stirred in it. This was all the food they had. Mrs.
Ogden had sent some bread and meat, which we laid
down by them, and Dr. Shelton began to look at their
burns. A boy of ten was burned from the knee half
way to the thigh, the great blisters standing out on his
legs. A little boy of seven or eight had escaped en-
tirely; the baby, a little girl of four, had been burned
to death. The poor mother cried and said how pretty
she was. The man was able to walk, but his leg was
badly burned, and he had a great gash in his head.
The woman was burned from below the knee to her
thigh. There were great blisters as big as the palm
of her hand on her leg, and the flesh seemed almost
ready to drop off. She sat on the ground moaning
and almost helpless. The men forgot their guns and
began to work. The little boy was frightened when
the doctor took his instruments to open the blisters,
being very much afraid of the glistening lances. As
the doctor had taken only a small box of vaseline, he
50
TIBETANS WITHOUT MEDICAL SCIENCE
could do nothing for the boy or the woman there. So
the woman was carried and put in the chair and sent
on to the dispensary, while Mr. Sanders, the baby, and
I started to walk home. Mr. Ogden with a few dried
leaves and stems had made a fire and got some hot
water. There was just enough vaseline and bandages
to dress the man's leg and head, and he and the little
unburned boy were left. But how to get the other
boy to town was a question. He could not be carried
on any one's back, so Mr. Ogden and Dr. Shelton made
a stretcher of sheepskins and two poles, set him upon
that and, one in front and one behind, they carried him
in. These poor people were taken care of, fed, and
treated until they were able to take care of themselves.
One day a woman came to the dispensary saying
her stomach was full of pus, and that a Tibetan had
made a hole in it with an iron rod to let it out. She
had the hole over the stomach, and the odor was
frightful. It had been done about one month, but
when she was told a knife or probe must be used to
see where the opening went, and how deep it was,
she refused to have it done, left the dispensary, and
invited a lot of lamas to read prayers for her.
A little child of ten or eleven years who had been
begging on the streets for some days was found lying
on the stones and in a dying condition. Dozens of
men and women passing and repassing never seeming
to even pity, let alone aid. The child was taken to the
dispensary, cleaned, and fed, but died that night. Next
day it was buried by the mission,
"Unto one of these little ones."
5i
CHAPTER V.
The Entering Wedge— Medicine
"The clouds are broken in the sky,
And through the mountain walls
A rolling organ harmony
Swells up and shakes and falls.
Then move the trees, the copses nod,
Wings flutter, voices hover clear,
O just and faithful knight of God,
Ride on, the prize is near!
So pass I hostel, hall, and grange,
By bridge and pond, by park and pale;
All armed I ride, whate'er betide,
Until I find the Holy Grail."
To understand how people can be born, live, suf-
fer and die with no medical help to ease pain is quite
a difficult thing for one in such a country as this, where
the ground is kept clean, the water is looked after,
the food carefully examined, teeth cared for, and all
pain stopped as soon as may be with the latest scientific
methods and the keenest brains to use them.
Will you try to imagine a land and people where
these things are all lacking, just for the sake of this
little chapter? The Chinese have many drugs which
they use in a somewhat skillful way, and many physi-
cians with a sort of medical skill, who demand high
52
THE ENTERING WEDGE— MEDICINE
prices for their services, very few doing charity work
among the poor. And heretofore the Chinese have
always had the solace of opium in severe pain. The
Tibetans have no medical science at all, and only a
blind trust in their holy men to help them in all and
through all ills.
There is no nation perhaps so full of religion as
Tibet. It is everywhere : strung on prayer flags, across
and across the mountains from tree to tree, on top of
the passes, on long poles, in great skin cylinders turned
by water-power, in metal prayer-wheels whirled in
the hand, or carved on miles and miles of stones along
the roads. Religion is everywhere, on everything, in
everything. It is in the people as they make their
holy pilgrimage to Lassa and home again; coming
from Lassa and back again ; as they wall themselves
in stone huts, away from the sunlight, for years and
years to meditate and pray; going over snow moun-
tains, through valleys, in cold and in heat on their
stomachs to the holy city, taking years to accomplish
their pilgrimage, to be holy men in the end. The land
is full of lamas, hundreds, thousands of them ; praying
always, but leading obscene lives ; religion surfeited.
It is a religion of self, for self, enduring pain and
hardship, solitary confinement, muttering millions of
prayers for the exaltation of self, while those who
must serve these holy ones live in hopeless poverty.
These priests pitilessly demand money and food when
they must have help. It is a religion of husks. Ours
is, too, sometimes — is n't it ? — when we forget the com-
passionate heart of the great Master and dream of
53
SUNSHINE AND SHADOW
self and rest self-satisfied in our own goodness as we
compare ourselves to our fellows.
But look once, just once, at Him when He was
tired, weary, dust-stained, and with a heart aching over
a world that would not see, and stand one moment be-
fore the bar of self and with bowed head and humbled
heart ask if we are many times less selfish or more
compassionate than these "holy" priests of Tibet.
Aye, it only needs one clear look at Him and the com-
parison of your own heart with His, and you will
awake and give to Tibet the Master. But many of
you have seen the vision and have sent the servants
who are trying to serve in His name as you, too, also
serve. But religion can not be thrust upon a Tibetan.
If he thought that was what was happening when
he comes for medicine and sympathy he would
certainly turn and have some very important affairs
to see to at once. The Chinese are reached more
easily, perhaps, than the Tibetans ; at least they usually
come first for medicine.
Some one is pounding on the mission gate, is in a
desperate hurry and wants help at once. Two men
have had a quarrel and the one worsted has rushed
home and taken a drink of opium mixed with wine and
flies back to die on his enemy's doorstep. In despair,
as he believes if the man dies on his step the soul will
return to haunt him, besides his having to pay the
funeral expenses, he runs to the foreign doctor for
help. The missionary goes, but has only used a small
hypodermic syringe, or "water-gun," while the patient
is being held, and the man desperately cries, "Is that
54
THE ENTERING WEDGE— MEDICINE
all you are going to do?" "Wait and see," is the an-
swer, and soon that is n't all that is being done by any
means. The man quickly recovers and the foreigner
has gained his first victory and his reputation is
started.
Anothe** day a poor fellow who has been a soldier
comes crawling into the dispensary over the moun-
tains from Batang, both legs frozen to just below the
knee, the flesh dropping from the bones, and he asks
this foreign man to "make the flesh to grow on again."
He is taken and fed and told that such a thing is im-
possible, but that both limbs can be taken off and
wooden ones made for him. Because of the super-
stitious belief that the foreigners eat the livers and
eyes of their patients, and the fact that little children
are frightened by being told of the horrible things that
might be done to them, the operation is performed
where all may see. The- fellow is put under chloro-
form as the people stand around, and as the knife slices
through the flesh the man does not move. The saw
cuts through the bone, the man lies perfectly still, while
the onlookers are shivering and groaning, some of
them are turning sick — and the work is done. The
patient wakes and has felt no pain. "Yes, I under-
stand all about it," one Chinaman says; "the doctor
just put some medicine on a rag and held it over the
man's face and he went to sleep, then sawed his \eg
off, and when he got through just tickled him m the
ribs a little and woke him up, and that's all there
was to it."
Through such things as these the power of foreign
55
SUNSHINE AND SHADOW
medicine was growing and the people were hearing
about it everywhere, until they believed the blind could
be made to see and even the leper healed. And one
day the leper came, a stonemason, and falling on his
face asked to be cured. It was very hard to tell him
it could n't be done, when he said he would ^ive all the
money he had made except just a few cents to live on
if he might be healed. To him it seemed a much
smaller cure than what had been done to others, and
he believed it was only because he did n't have money
enough to pay for the medicine, and not because it
could n't be done that he was refused.
Perhaps the first thing of any importance that
brought a knowledge of the use of foreign medicine to
the Tibetans was the slight operation on the hand of
a big lama belonging to one of the lamaseries in
Tachienlu. The big fellow and two or three of his
followers came one morning to the house, saying he
had thrust a needle into his hand and broken it off in
the fleshy part just below the thumb and could n't get
it out. He was told that the flesh would have to be
cut and small tweezers used to draw the broken piece
out. "Yes, but it will hurt," the big fat lama objected.
"No," the doctor said, "it will not. I'll put some med-
icine on with this needle and that will hurt a little,
but you can stand that, can't you?" He thought he
could, so the hand was deadened with cocaine, the
knife thrust in and the needle quickly extracted.
While the lama's eyes grew bigger and bigger and
those standing around groaned and asked if it did n't
hurt, he said, "No, it did n't, but just look at the blood."
56
THE ENTERING WEDGE— MEDICINE
This simple operation drove another small missionary
wedge into this land in the shape of a needle.
A thousand miles for a doctor, wouldn't that be
an awful distance to go for help in America, es-
pecially if you had a right hard pain?
One morning a man came into the little courtyard
in Tachienlu asking for medicine or the use of a knife
for his master, who was with him and who was ill.
He was invited to bring his master and come to the
house. Upon examination it was found that there
were some scrofulous glands that needed the surgeon's
knife. But the instruments were gone, Johnny had
taken the boxes of drugs and instruments and gone
on ahead of the missionaries to Batang. The opera-
tion was impossible, and the man had come one month's
journey from the south for help. What was to be
done ? The man decided for himself to follow the mis-
sionary for eighteen days more on to Batang to have
those glands removed.
A few days after reaching Batang the man was
there, too, and wanted his work done. The chloroform
and necessary instruments and medicines were un-
packed, a door taken down and used as a table was
placed in the upstairs courtyard. The man was placed
upon it where every one could see, so they would
know that the foreigner had no secret magical power,
no dreadful medicine to conjure with or devils to aid
him, and the operation was done. Then twenty-five
days to his home the man had still to go, but he re-
turned happy. This was the first operation in Batang
and the entering wedge has grown a bit larger.
57
CHAPTER VI.
Itinerating on the Roof of the World.
"Lo, it is I, be not afraid;
In many climes, without avail,
Thou hast spent thy life for the Holy Grail;
Behold it is here — this cup which thou
Didst fill at the streamlet for Me but now;
This crust is My body, broken for thee,
This water His blood that died on the tree;
The Holy Supper is kept indeed
In whatso we share with another's need;
Not what we give, but what we share —
For the gift without the giver is bare;
Who gives himself with his alms feeds three,
Himself, his hungering neighbor, and Me."
What 's happening at the missionary homes this
morning ? Here goes a man leading three or four yak
with their wooden saddles on ready for loads. Here
is another man with two or three horses with Chinese
saddles for riding. Here go two soldiers who are
to accompany them, and the Chinese official representa-
tive, to see that things go off properly, and that they
receive the money for the use of the Tibetan's cattle
and horses. The doctor and the missionary evangelist
are going on an itinerating trip of a week or two. The
loads are paired off two and two, as two of the bundles
or boxes go on one animal. There is no choice, as they
58
ITINERATING ON ROOF OF THE WORLD
are made as nearly equal in weight as possible ; if they
are not, a stone is added to the lighter side to make it
even.
Things are about ready, the Tibetans pack up the
skin bags of bedding and extra clothing, the box of
provisions, the little stove. The yak are loaded and
started. Now the foreigners are coming, the rifles
strapped to the saddles, revolvers belted on, oil skins
strapped behind saddles, ready for a sudden mountain
storm, and a last good-bye is waved to the wives and
babies and they are off. They travel on steadily until
noon, when a stop for rest and dinner is made in a
small village. But what 's the matter ? Is there no-
body at home, with the houses all locked and every-
thing silent ? But look a bit closer ; there 's somebody
on top of the house.
The men go on about their business, the little camp-
fire is lighted, and the medicine box opened up by the
roadside. Soon here come one or two of the braver
ones out of curiosity. As they come near they are
greeted in their own language, which is a bit of a sur-
prise, and they begin talking and wondering over the
queer things they see. They come still closer to see the
strange foreigners eat, are offered a bite of foreign
cheese, but say it is n't fit to eat. They listen to a
watch, but are afraid to hear it tick, not knowing at
all what it is.
Perhaps a few patients come, but the horses are
soon saddled and they are off again, going up the
mountain. It gets colder and colder, overcoats are
put on, and the oil skins as well, as it is hailing. A
59
SUNSHINE AND SHADOW
little higher and snow covers the ground for several
inches ; and then down into a valley, which gets warmer
and warmer, and soon it is summer again. Flowers
are everywhere and heavy coats are shed, and it is
pleasant once more.
Sometimes they stop in a deserted or ruined lama-
sery, which is the result of the war between the Tibet-
ans and Chinese, and sleep surrounded by paintings
of the Buddhist hell, and lords of the east, west, north,
and south heavens, and an image of the thousand-
handed Chenrezik, with an eye in the center of each
hand. The people remind them often of the Amer-
ican Indians, living in huts, the children running
naked into the grass and trees to hide when they see
the men. Even the grown people run and bar the
doors and hide, or if they have n't time to get in the
house they make for a gully or ditch.
The medicine box is opened, and soon one or two
are coming, and then the people come in bigger crowds,
and foreign medicine along with the Gospel in Tibetan
is being given at the feet of "Chenrezik," much to that
old god's surprise and disgust, no doubt.
So on they go every day for a week, for two weeks,
and even four. For one whole week the two men ask
only grass for the horses as their compensation, and
got two eggs besides.
On one long, long trip, which was made possible
by Dr. Loftis coming, some six hundred patients were
given medicine, and many friends made and invitations
given for them to visit the homes in Batang, but the
food gave out and they had to eat tsamba and butter
60
Dr Shelton going down the Yangtse in a coracle.
The musk-deer hair cushions used in place of chairs by the
Tibetans strapped to the donkey. The iron pans and tea churn.
About ready to go out and have a good time.
ITINERATING ON ROOF OF THE WORLD
tea, and were glad to reach home and get clean once
more.
But they have stopped for another day in the great
salt city of Yen Gin, where salt has been procured for
two thousand years. This salt is carried up out of
shallow, narrow salt-water wells by barefooted women,
up notched logs and poured on the flat top of the
houses to dry. There is no machinery whatever, only
the sun and wind to aid them.
The first medical case is a woman who wants a
keloid removed from her ear. Cocaine is used, and as
it is cut out the groans and sighs are most audible,
though she assures the onlookers that it doesn't hurt
at all, which they do n't believe and tell her she is lying
or possessed of a devil.
Amid the increased excitement a man comes
dragging his son with a harelip. It is cocained and
fastened, while the room fills with natives to see what
is being done. They crowd so closely, the doctor can
hardly use his arms.
Medicine is given out right and left, while hot shots
of Gospel are put in between doses of calomel and
santonine.
But a trip down the Yangtse is necessary this day,
and there 's only one way to go. This is in a coracle,
and in it they get and away they are whirled. A
coracle is a boat of yak-skin sewed over a bamboo
framework, with only a piece of squashy wet skin be-
tween the passengers and the fish of the Yangtse.
But the journey is made in safety, the four pas-
sengers and their gods are unloaded, and the Tibetan
61
SUNSHINE AND SHADOW
boatman puts the little light shell on his head and walks
back upstream along the banks to the starting place to
wait for another traveler.
It is evening again and the little group have
stopped for the night, the landlady and her daughter
have sore eyes. They are given some boric acid to be
dissolved in boiling water and used to wash the eyes,
then some yellow oxide of mercury salve to be rubbed
on after they were clean. The men go to bed, but are
roused by a man coming in, saying the medicine will
not stick on. They have poured boiling water over
the salve, too!
Again they start on another day's travel, and as
they halt at one place they find a man who has been
severely hooked by a yak, the horn striking just above
the eyebrow and entering the eye-socket, almost goug-
ing out the eye. It is frightfully swelled and very
painful ; it is dressed, and it is found the next morn-
ing that the eye is not injured, and the people are ex-
ceedingly grateful for the kindness.
In another home a poor old woman has not pleased
some of the soldiers quartered in her house, and as a
result her eye has been gouged out and is still very
painful. A man there has also displeased the troops,
and has been beaten until the flesh has fallen from the
bones and the places refused to heal, and they came
asking medicine for him.
It is not simply Tibetans that suffer from these
bamboo spankings, but the Chinese officials punish
their own soldiers, so that the flesh often drops from
the leg and you might lay three fingers into the gash.
62
ITINERATING ON ROOF OF THE WORLD
(Dr. Hardy has just written that a soldier had been
spanked so severely that he had taken one and one-
third pounds of meat, by actual weight, from the
back of one of his thighs.)
It is now the city of Janka they have reached, the
first city over the border. As the city is very small,
and the houses all are huts and all full, a garrison of
Chinese being stationed there, it is difficult to find
any place at all to stay. Finally a small room is found
in which the cots are placed. The medicine box is
taken into the street. Some of the soldiers here have
been in Batang and are soon asking for medicine.
After a few fingers and toes have been taken off and
a boil or two opened for the soldiers, the Tibetans lose
their fear and begin to come. The oil skins have to
be spread on the beds to keep the dirt off, as it keeps
falling from the ceiling, for the people, who are still
afraid, are crowding to the top of the house to see what
is being done.
Busy all day, and next morning again they start
for home, and come in the evening to the stone which
marks the boundary between Tibet and China, where
no foreigner has ever before been allowed to pass, the
Tibetans guarding the place with loaded guns.
One day down the road they meet a caravan of
Tibetan gypsies, men, women, and children, with
donkeys loaded with tsamba, as it is harvest time and
they have begged a lot of grain. They all crowd
around the big lama, who is along this time, begging
him to bless them, offering to him gifts of cheese,
butter, and tsamba for this. Many offer a string for
63
SUNSHINE AND SHADOW
him to tie a knot in and blow his breath on it. This
is then tied on the neck or the arm, and as he is a holy
man his breath protects against the devils.
Later a man comes bringing a bundle of barley
and asking the lama to cast lots and see what is the
matter with his cattle. He says nothing has been the
matter with the cattle until his father's death, and now
about twelve of them have died. So the lama throws
his dice three times and renders his decision thus : His
father had been a very lucky man and nothing could
or would touch his things, but now that he is dead the
devils may come and do all the damage they wish. He
tells the man to get three of their sacred books and
have lamas read them through for him, and that will
send the demons away.
Afterwards Dr. Shelton speaks to the lama : "Your
explanation about the cattle was very good; but how
about those books ; will they do that for him ?" The
lama replies that he does not know, but it would n't
do to tell anybody that fact, as they would soon lose
their authority if the people discovered they didn't
know these things.
But perhaps you would like to see them in the
evening around the camp-fire, when all work is done
and it is recreation time. Three stones are placed to-
gether and a fire of brush or dried argols made, if the
altitude is too high for timber. If it does n't burn
bright enough to boil the tea in the brass kettle, a goat-
skin bellows is used. This is made of an entire skin
with a metal tube fastened in at the neck, and it takes
a master hand to make it blow.
64
The black tent of yak-hair in which the nomads live.
-
A group of robbers, whose district has been among the last to
yield to General Joa, but are now subject to Chinese rule.
ITINERATING ON ROOF OF THE WORLD
Now is the time for preaching, but it must be
warily done. After years of study and hard hunting
some of their folk-lore stories are found, and the
teacher tells one of these. When they hear one with
which perhaps they are familiar it makes some one
think of one he can tell ; and so it goes around the
group. When there is a lull the teacher says, "I '11
tell one now ; and it 's all true, every word of it ;" and
as simply as it can be told, a bit of a miracle or a
glimpse of the Christ-life as He forgave His enemies
is told ; and wonderful it seems to them, as a Tibetan
never forgives. In these stories they are being told
there is a Jesus, and why the teacher came to tell them
about Him, and how he came. Other tales follow,
and three Gospel stories, perhaps, get told in one even-
ing, but not as a new religion. Oh, no; that would
prove disastrous at first, and the teacher would be
left alone to tell his tales to the night, and his oppor-
tunity would be lost.
As you imagine yourself there by the fire listening
in the darkness, under the stars and in the mystery of
the night, as it comes on those great mountains, would
you like a black tent story? The black tent of yak-
hair stands at a little distance from the fire, and very
soon all go to sleep under it and the world is alone.
Then listen to the story, as these stories are not printed
or written, but handed down from father and son. Can
you see the big, shaggy fellow in his dirty gown, the
color of the rocks and mountains, his twisted braid of
hair covered with ivory, and silver rings coiled around
5 65
SUNSHINE AND SHADOW
his head, sitting cross-legged by the fire telling it in
his strange tongue?
The: Ingratitude of Man.
Once upon a time there was a lonesome road that
passed along above a deep chasm. It was a very
dangerous road to travel, and one night after a heavy
rain it caved in, taking down into the ravine a man,
a crow, a rat, and a snake who were traveling along
there at the time. They sat on the ground wondering
how they were ever going to get out. They thought
they would have to starve to death there, when a trav-
eler came along and, looking down, saw them. They
all, at one time, began to beg and plead to be helped
out ; so he threw a long rope down to them, and one
after another pulled them all out. They all expressed
great gratitude, and said they would never forget him
and what he had done for them.
The traveler in his heart thought that the man
might be his friend sometime, but he rather scorned the
idea that a crow, or a rat, or a snake could ever help
him in any way.
A long time after this had taken place, at the palace
of the king in this country, the queen was on top of the
house washing her hair; she had taken off her jeweled
necklace and laid it down, and when her hair was dry
went below and forgot it. Then the crow who had
been rescued by the traveler long ago, flying over the
house saw the necklace and said, "This would be a
good present to give to that traveler who pulled me
66
ITINERATING ON ROOF OF THE WORLD
out of the chasm," so he picked it up with his bill, took
it to him and told him where he got it.
The next day the traveler, with the necklace, met
the man he had rescued and remarked, "Look here, I
did n't think that crow would be much of a friend, but
see, he has brought me these jewels that belong to the
queen." The man who had been rescued, upon hear-
ing this, at once went to the king and said, "The
queen's necklace you will find in the house of a certain
man," and gave the name of his rescuer.
The king at once sent his men, arrested the traveler,
and cast him into prison. He was about to starve to
death in that horrible place when the rat that he had
rescued, and who lived there, came and asked, "How
did you happen to get in here ?" The man told him the
story of his arrest and of the ingratitude of the man he
had rescued, and that he was almost starved, and that
he would surely die unless help came to him very soon.
The rat went away, entered into the king's palace,
stole food from the king's table, carried it to the man in
the dungeon, and so saved him.
On another day the snake came along and, seeing
him there, asked, "How did it happen that you are here
in prison ?" The traveler told the story again, and the
snake said, "Never mind, I'll get you free." Now this
snake was a necromancer and made himself into a
ghost-snake which could be felt but not seen, wound
himself around the king's neck and almost choked him
to death.
The king called for his great men, his wise men,
and his lamas. The lamas cast lots and told the king
67
SUNSHINE AND SHADOW
that this ghost-snake that was choking him was one of
the patron-saints of the man he had in prison, and that
if he would loose the prisoner and treat him kindly his
choking would cease. So he called for the prisoner to
be brought before him, gave him much money and
many jewels, and sent him away wealthy. The king's
troubles stopped, and the traveler was made happy by
the help of the three whom he had doubted and
scorned.
68
CHAPTER VII.
How We Live.
"Up the steep summit of my life's forenoon,
Three things I learned, three things of precious worth,
To guide and help me down the western slope :
I have learned how to pray, and toil, and save ;
To pray for courage to receive what comes,
Knowing what comes to be divinely sent.
To toil for universal good, since thus and only thus
Can good come unto me.
To save by giving whatsoe'er I have
To those who have not — this alone is gain."
Johnny had gone ahead of the mission in April
with the drugs and all the freight that could be spared,
and had rented three rooms in two Tibetan inns for the
two families. He scrubbed, and cleaned, and papered
with Chinese wall-paper, and everything was as clean
as he could get it. But in the other half lived a Tibetan
family with their servants and slaves. There was the
barn downstairs, full of yak, pigs, horses, donkeys, and
piles of manure. There were no screens, no windows,
but strips of wood over openings in the wall which
closed with wooden doors, making it dark as a dungeon
inside. Flies, heat, dirt and threshing chaff were
everywhere. Little Dorris had a spell of fever, not
very severe, caused by the filth perhaps, but her "legs
would n't go," she said, and that was something new
69
SUNSHINE AND SHADOW
for her, for they had always been able to go before.
Baby Dorothy had dysentery for months and only got
better in the fall.
From July 24th until December 10th we lived in
this inn. Then we were able to get a house for our-
selves. Mr. and Mrs. Ogden came on October 31st
and lived in an inn for more than a year, when they
got a house and fixed it for themselves. Glad indeed
were we all when a mud palace for each family was
procured, and it could be scraped clean of manure,
whitewashed, cleaned, and scrubbed. The screening
taken out for the new house was used, and the glass
made into windows, and the slats were cut out, and
we could have light and air once more. There was
quite a diminishing of dirt and smells, and we could sit
under our own walnut trees, have a little garden, be
clean, have a place for the babies to play, and get rid
of a few germs and noises.
The houses at Batang are nearly all of two stories,
with a third a kind of shed over only half the roof.
The four walls are built of the yellow mud, something
as concrete buildings are put up in this country, the
wooden frame being filled with mud and tamped solid
with round wooden "pounders;" then the frame is
raised, and so on to the required height. Great round
beams stand upright every few feet in the form of a
square, six upright beams running one way and five
the other way, with heavy crosspieces for holding the
floor overhead and the heavy, flat mud-roof. The
partitions are made with boards and must be placed
where the upright poles are, and all grooved and
70
HOW WE LIVE
driven in, as the house has to be made without nails.
The doors are hung with a pivot at top and bottom,
and fitted into holes made for the purpose.
This is the average house. Some are but one story,
dark and filthy. Others are five stories; the lower is
dark, with crude stone floors, and, as it has always
been used for a barn, can not be lived in, but is used
as storehouse for wood, for grain-boxes, and for hay
for the horses and cows. The family lives on the sec-
ond floor. In our house the courtyard was a cesspool
of filthy water and the ground floor one foot deep in
manure. It was dug and scraped and cleaned and
scrubbed; the courtyard was filled with stones and
dirt. Whitewash made the walls of mud all white.
It did smell nice and clean. Then the big clay stove
was knocked to pieces and carried out of the prospec-
tive bedroom, some floor was put in, and the black
crosspoles above ceiled, to keep the clay and bugs from
falling on our beds. The floors were scalded and
scraped, and scalded and scraped again. The walls
were papered with Chinese paper a bit like light-brown
wrapping paper, and we were about ready to "move
home."
Furniture was scarce, as the Chinese half-breed
carpenters had to be taught, how to make it. But we
had a small table or two, one small folding rocking-
chair, our beds of wooden frames corded with yak-
hide strings, our own dishes, and a small cookstove
brought from Shanghai. We were all well and happy
to be alone in the greatest haven that can be had on
the mission field — a home.
7%
SUNSHINE AND SHADOW
We bought two cows and had our own milk and
butter. We had bought milk, but it was so dirty, as
they have no strainers and never wash their own
hands or the cow. At first we used their butter, but
had to cook it and strain out the hairs, etc., and it
was n't very good. They do n't wash the churns,
either, so the butter does not smell very fresh ; no
salt is used in it, and the cakes are patted out with
the bare hands. Salt is used in their "butter tea,"
but it is such dirty stuff, dried and swept up on the
top of the mud-houses, that we refine all that we use.
The lights commonly used are pitch-pine slivers of
wood. Sometimes they use butter lamps, but these are
more often burned in front of their idols, as most of
the people are too poor to afford butter to burn. We
use candles and have a bit of kerosene for photo-
graphic work and to use on state occasions, like Christ-
mas time and Fourth of July.
Sugar, coffee, soap, candles, medicine, tea, and
anything in the line of stores must be procured in
Chungking or Shanghai, and we estimate these just
about cost their weight in silver by the time they reach
us. It takes from five to six months to send an order
and have the goods returned to us from Shanghai.
The Tibetans do not raise vegetables, caring only
for the grain. The Chinese located here have small
gardens, and during the first year we could buy
from them a few onion tops, cabbage, turnips, and
an occasional carrot. We had cabbage in various
forms that first winter. We had it creamed and
boiled and fried, in kraut cold and hot, and in Chinese
72
Our mud palace in Batang.
A Tibetan house where the night is spent. This is a stop for
dinner.
HOW WE LIVE
fashion. I don't think cabbage and turnips very
good, either. We had a few messes of potatoes the
size of marbles. In the fall, when the yak are just off
the grass, we get some good beef; but in the winter,
when they are about starved, it is difficult to eat yak-
meat at all. We can get pork, also, but as the pigs
eat very little besides the filth from the streets and
look as if they had just recovered from a good squeez-
ing between rollers, and are so poor that they have to
be "blowed up" (which the Chinese do by blowing
them up from one of the feet) before they can be
scraped, the meat is n't as satisfactory as it might be.
However, the next year we were not so badly off,
for we had sent home for seeds, and our gardens were
a precious thing to us, I can tell you. We have now
just the same vegetables as you do in America, except
watermelons, and they don't mature. Fruit is the
thing we miss the most. We have nothing but
peaches and grapes. I tried to make peach jelly, but
it would n't "jell." For breakfast food we can not
get "Post Toasties" and "Kellogg's Corn Flakes," but
we have rice sometimes and cooked tsamba, with sugar
and cream, and eggs, as we have our own chickens, a
bit like the American leghorns. Tibetan eggs, when
bought, have an uncanny way of popping and sending
forth an odor, as bad eggs are supposed to be bought
and sold. Like as not they have taken them from
under the hens when two weeks had passed; I sup-
pose they consider them meaty and wholesome!
The flour is out, and more must be made to-day.
The big box is unlocked, and Tsuden, the servant,
73
SUNSHINE AND SHADOW
takes a bushel of wheat to the stream, washes it, skims
off the chaff and unfinished grains, carries it to the
top of the flat roof, and spreads it out on matting to
dry. He stays near it, keeping the droves of English
sparrows from eating it all up. He then picks out
the little stones and pebbles, as it has all been threshed
out with flails on the flat mud-roof and swept up with
the small brooms of weeds, dirt as well as wheat.
Now he carries it to the water-mill and the flour is
made by grinding the wheat between two millstones.
This way it is fairly clean, but lacks whiteness and
the springy quality of home flour.
Of course, we have to teach them to wash dishes,
as they have never seen a plate, cup, glass, or a knife
and fork, and a dishrag might be used as a pocket-
handkerchief or washcloth, and the dishpan for a
foot-tub, as the Chinese so often do. The Tibetan has
a wooden bowl, which he carries in the front of his
gown, and licking it clean is his way of washing it,
after which he wipes it on his sleeves and puts it into
his gown until he is ready to use it again. This is
the only food implement he knows about.
Wash-pans and soap were things unknown to the
Tibetans until the coming of the Chinese, who take
civilization in a way and of their own with them.
Floors have to be scrubbed and scalded twice a week,
unless we wish to be crowded out by inhabitants
smaller than ourselves.
Finally everything was kept pretty well out but
the rats. It seemed impossible to get the boards of
the floor and the ceiling and the mud-walls close
74
HOW WE LIVE
enough to keep them from dancing jigs in the wash-
pan and chewing the wallpaper.
Though our food costs as much or more than at
home, the clothing does not, for the latest style is not
at all important. A new hat once in eight years is
all we need, as a sun helmet is worn all the year. As
for the rest of the garments, we send for cloth and
make what is needed. When everything else gives out,
what is left of the doctor's trousers makes fine little
garments for the girls; and he does wear out a lot
of them riding so much. They get patched sometimes,
and if a Chinaman does the patching the patch goes
on the outside; and if it is not always of the same
color it does not matter, for the Tibetans are not at
all particular as to the blending of colors.
Our shoes are a problem, but we make Chinese
shoes of black velvet for the babies. It is poor stuff,
and worse leather for soles; but as it is dry nearly
all the year, they serve the purpose.
If the mission as a whole were dropped suddenly
into the midst of a fashionable American church, amid
the stylish garments of the day, it would n't be up
to date with regard to hats, tight-fitting garments,
shoes, and the latest in the men's clothing department ;
but, then — we couldn't be dropped. So as it takes
three months to get home, we pick up the new civili-
zation by degrees as we come to it, and are able to
assimilate it gradually, especially these wonderfully
buttoned gowns and the immense hair-dressing with
its wonderful curls.
Shall I tell you what we do for a whole week?
75
SUNSHINE AND SHADOW
It will not sound so elegant, but perhaps you can see
us a bit plainer and be with us in your hearts.
It is Monday; washday always. The Tibetan
woman comes and fills with water the big iron pans
that are built in over the clay stove. Tsuden sweeps
the little courtyard with his little bunch of weeds ; the
cows are milked, breakfast over, and the soiled clothes
sorted and given to the woman. If it is a new woman,
she does n't know anything about the washboard or
soap, and has to be taught ; and if one is not careful
the colored things go with the white ones, and there
is likely to be an awful mix with all washed at once
in little more than a teacup full of water. So the
clothes must be watched until they are on the line, the
tubs washed, and the women gone for their dinner.
After noon they are shown how to sprinkle and fold
the garments ; the evening work is done, and it is the
first day.
Tuesday is ironing day. They must be taught to
iron the clothes, and it is no easy work to a native
who has never seen or handled an iron.
Wednesday is devoted to scrubbing and scalding
the floors, with the daily work which must always be
done.
Thursday is washday again. Things do get dirtier
than they do at home. The houses are mud, the
windows and doors are very open, the wind blows
and dirt flies. On Thursday evening the little union
prayer-meetings of the four mission families that are
there are held, and they are good indeed.
Friday is ironing day again, and Saturday is house-
cleaning day once more.
76
HOW WE LIVE
Then, on Sunday, the preaching service and Sun-
day-school in the morning, and our afternoons we
usually spend alone. On Sunday evening we have our
own little prayer-meeting — just our own mission — for
strength and plans for the week.
Of course, I have only told you the weekly routine
of regular housework. It does n't include the trips,
the dispensary, the daily and hourly teaching, the beg-
gars and poor who come for help, the thousand-and-
one things which fill the life of the workers on a
mission field.
Neither have I told you of the heartaches we have
sometimes ; of feeling as if we were forgotten by the
busy ones at home; of our uneasiness when one of
our own little band is ill or a baby ailing; of the sin
and degradation around us and the forlorn people
who demand from us always ; of the hopeless lives and
endurance of pain upon faces that expect nothing
more.
Ah, yes, there is a bit of Gethsemane in it all, O
my Master; but only a tiny portion to us who are so
weak. For Thou hast borne it all long ago, and left
only a little for us.
Neither have I told you of our compensations.
You say, "You sacrifice so much." That is just what
we don't do, for He whom we serve makes it up to
us one hundred-fold, yea, one thousand-fold, in His
nearness, His strength, His comforting, and makes
for us the heart-sunshine, from which we may give
to those who demand so much. For in Him are com-
fort and peace, and we do not lack for anything in
His service. yy
CHAPTER VIII.
The Man with the Broken Head.
"Even unto the least of these."
Not so many days after getting to Batang and
opening the little mud dispensary and putting the beds
up in the inn, a big red card came from the Chinese
official asking Dr. Shelton to come to the yamen, as
he wished to see him about a small affair. Seizing
his hat, with some uneasiness he went to the house of
the official. The official received him most graciously,
gave him the chair of honor, and insisted on filling
his teacup several times. Then he asked after the
health of both families for several generations back,
until finally, squirming around, Dr. Shelton said, "You
sent for me; what was it you wanted me to do?"
"Oh," said the official, "there 's a Tibetan down here
that 's hurt a little. A rock fell and struck his head.
I 'd like to have you go down and fix him up." "All
right," replied the doctor; and after another siege of
Oriental bowing and scraping he goes to find the in-
jured man. Going by the dispensary, he gets a wash-
pan, hot water, bandages, and instruments for fixing
a scalp wound. He goes to the Tibetan house and
finds the poor fellow on a pile of straw and manure.
He had been carried and laid there about two hours
78
THE MAN WITH THE BROKEN HEAD
before. The doctor found that, instead of it being a
scalp wound, the skull was crushed and the brains were
oozing from the wound. He dropped the instruments
on the ground and went back to the official faster
than he went the first time. After gaining admittance
he marched up to him and said: "I can't operate on
that man. I dare not. He will die if I do, and I 'm
not going to touch him." "Well, but you must do
something. Can't you do anything for him?" objected
the official. "Yes, I can ; but I do n't want to, for if
he died under the foreigner's knife it might mean the
lives of us all." "Well," replied the mandarin, "you
go on, and I '11 stand back of you, whatever the re-
sult may be." So back went the doctor in great fear,
to do what he knew he ought to do to save the life
of this man. It seemed that so much depended on
the success of the first surgical work, perhaps the
lives of the foreigners there, the stability and possi-
bility of a Tibetan mission. It seemed a pity to de-
stroy all the work and hope of years that had gone
before with a stroke or two of the surgeon^ knife ; but
it must be done, and with shut teeth and a passionate
prayer for help he went to work. The poor fellow
was lifted and placed on a door and carried into a
Tibetan house. A sheet was taken and stretched up
to keep the dirt from falling on him as the doctor
worked. He began washing and shaving and cleaning
that terrible wound, in the midst of the dirty, lousy,
tangled, buttered hair. Then twelve pieces of bone
were taken out, and the wound was closed over and
bandaged. The poor fellow was just about used up
79
SUNSHINE AND SHADOW
when he came out from under the anaesthetic. Dr.
Shelton came home with a set face and said: "The
man will be dead in the morning. I did the best I
could, but I do n't see how he can possibly live." We
felt pretty downhearted that night and fearful of what
the morrow would bring. After breakfast he went to
see his patient, and the chap tried to raise up off his
straw bed to thank him ! With a face perfectly blank
with surprise, and yet in which awe and thankfulness
were mingled, he returned and said : "Well, I did the
best I could ; but by all the knowledge of medicine I
possess, that man should have been dead this morning.
The Lord has healed him." There was no other ex-
planation for it.
In a month the fellow was ready to walk home, one
hundred miles, and he left the city.
One day some three or four months later, as Dr.
Shelton was coming to dinner from the dispensary,
he saw two old people — about fifty or sixty years of
age, perhaps — coming towards him; and as they ap-
proached, down both went on their knees, bumping
their heads on the ground. He asked: "What is the
matter ? What do you want ? Get up ; we do n't allow
that." They arose and took a few steps, and down
they went once more, kotowing and pounding the
ground with their foreheads. Again he told them to
get up, and asked again what it was they wanted.
Then they said: "Do you remember that man whose
head was caved in? Well, he is our son, and we have
come to thank you for saving his life." They did not
know that the foreign doctor had had little to do with
80
The man with the broken head."
THE MAN WITH THE BROKEN HEAD
that; but as they never had heard the name of Jesus,
they could only think it was the foreigner.
Being too poor to hire a horse, those two old people
had come about one hundred miles on foot, about five
or six days' journey, to thank this man for saving
their son. Out of his dirty sheepskin gown the man
pulled a chicken, a wad of butter, and some eggs as
pay for this medical service. The money value was n't
much, but the heartfelt gratitude could n't be measured
in silver and gold. Lives wasted among these people ?
Ah, no; for in the Master's service there is always
compensation that is infinitely more of value than gold
or precious stones.
81
CHAPTER IX.
A Tibetan Sunday-School.
"Yeshu gna la jam bar zat,
Sung rap gna la song gin duk.
Trugu nam kong gi yni di,
Di tso stop chung kong ni chi.
"Yeshu gna la jam so,
Yeshu che la jam so,
Yeshu gna la jam so,
Dam cho la dri ne duk."
Do you hear them singing ? It is Sunday morning ;
the little chapel organ is playing, and they are singing
of Jesus in that queer language, yet the Name — that
wonderful Name — is much alike in all tongues. Step
into the little mud house and visit with them this
service hour. The house is full ; yes, crowded. More
than two hundred are jammed into that small room.
The windows are open, but still it does n't smell very
fresh in there ; there are such a lot of buttery Tibetans
— dirty, dirty little children ; thirty or forty of them —
and a lot of Chinese that haven't lately had a bath.
But it does n't matter ; everybody is singing — some in
Tibetan, some in Chinese — and the tune isn't always
the best in the world ; but they are all making a noise,
and that is something.
82
A TIBETAN SUNDAY-SCHOOL
Mr. Ogden is leading on one side of the room,
perhaps in Chinese, as the audience is a mixed one,
and Dr. Shelton on the other side in Tibetan. They
all sing two or three songs, then the crowd is divided.
Mrs. Ogden takes the women into one room, Dr.
Shelton the children into another, and Mr. Ogden
preaches the sermon proper to the more educated Chi-
nese audience of soldiers and a few farmers. Perhaps
he will play a song or two on the phonograph Dr.
Loftis brought, or give them a Chinese record or two
on the same, which they enjoy very much indeed.
Shall we peep into the other rooms too ? Mrs. Ogden
has the women, many of them with tiny babies. She
talks a little to them, tries to teach them a song, one
line at a time, as none of them can read, and they
are always jumping up to look out of the window to
see what 's happening outside. As much as she says
in teaching, perhaps even more to them, is her own
clean dress and face, her neatly combed hair, and
white-dressed baby Ruth looking like a little white
flower in that crowd of dirty women and dirtier babies.
A native woman with clean, washed clothes carries the
white baby while the mother teaches.
Dr. Shelton is in another room, sitting on the floor
or on a low stool, and thirty-five or forty dirty little
children are squatted around him. He is holding a
Sunday-school card in his hand, after giving each one,
and is telling them the story as it is pictured on the
card. Between times he teaches the names of the
apostles, of the father and mother of Jesus, of the
books of the Bible. These are all to be committed.
83
SUNSHINE AND SHADOW
These lads and lasses know little of books, and the
cards are in English, anyway.
In half an hour Mr. Ogden calls them all into the
bigger room. The song, " 'T is midnight, and on
Olive's brow," is sung and the communion given to
the little crowd of Christians, about fifteen of them
now, besides ourselves. The crowd is very quiet, and
it is good to partake with them.
The questions are so often asked: "Is it any use
to preach to these people?" "Don't you think it a
waste of time to spend your lives among them?"
"Aren't they too far down in the scale of humanity
for them to ever comprehend Christianity ?" "Do you
see any improvement or any difference in their lives
after they become Christians?" Let me answer these
questions in the order I have written them. This first
kind of question is asked us over and over again. Yes,
it is of use to preach to them, because we are com-
manded to do so; they need it; and is there anything
better in the world to teach to a man or woman or
child? A waste of time? Nay; but a life well spent.
It is only a little one man can do against years of super-
stition and heathenism, but the little is the beginning
and points to the way for others to follow ; for as long
as the Book is read, just so long will there be followers
of the Nazarene to carry to those who do not know
the story of His life. Perhaps we miss much of the
outside of what is called happiness, but we gain a heart-
happiness which is infinitely more; and what does it
all count in the end? We must all die some time,
somewhere, some day : and if the Master is forgotten
84
A TIBETAN SUNDAY-SCHOOL
every day, can we expect Him to remember us? You
say they are too low down, dear friends? Ah, yes,
when you judge by schools, by cleanness, by living, by
morals. But isn't it the heart, after all, that is the
measure of the man? These people, many of them,
are tender-hearted, generous, kind, loving, and are so
thankful for a word of loving sympathy. It is true,
there are rascals among them, and they might flay you
with a smile if the opportunity offered. But, do you
judge America by its worst men ? I 'm afraid some
of those black, buttery Tibetans would come out far
ahead of some of the "white slavers" if opportunity
of knowing the right was used in the balance scales of
character. To require the same standard for Chris-
tianity there, where it has never been known, and here
in this land, with churches everywhere, is not reason-
able. That is one of the marvels of the Christ, so
sweet, so simple that a child or a savage may under-
stand and live, yet so marvelous that men possessing
the keenest and most brilliant intellects are not able
to comprehend Him. To them we teach love and the
forgiveness of their enemies, to worship the true God,
to burn or put away all their idols, to cleave to one
wife, to tell the truth, and to give of their pittance
to the ones poorer than they. It is enough; could
you ask for more or less?
Mr. Ogden is most careful in his training and in
his teaching. The conditions are so different from the
homeland. At the first the people know absolutely
nothing of Christ. They come to him for a year or
a year and a half ; then, if at the end of that time they
85
SUNSHINE AND SHADOW
are still in earnest and know the simple truths, they
are baptized. Do they ever fall and make mistakes
and go back to the old lives? Yes, some of them go
wrong and fail, but they are helped up and start again.
Do you ever stumble and go wrong sometimes, with
all the good so near to you?
Perhaps the first difference noticed in those who
become Christians is the look on their faces and their
trying to "clean up." If the convert is a Chinaman,
he will likely put a clean gown over a dirty one, but
that does n't matter ; he is trying. They learn that
every seventh day is "worship" day ; that there is a
God that is neither brass, stone, nor mud; one who
listens and helps and comforts. The Tibetans are a
little slower learning to clean up than the Chinese,
perhaps because they have fewer clothes, and washing
is such a foreign element in their lives. But those who
are in our homes learn that we wash and put on our
cleanest gowns that day, and slowly but surely they
try to have theirs clean for that morning, to have their
heads buttered and braided, and faces and hands
washed, no matter if they are barefooted and have
rings of dirt around their arms, as far up as the water
and foreign soap has reached.
It is said by some man that, standing on the hills
above the city of Canton, the sound that reaches you
is all in a minor key, a tone of sadness inexpressible,
and you do not wonder, after scanning the faces of
hundreds and hundreds carrying the hopeless look of
the centuries, coupled with the years of ceaseless toil
for a pittance of bread. To them Christ has not yet
86
A TIBETAN SUNDAY-SCHOOL
been taken. Poor China ! The souls of her people all
live in minor tones, and not until the knowledge of
hope in Him shall reach them will the wailing change
to the major chorus of praise.
Will you take a peep into the mission school in
Nankin and see the bright, clean, happy faces there?
Here is a little girl walking on her knees. What is
the matter? Oh, the feet were bound too tightly and
had to be amputated. And that little baby over there,
she is too young to go to school, is n't she ? Yes,
but Miss Lyon found her out among the graves, where
she had been thrown to die or be eaten by the street
dogs, and the school girls love to care for her, and
Miss Lyon sees that she is clothed and fed. But you
wanted to hear about the Tibetan children at Sunday-
school ; but I could n't help but give you a glimpse
of this Christian school, though it is only a peep. We
will go back to Batang again, and you can walk in at
the side door and up to the front, and have a seat of
honor and take a look at them all. In one corner are
the women ; on one side are the Chinese men, and on
the other Tibetans, while right around the organ clus-
ter the day-school boys who sing best and know the
words and can read the songs. They have been in
school a few months and know them.
Do you see that little fellow with big ears and big,
bright eyes? He has just been in school a short time.
His father was cook to a few soldiers and ate opium,
and the little fellow had what food he could find and
the few dirty garments he could get from somewhere.
He belongs to the mission school now, has his head
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SUNSHINE AND SHADOW
shaved, and a bath and two suits of clean clothes, and
right proud is he of the fact, and you will have to ask
Mr. Ogden whether he learns quickly or not. Then
that little girl that looks so much cleaner than the rest ?
Yes, she is a school girl, and Mrs. Ogden has had her
for four years. The big boy over there looking quite
clean and important is Li Guay Guang. He has been
in the mission for six years. He is a Christian and can
take charge of the services now ; he is about eighteen
years old and is married to a little Tibetan girl, "Can-
dro," who goes to school with him. The other little
chap is Li Guay Guang's brother and is about thirteen
years old now. He was starving, lousy, sore-headed,
and freezing when the mission took him. Mr. Ogden
baptized him last summer. He can preach and lead
a prayer-meeting if they ask him to, and sing about
the best of the group. Another little girl over there ?
Yes, she is in school too. Mr. Ogden got her and
had her head shaved and washed, and gave her two
changes of clothes. She is a Tibetan.
Did you look at the faces outside and all along
the road as you came? Is there any difference be-
tween those and the ones you see here? Perhaps in
the writing I have not made you see the contrast in
the lives and faces of these people with whom we
work, and to whom hope of the future for the first
time has come; but I have tried, and I would have
you know this, that all men who come in even a small
way in touch with the life of the Nazarene live lives
that are sweeter, purer, and brighter if they wish
them to be.
A Tibetan beggar asking in a most polite way for a coin.
CHAPTER X.
A Mission Day-School.
"I hear the voices of children
Calling from over the seas,
The wail of their pleading accents
Comes home upon every breeze.
"And what are the children saying,
Away in these heathen lands,
As they plaintively lift their voices
And eagerly stretch their hands?
"O, Buddha is cold and distant,
He does not regard our tears;
We pray, but he never answers;
We call, but he never hears.
"We grope in the midst of darkness,
With none who can guide aright:
O share with us, Christian children,
A spark of your living light."
Yes, there are babies everywhere in Batang: little
ones and big ones, pretty ones and ugly ones, babies
somebody loves and babies not wanted at all. You
see them rolling around in the dirt, and it is such
dirty dirt that you want to pick them up and wash
and dress them and put them in school, and not let
them play all day and never learn to read or to do
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SUNSHINE AND SHADOW
anything else but keep alive. They know nothing
whatever of school or books or study ; but they know
a lot of the worship of demons and devils, and of the
burning of butter lamps in front of the great painted
Buddha or some of his reincarnations. Perhaps they
might be divided into two classes : those who must go
to the lamasery to be trained and taught as priests, and
those who remain to care for the home.
The eldest son always goes to become a priest;
sometimes more than one son goes, if he can be spared
and the family is a large one. He enters the monastery
at five or six years of age, and dons the brick-red gown
and has his head shaved. During the first years of his
life, unless he is to be a lama of great authority, he
is a kind of servant to the older priests, running er-
rands, carrying wood and water, or acting as personal
body servant to some of the older men.
They are taught a little every day ; some learn let-
ters or commit long prayers and lists of lucky and un-
lucky things to do. They learn to worship the great
idol as well as hundreds of lesser idols — some male,
some female — or pictures used for the placating of
devils and demons by which they are always sur-
rounded. This worship is through prayers or by eat-
ing bits of food as they sit chanting. Their food con-
sists of tsamba rolled in a wad, which hungry dogs are
always watching for and snap up at once. Sometimes
sour milk snapped from the third finger is thrown out
to appease demons with large stomachs and needle-
sized necks who never get enough to eat.
It looks rather pitiful to see the little fellows don
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A MISSION DAY-SCHOOL
the weird costumes in their yearly dances, stepping
and whirling with the great heads of animals made of
paper and worn over their faces, all as worship. Does
it not seem as if the little chap would get afraid and
lonesome, and want to run home to his mother for a
bit of comfort, away from these great, big, solemn
priests and their incessant drumming and chanting?
One feels as though he would want to get back home
once in a while, even if his bed was on the ground,
with only a goatskin or sheepskin covering, where he
would n't be lonesome any more and could play awhile
with the brothers and sisters, and not have to be
whipped if he forgot his long prayers or failed to sit
cross-legged in a perfectly correct manner. However,
it is the greatest honor that can come to a Tibetan
home to have a son at the lamasery, for he has a great
deal of authority, and the other people all do as he
says. He can command the best wages and the best
food for his prayers and chanting, and the wealth of
the land is all owned by the lamas, while the rent from
the fields is all to be paid to the monastery.
Perhaps it would be better to say "was," as now
in the region where the mission is located there are
no lamaseries, except very small ones, and the tax is
all paid to the Chinese Government. But such was
the custom before the Chinese took possession of the
country. Such is the life of the little boys who are
to become priests. The other little fellows remain at
home, herding the goats, sheep, or yak, helping in the
fields, carrying water, churning butter tea, learning to
grind the barley into tsamba, wearing one gown of
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SUNSHINE AND SHADOW
goatskin or sheepskin until it is worn out ; happy and
dirty, with no books, no study, no washing of necks
and ears, sleeping where they happen to be, mostly on
the ground or boards built along the wall and raised
a little from the floor. So it goes on, day after day,
until the boy is grown and can go and live in his
tent or bring a wife to his home or go out and make
one of their own. Perhaps he learns to snare the musk
deer or pheasant, or shoot a bear or tiger, and get the
teeth to sell or wear. Of course he learns to chant the
prayer "Om mani padme hum" and go on the proper
side of the mani piles and lay up all the merit he can
for himself in many ways by having prayer flags strung
on strings and stretched about the house. Perhaps a
prayer flag flies fastened to his gunstock. You see
them on the side of long poles, and still others at the
top of every pass ; but, of course, all Tibetans do these
things, and the lamas most of all, for it is their busi-
ness to be "holy" and "good."
Since the Chinese have destroyed the great lama-
sery and there is only place to take care of about
one-seventh of the boys, and a tax of fifty per cent of
all that is raised goes to the mandarin of the city,
there seems to be more babies than are needed, or at
least more than are wanted; babies to be had for the
asking and many for the buying. There are quite a
number of the half-breed children who have only the
mothers to care for them. The garrison of Chinese
soldiers is constantly changing, and these men form
ties that may be easily broken in that land, and they
leave their homes, which are again soon occupied by
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A MISSION DAY-SCHOOL
soldiers from another company, and so on. It is a
part of the Chinese plan to populate the country with
Chinese. As so many of the Tibetan men were killed
off in the war, this plan seems feasible.
But listen, one day two men went to "spy out
this land ;" right into the edge of this heathendom they
went. The men and women ran in fear and barred
their doors ; the children scurried into the gullies and
grass like little wild rabbits. It was n't an easy way
these men found, and the land was n't flowing with
honey, though there was plenty of milk; but their
hearts were wanting these Tibetans to know of Him.
Soon the Foreign Christian Mission Board said, "Go !"
and they went.
Within five months the "man" had opened his
school and a few of the rabbits were being tamed, only
they did n't know it. They had to be caught first, and
many were the traps used, though love and kindness
and food and clothing were the only bait. The gar-
dener's little girl came, for he had kept the vegetables
growing for awhile, and had learned not to be afraid.
She was a little, sober-looking, big-eyed mischief, and
could keep the rest in a constant state of giggles and
yet look perfectly sober when the man looked at her.
Then another little wild-looking thing from the moun-
tains came ; hair matted and filthy, and a piece of skin
for a dress. And what does the "man" do ? He takes
her to the Chinese barber and cuts and shaves all the
tangled mass of hair off her head, sends her for a
bath to the hot spring, and provides suits of clean
garments for her. My, how they yell when they first
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SUNSHINE AND SHADOW
get scrubbed ! But the little Chinese girl Mrs. Ogden
supports is clean, and her head is shaved, too, and
she begins to feel real important and almost as clean
as the foreigners.
But the school grows and the man has fifteen or
twenty, and no books at all for the younger pupils.
So their lessons must be written and prepared each
day, and he has all sizes of pupils, from five years old
to twenty-five. Every day for the little ones a sheet
of paper is taken, and on it pasted a picture cut from
the Ladies' Home Journal, or some picture from a
magazine; then the Tibetan teacher writes below it,
"dog," "cat," "horse," or "man" as it happens to be,
and the little tots have their first lessons to read and
remember, or learn to write ; so it must be done every
day. For the older ones there is the Bible and hymn-
book and tracts in Tibetan, but it is very difficult to
do graded work and work as school work is meant in
America.
The man employs two Tibetan teachers: one who
hears the lessons in Tibetan, one who is helping him
make some school books ; for he is translating many
of the songs into Tibetan, is writing tracts, is making
a set of readers for Tibetan boys and girls, a geog-
raphy, a physiology, and whatever else he may have
time and strength to do, as well as preaching and
teaching, loving and caring for his big church of
children. Yes, all are children in the knowledge of
love and sacrifice and in the service of the Master.
Besides these two Tibetan teachers he also employs
a Chinese scholar, for the Chinese pupils must learn
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A MISSION DAY-SCHOOL
to read and write their own language and have a
knowledge of their own classics, or they can never
hope to be employed by the Chinese Government.
Don't you think the man's heart and life and hands
are full? Yet he finds time to eat and sleep and go
around over that city and poke into all kinds of holes
for the sick and suffering and dying, feed those who
are starving, send the suffering to the dispensary or
take the needed medicine to them, and bury the dead,
saying a prayer over a cheap wooden coffin, a prayer
for mercy because the dead had not been told of the
Christ in time, and a prayer for those who are left
that they may know of Him.
To these people who live in this land with no hope,
only a hopeless endurance of fate written in their
faces, this picture of heathenism is very true: "Paint
a starless sky; hang your picture with night; drape
the mountains with long, far-reaching vistas of dark-
ness; hang the curtains deep along every shore and
landscape ; darken all the past ; let the future be draped
in deeper and yet deeper night; fill the awful gloom
with hungry, sad-faced, and sorrow-driven women and
children. It is the heathen world, the people seen in
vision by the prophet, who sit in the region and shadow
of death, to whom no light has come, sitting there still
through the long, long night, waiting and watching
for the morning." And into this blackness comes a
little Christian day school. The light is coming; as
yet it is very tiny, but the Lord keepeth watch above
His own, and as He guides and guards and helps the
man there can be no failure; and after awhile, when
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SUNSHINE AND SHADOW
enough are willing to serve the Master and do as He
wills, there will not be only a small candle flame in
one city on the border, but light everywhere in that
land.
There can be no better work than a Christian day
school ; every day they study and sing of Him. When
the children are educated Christians you have the
future generations. It is difficult to pay the proper
tribute to this man. Shall he not be called the man
of the hour ? To see his work is so much greater than
to write of it ; to know what he does, greater than to
tell a little of what he accomplishes.
The man is Mr. Ogden of Batang.
96
Mr. Ogden holding a water prayer-wheel quiet so it may be
photographed.
The present dispensary and the house where Dr. Loftis died.
CHAPTER XI.
Our Little Doctor.
SAFE IN THE ARMS OF JESUS.
"Safe in the arms of Jesus,
Safe on His gentle breast, —
Here by His love o'ershaded,
Sweetly my soul shall rest.
Hark! 'tis the voice of angels,
Borne in a song to me,
Over the fields of glory,
Over the jasper sea.
"Safe in the arms of Jesus,
Safe from corroding care,
Safe from the world's temptations,
Sin can not harm me there.
Free from the blight of sorrow,
Free from my doubts and fears;
Only a few more trials,
Only a few more tears.
"Jesus, my heart's dear Refuge,
Jesus has died for me;
Firm on the Rock of Ages
Ever my trust shall be.
Here let me wait with patience,
Wait till the night is o'er;
Wait till I see the morning
Break on the golden shore.
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SUNSHINE AND SHADOW
"Safe in the arms of Jesus,
Safe on His gentle breast, —
Here by His love o'ershaded,
Sweetly my soul shall rest."
There is no more fitting way to begin this chapter
than to place the song he loved at its beginning, a
song we still sing in memory of him, and which always
brings the tears. We feel so sure that he is safe there,
and in a measure he died that we might learn it. We
were so sure of the way Tibet was to be converted,
and did n't expect any Christians in our day ; and with
his coming our plan was complete, but not the Mas-
ter's. He was very kind to take the one who was
ready, and leave us to learn to be humble; to say,
"Master, we are ready to do Thy bidding;" to ac-
knowledge our weakness and ask for strength; and
the little doctor did all this. When we were humble
enough to allow Him to work, He did so, and mightily.
How patient God had been with our sureness and our
plans ! But wc must be taught before He could use us.
It seems we get often in the way and do much to hin-
der what might be done if we could just stay humble
enough and "willing to be made willing" to be of use.
To pay a proper tribute to Dr. Loftis seems an
impossibility. He was so much the superior of us
all in a spiritual sense. We stood with humbled hearts
and bowed heads when he came. It is not possible
to tell you of our love for him, nor of all we hoped
and expected from his coming.
It was during his short stay that Mr. Ogden and
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OUR LITTLE DOCTOR
Dr. Shelton went on the month's journey and had
about six hundred patients, meeting many people, mak-
ing friends among them, so that they need never be
so afraid of a foreigner again. His being in the city
made this possible. Dr. Shelton very seldom goes
longer than a week, as some of the mission might get
ill, and he would have to come home in a hurry.
The two men returned from this trip on August 3d.
Smallpox and typhus fever were everywhere. Dr.
Loftis was ailing that day. The next day Mr. and
Mrs. Ogden and the baby were ordered to the top
of the mountain and away from the city, as there was
•no vaccine for baby Ruth. Some things are better
forgotten; past pain is not easily lived again, and I
know of no better way to tell you about him, our be-
loved little doctor, than in the sketches written of him
at the time of his death.
It was a cold morning in February. Dr. Loftis stood
before the fire with an unopened telegram in his hand.
It was from Batang, the city toward which his face was
turned with a strange yearning. For weeks he had
been waiting for favorable conditions to start on the
long, hazardous journey. Now it had been decided
that he could go. His packing had been done with
the eagerness of a schoolboy, and he was to be off on
the morrow. But still he held the telegram unopened.
When I asked why, he said, "I 'm just trying to de-
cide first whether or not I '11 have the grace to obey
if this tells me to wait a while longer to start." We
understood; we had heard all the enthusiastic plan-
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SUNSHINE AND SHADOW
ning for the new work, and had marveled often that
one could be so eager and yet so patient. Dr. Loftis
was a rare combination. He spent two months with
us in Nanking, and every one in the station learned
to love him as a brother. There was about him that
indescribable something that attracted and held men
in an unusual degree. So capable and strong, so
humble and eager to learn, so thoroughly unselfish, so
consecrated to the one purpose, and withal with a
keen sense of humor that found the best and brightest
side of everything. Soon we were bringing him our
troubles and difficulties, and he seemed always to see
a way out. How we rejoiced with Batang ! He would
be to them all they had waited and hoped and prayed
for through weary months.
The telegram did not contain the dreaded mes-
sage, and the next morning he was off. For two
months we followed him in our imagination over the
rough roads, through rapids and gorges, and over
mountain passes until one bright morning in June the
children said, "Doctor will reach Batang to-day."
Every day's journey had been traced on the map, with
the children as interested audience. A few weeks
slipped away. There was just time to get the happy
letters from the Sheltons and Ogdens, rejoicing that
the right man had found his way to them, and Dr.
Loftis' enthusiastic praise of "my own people;" then
came that dreadful message, "Dr. Loftis is dead !" If
those words sent a pall over the hearts of our people
here, can you imagine what it meant to Batang ? For
days we could n't talk about it. It seemed too cruel.
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OUR LITTLE DOCTOR
Our little mission family has had its disappointments
and sorrows; times without number there have been
when only the eye of faith could pierce the gloom, but
this blow, from our human insight, was a mystery un-
fathomable. We could only be silent before Him.
Nankin. Mrs. Frank Garrett.
Through the city of Tachienlu runs one of the
main roads from China to Lassa, the capital. Here
our missionaries, Dr. and Mrs. Shelton and Mr. and
Mrs. Ogden, with their children, have become firmly
entrenched, having by their devoted lives won the
hearts of the entire community. Through years of
hardship, loneliness, weariness, sickness, and death
they have toiled on, and at length were cheered with
the news that a colleague was on his way to join them.
This was Dr. Z. S. Loftis, who reached them after
four months of constant travel. But, like the patri-
arch of old, he was only permitted to see the promised
land from afar. Within two months after his arrival
"he was not, for God took him.,, Only two short
months, and yet, what we know of his character, his
loss must have been appalling to his colleagues. With
them our deepest sympathies.
Dr. Loftis carried with him to Tibet the highest
credentials of his profession. He had also qualified as
a manufacturing chemist, and he looked forward con-
fidently to the discovery of crude drugs, minerals, and
chemicals from which to manufacture medicines for
use in his medical practice. To know him was to
IOI
SUNSHINE AND SHADOW
love him, as was seen by the fact that every mis-
sionary who met him — we among the number — coveted
him as a colleague. He expressed one regret only
upon arriving in China. When he saw the great need
of workers he said, "I wish I could reduplicate myself
one hundred times, so that I could work at each of
the stations."
The Foreign Board made no mistake in their se-
lection of Dr. Loftis for Tibet. He was the man we
had all been looking for. He has come — and gone.
Only a few short months a sojourner in the East, and
yet he will be remembered, and his life will be an in-
spiration as long as there is mission work to be done.
His labor has not been in vain. And in obedience to
the urgent call that is sounding from the Hermit King-
dom we believe that others will arise with his spirit
and take up the work, the contemplation of which had
filled him with the keenest joy.
Shanghai. Jamss Ware.
Dr. Loftis arrived here on June 17th, and about
July 5th Mr. Ogden and I left for an itinerating trip
we had been contemplating for some time, and were
gone twenty-nine days, getting back here August 2d.
For two days before we got back Dr. Loftis had been
working hard unpacking his things ; so when the next
day he did n't feel well he thought nothing of it, but
that he had overworked in unpacking, and said he
would go a little slower. The next day, however, he
had fever and began having the symptoms of small-
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OUR LITTLE DOCTOR
pox, of which there is a great deal here. Still it was
in doubt, as he had been successfully vaccinated when
a child, and several times since, but it had failed to
take.
Then the eruption came out; but instead of the
symptoms abating, they kept right on, and there ap-
peared in addition to the smallpox the eruption of
typhus fever. I was with him night and day and did
all in my power, but when the secondary fever of the
smallpox — the tubercular stage — came on, it was more
than mortal could bear and he died, unconscious, at
4 P. M., August 12th, not having been here two
months.
It seemed more than we could bear, for if ever a
man appeared to have been chosen, fitted, and prepared
by the Lord for a special work it was Dr. Loftis.
What are we to do? We had waited and prayed so
long for him. Then, when he came, he was so ob-
viously specially prepared and fitted for this work;
and now he is gone. You had not yet received his
letters from here telling you of his arrival when you
received our cablegram.
We were all so happy. It had been the end of
what seemed to us to be the best year by far for the
Master's work since we came, nearly six years ago.
You don't know what it means to us here. Is it
possible you can send us another man — another doc-
tor— at once ? We fear it is not possible. God knows
what is for the best — we know that; but to human
minds this appears truly a calamity. He lived in our
home, or rather boarded with us, and we loved him
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as a brother. The baby was always looking for him
and wanting to show "Doc Lof," as she called him,
every little scratch she had.
Batang. Dr. A. L. Shexton.
Everything for the last year and a half had been
planned and centered about Dr. Loftis' coming to us.
Every step of that awful Yangtse River, the long jour-
ney to Tachienlu, when we felt he was getting very
close, and lastly the seventeen days over the mountains
to Batang, and we grasped our little doctor's hand and
knew he was safely with us. We were saving our
green beans and peas and new potatoes for his coming
(we did n't have any last year) ; even baby, when she
asked for something and I said, "Wait a little," would
say: "Is Doc Lof comes? Is Doc Lof comes?"
Soon after his arrival Mr. Ogden and Dr. Shelton
took a month's journey through the Tibetan villages
doctoring some six hundred people, while he took
charge of the dispensary and cared for the women and
children in the station. He fitted into his work and
into our home life beautifully, declaring he would not
exchange life work with any man living, and declaring
in his quiet way "he had found his folks at last ;" and
we were glad, so glad, to find him. He saved a Ti-
betan who had taken opium, and the fellow's mother's
gratitude was unbounded. He spoke of how glad he
was to be so useful at once, and it is only a medical
man who can be of immediate use.
Whether to him came a premonition of his death,
I know not. He spoke of being ill sometimes, and I
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OUR LITTLE DOCTOR
asked him if he felt badly; he answered, "No; it's
coming ; it 's coming." His little caravan came in on
Friday, July 30th, and he was very busy unpacking
and putting things away on that evening and on Sat-
urday.
On Sunday afternoon he brought his graphophone
down to the house for Mrs. Ogden and myself and the
babies to hear, and we enjoyed it.
On Monday the men returned from their itiner-
ating trip, and we were all preparing to get settled
and acquainted. He had two rooms — a study and bed-
room— and he planned to build a bathroom and take
the room we had for a chapel and fix it for a sick
ward, so they could better care for the patients that
came.
Great hopes and dreams he had of the possibility
of going home through Lassa by the time his furlough
was due, and we believed it possible, especially for a
medical man and a single man.
On Tuesday evening he said he could not sleep and
got out his World's Fair pictures and looked at them
and listened to his graphophone play the songs sung by
Trinity Choir, and imagined himself back in old St.
Louis.
He had some new books, and we were wild to read
them. He had brought me "The Lady of the Deco-
ration" and told me a bit of her history; also "What
to Live For," marked heavily with his own thoughts.
The new thrill of life he brought with him, the
new knowledge, the strength to our little mission, you
can never know. Everything was becoming too easy
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SUNSHINE AND SHADOW
for the Tibetan border. Two new people had just
written and said they had volunteered for Tibetan
work — Mr. and Mrs. McLeod, to cross our journey
home either at Shanghai or San Francisco. It was
beautiful; but, Oh, the blow!
On Wednesday Dr. Loftis came to breakfast and
asked for a little milk toast ; said he was feeling badly,
went home and to bed. Dr. Shelton said he was in
for smallpox or some kind of fever. So on Thursday
I went and made his room neat. He was unpacking
and too ill to finish putting things away. He showed
me a little fancy article his mother had made ; showed
me the picture of his chum who came to China as he
did; told me a towel I was handling was given him
by a revenue officer's wife in the mountains, but was
too ill to talk much, and besides we had lots of time
to see his new things and hear of his friends and
America.
I came home that evening, and Dr. Loftis took to
his bed. Dr. Shelton went to him and stayed with
him until the end. In a day he announced "smallpox"
— that was enough. Another day, and the unmistak-
able typhus rash covered his body. Oh, how we hoped
and prayed for our little doctor!
Did you at home forget him and us? We were
very far away from you all. I sent the doctor his
meals and did the washing and all I could, but it
seemed so very, very little compared with what we
and the mission had at stake.
Then the afternoon came when I heard Dr. Shelton
sobbing in the yard, and he called me, telling that Dr.
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OUR LITTLE DOCTOR
Loftis had gone. I could not go to him, and he dare
not come to us. I could only hug my two little girls
and cry.
We sent for Mr. Ogden, as he and his wife and
baby had been sent from the city to keep the little
one from taking the smallpox, as we had no vaccine.
He came walking down the mountain in the dark
and rain, and stayed with Dr. Shelton that night, and
with our little doctor for the last time.
It did not seem true at all — we had looked so long
for him, and felt like this was a dreadful dream, and
that he would still come to us. He was with us such
a little while.
To say that we were broken-hearted and that our
work had seemingly come to a halt is saying very lit-
tle. May his death more than fulfill what he hoped
to do had he lived, and the Tibetan work be placed on
so firm a foundation that all shall see
"God's in His heaven,
All's right with the world."
We did n't believe a man could be found to take
his place, it had been so hard to find even one willing
to come. Yet in God's own time, when the word got
to Nashville and to the church that supported Dr.
Loftis, a young man got up and went to the telegraph
office and sent this message to President McLean,
"I '11 go and take his place." Dr. Hardy was the man
and is there now, doing the work Dr. Loftis went
to do.
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"I may not know why death should come
To take the dear ones from my home ;
But though mine eyes with tears be dim,
The Lord knows why — I '11 trust in Him.
"So, though I may not understand
The leadings of my Father's hand,
I know to all He has the key —
He understands each mystery.
"And the dark clouds may hide the sun,
The Lord knows why — His will be done."
Upon the coming of this man of God and his going
from us, upon the prayers of the people at home who
again remembered us in our trouble, and upon our
own weakness and humbleness so that we might be
used, is founded the Batang Tibetan Mission.
Words seem very weak to tell of this crisis in our
lives and in the work. His own book perhaps would
help you to know the princely soul of the man better
than this, and though feeling that I have said but little,
and that to this man we all owe so very much, yet there
is a feeling of utter inability to write of him as I
would and the prayer that through all the life of the
mission and to all who know and read of him may
the life and personality and death of our little doctor
be a benediction.
108
CHAPTER XII.
Tibetan Women and Their Home
Life.
"The toad beneath the harrow knows
Exactly where each tooth-point goes ;
The butterfly upon the road
Preaches contentment to that toad."
A Chinaman said one time, "Yes, the Tibetan
women are just like the missionaries' wives ; they rule
their husbands and manage the home," which was
much to the disgust of that celestial, as their women
folks are supposed to have no say-so whatever, but
be perfectly obedient and submissive to the master of
the house in everything. The average Tibetan woman
in her home has about the same right as the average
American wife. If she has servants, she orders and
controls them, carries the key to the grainroom, gives
out the food, butter, and cheese, sometimes helps with
the cooking, looks after the cattle and pigs, sends the
servants to get wood or hay, and whatever else the
household requires in its running, she looks after it. In
the poorer houses there are no servants, and there is
only one small mud-room with dirt floor, a few wooden
bowls, an earthenware teapot for the butter tea, and if
too poor to buy butter, bones are mashed and crushed
and the marrow put in the tea in its place. Tsamba
109
SUNSHINE AND SHADOW
or barley flour is the best ; so they very seldom have
that, but dough-balls of buckwheat flour cooked in
water, or pancakes of buckwheat flour cooked on a
hot rock, with little or no meat. Beds are on the
floor or ground, with their ragged clothes as cover-
ings. Fire of sticks in a small clay stove, and no chim-
ney, the smoke going where it will. There is a hole,
usually, in the roof, where the smoke is supposed to
go out, but it does n't generally please to.
These people work in the fields of the better class
and serve for their food and five cents a day. Body
and soul stick together, but it does n't seem possible.
Then there are always some babies to feed at that
price. They often carry the small ones to the fields
and lay them down in a corner while they work, or
let an older child carry them.
Polyandry has been the custom in this country, and
is practiced yet in some places, but not so much in the
city and vicinity of Batang. Once in a while a big
fellow thinks his wife needs a good beating, and pro-
ceeds to give it to her with a rawhide strap. They
sell husbands or wives whenever the notion so takes
them. One man sold his wife to a Chinese official for
forty rupees. One Tibetan woman bought another's
husband for five rupees and still owed one and a half
rupees some two years after!
The houses on the mountains are of the woven
yak-hair and are the famed black tents of the Nomad
tribes of Tibet. They are not very high, and have
their campfires in the center; pieces of raw yak or
sheep-meat hanging up on the inside, a few utensils,
no
TIBETAN WOMEN AND THEIR HOME LIFE
a brass pot for tea, and a few bowls. Sour milk,
cheese, meat, a bit of tsamba perhaps, and tea, which
is legal tender most anywhere on the border, furnish
the diet. A few ounces of tea will give a traveler a
welcome for the night, and he will be treated in a
most hospitable manner and given the best the tent
affords. It is n't clean, and the churn that made the
butter is one-fourth of an inch deep around the sides
with sour milk, and is never washed; but it's the
best they have, and is given freely.
The clothing is only of skins, the beds more skins
thrown in a corner, while the garment they wear is
the only covering. In the summer time these tents
are nearer the tops of the mountains, while as winter
comes they come lower into the valleys. It seems
very desolate and lonely, does n't it ? They are not
able to read and have only the care of the flocks and
herds, marriage, birth, and death.
Nothing else besides to break the monotony of
their lives, but occasionally a caravan of tea or cloth
will stop near them for the night for protection and
to let their animals graze, and these travelers can tell
them tales of the world the other side of their moun-
tains.
Never do the flocks and herds of one valley en-
croach upon the other men's grazing territory; for if
they do, there is apt to be a killing. The unwritten
law among the tribes is strictly obeyed, the mountains
forming as perfect a boundary as barbed wire or a
"stake and rider" fence.
In a house of the better class there are three stories,
in
SUNSHINE AND SHADOW
as a rule. The lower is used as the barn for their
cows, yak, horses, mules, donkeys, and pigs; all are
housed for the night in this part of the building. One
room perhaps has the hay and straw, another the
threshed grain, and all carefully locked and the mis-
tress carrying the heavy keys. Upstairs is the big
kitchen with its great clay stove, three or four big
brass pots and Chinese pans upon holes built for
them, a big bronze kang or barrel for water, which
has never been washed or emptied since it was made ;
two or three churns for making butter and tea, brass
dippers of different sizes, shelves for brass teapots and
some of earthenware, several silver-lined bowls, and
also some plain wooden ones for the use of the serv-
ants. On the floor of this big room is where the serv-
ants sleep, stretched out on the floor indiscriminately
and using their clothing for their covering and with
their feet toward a big clay stove.
Another is the mistress' room. It is fitted up for
a reception-room, with the low tables and benches,
leather stools, small charcoal fire over which the but-
ter tea is kept hot all the time for the guest who
happens to arrive. In this room the family eat, the
master and mistress and the children and the guests,
who are waited upon by the servants.
Opening from this is an alcove used as a sleeping-
room, the boards of the floor raised a few inches
higher than the main part, much as a small rostrum,
only not so wide.
All Tibetan families of the better class have serv-
ants, many of them own slaves. There is a custom
112
^S^l1
1
; .-• *,
BBj%-*v
*
A
_^
TIBETAN WOMEN AND THEIR HOME LIFE
whereby for a debt, or if they so desire, a man or
woman wishing to become a slave in a wealthy family
comes with four witnesses and vows to serve for a
term of years or for life, and so becomes the property
of the house.
There seems to be work all the time for all but
the mistress, who oversees it all in the home, as the
master is usually away on a trading trip of some kind.
The Tibetan lady has a quiet way with the slaves, and
they seem to yield her implicit obedience. Quarrel-
ing or sullenness occur very seldom, although the food
of those serving is not of the best, but nearly always
of the cheap kind, buckwheat instead of tsamba being
used for the servants.
There is one other room in the home: the sacred
or idol-room. In this are two or three idols of bronze
or plated gold, which are worshiped every day, and
before whom is placed the butter lamp and bowl of
holy water daily. In this place are the sacred books
owned by the family and the ones the lamas read from
when they come, unless they bring some of their own,
which are supposed to be more efficacious for the occa-
sion. Here are the drums of skulls, or imitations of
them, rosaries of skull bones or coral or glass, bells,
holy-water vases, and all their valuable garments of fur
or cloth, which have come down from father to son and
mother to daughter, gold and coral ornaments and
gowns for festive occasions.
The mistress of one house was an aristocrat and
belonged to the ruling class before the Chinese be-
headed or deported them all. She is a widow of per-
3 113
SUNSHINE AND SHADOW
haps fifty years. Into the home one daughter-in-law
had been brought to be the wife of the two sons. One
of them tired of this and left the home to marry an-
other woman and make his own hearthstone, which
greatly displeased the mother, as one object of poly-
andry is to keep the home as one, and all the sons
who are there making money for the one rooftree.
She bitterly blamed the daughter-in-law, who in
a measure showed authority in the home, and once in
a great while the mistress showed her displeasure by
leaving her usual place of sleeping and going up to
the flat roof, where she had a small room, and stay-
ing in it, drinking much wine and with one old slave
to wait upon her. Then the daughter-in-law had the
management of the affairs in her own hands.
One son was a lama and stopped on his way to
Lassa to visit his mother. He was her favorite son,
and as he left, the old lady, with tears rolling down
her cheeks, gave him sacks of barley, butter, cheese,
and wine to take on his long journey. But a kind
of tragedy seemed to hang over the home, for the
servant woman who was cook died of syphilis and her
two children of smallpox. The daughter-in-law had
dysentery for months, but the old lady did not want
the foreigner's medicine, and her husband was gone.
Lamas came every day, read prayers, and beat drums
for months. She grew weaker and weaker, opium be-
ing given when the pain was too severe. Finally the
husband was called home. He called for medicine the
day before she died, and promised a horse or a yak,
anything, if his wife could only be saved; but it was
114
TIBETAN WOMEN AND THEIR HOME LIFE
too late. She died and left a tiny baby three or four
months old.
A little time afterwards the baby was starving; it
was not strong enough to thrive on the tsamba and
butter, and the poor little thing cried all the time.
One day at church the old lady came to me and pointed
to the baby with tears in her eyes ; said it was going
to die, and though she never loved the mother, she
did love the baby girl; she sobbed and cried and left
us. Hurrying home, some rubber nipples that had
been left over from the little foreign babies' bottle din-
ner were found and fixed on a bottle full of clean,
warm milk, and back to the baby it was sent. The
little thing took it at once and soon began to grow.
The father bought a new yak, so she could have
plenty of milk. The nipple did n't last long. They
said they washed it, but they did not, and the cat
ate it one time. It had a coating of sour milk always
on it and in the bottle; but the baby still thrives.
Other babies came for the "rubber dinners," and our
supply was soon exhausted. It was a wonderful thing
to feed a baby like that.
The old slave who had served this mistress for
years for his food and a few clothes fell and broke
his ankle. He asked for the foreign doctor, but the
medicine made his ankle sting, and he said he did n't
want him any more ; so he stayed away. In nine or
ten days the old fellow wanted him to come again.
He and Johnny went. The old man lay with the
broken limb on an old dirty mat of wool, and corrup-
tion everywhere, as the limb had not been moved or
**$
SUNSHINE AND SHADOW
washed since the first time. The stench was some-
thing horrible as the doctor bent over to wash the
foot. The Tibetan teacher who was with him said
he couldn't stand it, that it made him sick, and he
got away; but every day Johnny and the doctor
washed and bandaged and cleaned it. Johnny had to
wash and boil the bandages, and pick off the dead lice,
so that they might be used again, and Mr. and Mrs.
Ogden sent the old fellow white rice and milk. The
mistress said : "Are you wasting rice on that old man ?
He is of no use any more; let him die." And he
did die.
These Tibetans have the mixture of good and bad
that is in every human being. It is easy to say, and
it removes so much responsibility to say: "Let them
alone. They are better off. They are used to dirt
and filth, and it does n't matter."
"The butterfly upon the road
Preaches contentment to the toad."
116
CHAPTER XIII.
Tibetan Characteristics.
"The heart of man is the only deceitful heart in nature."
(A Tibetan saying.)
Because of lack of sanitary conditions and the
proper care and nourishment it is impossible for a
baby who is not of the strongest to survive. The
death-rate must be very high, for sometimes if the
mother dies the poor little thing is fed tsamba and
butter at once, and milk that is extremely filthy. So
the little chap soon dies and is thrown into the river,
and there is more for those who are left. Thus only
the heartiest grow to manhood and womanhood.
First of all the Tibetan impresses the beholder
with the fact that he is a splendid animal : tall, strong,
stout, and lithe ; able to endure any amount of climb-
ing and walking, with no apparent fatigue. The alti-
tude seems to have little effect upon these big, husky
fellows with swelling muscles and stout limbs, and
even in the coldest weather they go with the right arm
bare, able to endure more than the yak, perhaps be-
cause their food is grain and butter, with raw meat,
while the yak have no food except the grass they can
graze.
They seem a merry, happy-go-lucky, good-natured
117
SUNSHINE AND SHADOW
people; but over all and in all they do hang the
tragedy of superstition and the demons that always
surround them. Perhaps a bit of this and the cen-
turies of darkness through which they have come are
expressed in their music. There is a note of pathos
in it, as in the Negro melodies at home, and it is
said that in music unconsciously is expressed the un-
dertone of gladness or sadness as it exists in the
human heart. Their songs are quite imaginative,
many of them telling of their mountains and of happi-
ness that might be possible. They are in many ways
like children who are grown, with passions that are
not controlled, and with no moral sense whatever.
A man came to Mr. Ogden to be one of his teach-
ers. He asked him if there was anything he was
hiding from him, or had he come to him for protection
in any way, and the man said, "No;" he had killed a
man, but he had settled for that, and had paid his
relatives a number of rupees, and that was why he
was so poor, but that was all finished. It is a custom
among them, in case of a murder, to accept so much
money from the murderer and call it "square."
A strange mixture of brutality and kindness are
these people, with hearts "even as yours and mine."
People that turn their old mothers and fathers out to
die or beg, and lay them outside on the ground until
they do die when they become too weak to beg or care
for themselves. People that pass and repass a child dy-
ing in the street. People that put such loads on their
donkeys that great pieces of skin are worn off their
backs. People that would rather starve a dog to
118
TIBETAN CHARACTERISTICS
death than kill one, yet will give a corner to a beggar
to stay in. Will feed the lamas with their tsamba and
tea, love their children the same as we do, share their
last bite with a friend, generous to a fault, and whose
hearts respond to sympathy very quickly.
A woman in a village where Dr. Shelton went
once a week to take medicine to those who were ill
there, had a little child a year and a half or two years
old, and he nearly always took the little fellow a
piece of bread or something to eat. On one trip he
asked for the baby, and the old grandma with tears
rolling down her cheeks said he was dead. When the
mother came in he laid his hand on her shoulder in
sympathy to try to comfort her and tell her the baby
was safe in the other world with Jesus, and the tears
poured like rain. The daily struggle for a bite to eat
must go on ; there was no hope in her heart, and none
to give her sympathy or speak a word of consolation.
Among them are people with hearts big and generous,
who would rather die than oppress the tenants who
owe the lamasery.
The treasurer of one of the big lamaseries in
Tachienlu had charge of a certain district, and from
these tenants he must collect so much grain and but-
ter or rupees for payment on the land. Crops had
failed, and he had loaned and loaned. There were
only a few pecks of barley for one year; crops failed,
and they were hungry, and could not pay, and he had
loaned the seed again. The king was asking for
money and urging that he collect the rent and pay
at once. He needed the money for his own use, and
119
SUNSHINE AND SHADOW
the grain to feed his great number of servants. The
old fellow's heart ached for his poor people, but he
dare not refuse to obey the king's request. One even-
ing after he came home from seeing his tenants and
knowing the utter impossibility of forcing them to
pay their two or three years' rent with nothing or
reporting such a condition to the king, the old man
drank a lot of wine and thrust his sword through his
heart, and the others dare not tell the king how or
why he died, only reporting his death.
Most Tibetans carry swords, and their fights are
quite often very fierce ; but if they have n't a sword
handy, a stone will do, and it makes a pretty severe
weapon.
Two men were quarreling because a donkey be-
longing to one of them had gotten into the other man's
field and did some damage to his grain. They used
stones, or rather one of them did, and the one owning
the field pounded the other fellow up pretty well.
However, the official found it out, and the one who
did the pounding had a square board placed on his
neck and was sent to sit in the grain field where the
fight occurred and was bidden to pay the doctor's bill
of eight rupees.
Another Tibetan called for Dr. Shelton to come
and fix him up, but the official did n't find out about
his case and that he had been fighting. He said he
fell downstairs ; but for a fall like that it was pretty
severe, for it cut his face, slit his nostril and lip,
and cut a gash above the eye. The fact about the
matter was that he had been drunk and fighting, and
120
TIBETAN CHARACTERISTICS
had been hit with a stone a few times. He told the
truth when he found out the official would not be in-
formed.
Revenge is a strong element in the makeup of a
Tibetan character and enters even into the biting in
two of a louse — with the sentiment, "You bite me, and
I '11 bite you." Forgiveness is an element that does
not enter into their code of morals at all. If it is im-
possible to take out their revenge by physical force,
they can pray to their idols and have them kill the man.
An old man with hair in matted gray tangles, a
prayer-wheel in one hand, a rosary in the other, and
walking each day around and around a mani pile of
carved stone covered with prayers, and muttering the
prayer with his lips, walked every day near the lama-
sery at Batang saying hundreds of prayers every
minute to lay up good deeds for himself.
But it is a religion of fear, and not love. A fear
of punishment in the hereafter. Thus they strive for
merit and the hope that they may become absolute
nothingness as quickly as possible in the hereafter, so
that in the different lives they must live before this
annihilation comes they may escape as much punish-
ment as possible.
One day a living Buddha came into the study.
He happened to pick, up a large volume of Dante's
"Inferno," illustrated by Dore, and he remarked,
"Why, this is just like our books. This is our hell, too.
See, here are some in boiling water, some head down-
ward in pits, some the snakes are biting, and some
frozen into the ice. This must be our book ; you have
121
SUNSHINE AND SHADOW
just translated it." But we felt a bit ashamed that
our house should harbor Tibetan hells, and wondered
where in the world Dante had dreamed his ghastly
dreams that have been so truly pictured by the great
artist !
A superstitious faith in the power of the lamas to
bring them good or ill is a strong element in the Ti-
betan makeup. Any piece of old garment worn by a
man considered holy, and the laying of his hands on
their heads, his prayers, and his sprinkling with holy
water they firmly believe will bring good luck and
ward off all evil. If things go wrong, the man is
bad and the evil spirits are managing his affairs ; but
if he is good, as their standards go, he is lucky and the
good spirits are the ruling power.
But withal the Tibetan is a good, healthy animal,
with a generous heart, and will love devotedly, when
he does love, and serve most faithfully, trusting im-
plicitly; but if he dislikes you he will get just as far
away as possible, and stay there. But these people
respond to love and know instinctively real love or
love assumed, and when they decide not to fear the
lamas and become Christians, they will serve with
devoted hearts and with one purpose, to help "others"
and, if need be, suffer martyrdom of the fiercest for
their belief in the Christ.
122
CHAPTER XIV.
Results.
"I pray thee, then,
Write me as one that loves his fellow-men,
* * * *
And lo! Ben Adhem's name led all the rest."
The following is the card that came on July 20th,
as this manuscript was being written:
"Batang, Sunday, May 21, 191 1.
"Dear Dr. Shelton: It is surprising how our
attendance at church holds out. To-day at our regular
service the house was jammed full of Chinese, Tibetan
women, and children. There was hardly room to
breathe, but the talk was listened to with deathly
silence. Certainly we are getting a chance to sow
some seed, and may it spring up and grow!
"Yours as ever,
"Jas. C. Ogden."
Is n't it wonderful what our little doctor's coming
did for Tibet? The Lord's plan was so entirely dif-
ferent from ours. How much we had to learn before
we could be used ! After our little doctor's going we
felt so perfectly powerless and utterly unable to take
123
SUNSHINE AND SHADOW
up the load and go on again, that we were of no use,
and had better give it all up. But when we were
all on our knees in humbleness, and ready to say, "We
are nothing; but use us, O Father, if it be possible
in the face of all this" — then He began to use us. Mr.
Ogden's great revival began, and more than two hun-
dred came in that raw land, in that young station, con-
fessing their sins of robbery and murder and trying
to quit opium and wine-drinking, asking that he go
into their homes and tear down their idols, which he
so gladly did, leaving in their places the Lord's Prayer.
Many of the Chinese confessed their immorality and
the great sin of leaving an old mother or father un-
cared for in their homes, while they ran away or joined
the army. Many sins which, if their official had
known of them, a few heads less might have been the
consequence.
About seventeen have been baptized at the begin-
ning of this year (1912), and still the interest grows
and the people come and listen, many of them in order
and quietness, and the Lord's Word never returns
void.
From one of Mr. Ogden's letters comes this word :
"To-day our chapel was crowded beyond capacity.
Baptized one young man, a Chinese scholar, and he
promises to be a very earnest and useful Christian
man. One school teacher, who at first asked that he
be not required to read Scripture at services, because
he didn't believe in Christianity, has now professed
his faith in Christ, but has not yet been baptized."
There is persecution in it, too. One of the boys
124
RESULTS
baptized at Tachienlu was asked to go and remain in
the mission school at Batang. His father refused. A
year or so later he was sent to the government school
there, and never permitted to go to the church or
Sunday school, or even to visit in the homes of the
missionaries. He was a fine lad, and his cross was n't
easy. Lately he was severely beaten, and his father
took him home, for no other reason — as far as can be
discovered — than that he was a Christian.
Among those who came to Mr. Ogden during the
revival was Jan Tsen, his Tibetan teacher. He was
a hard wine-drinker. After his morning duties were
over he would always have his bowl or two of wine,
and it was making him a physical wreck and very
nervous, as the wine is made from fermented barley
and is a kind of white whisky, with from fifty to sixty
per cent of alcohol in it. During the revival he came
bringing his wine-cup, and said he wanted to be bet-
ter and would not drink any more. The story of this
man is a very interesting one and the end of it not
yet in sight. Jan Tsen was a man from the district
called Derge, in which such fine hammered copper-
work is done and where swords are made, all by hand
and with the crudest tools.
Mr. Ogden employed him in August, 1907, and he
stayed with him in Tachienlu some two years, and then
with his wife and little girl came to Batang, remaining
with him until May, 1910. His wife, little girl, and
his baby boy, about one year old, born since coming
to Batang, had been coming to church, and the little
girl was learning to read. He knew a lot about the
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SUNSHINE AND SHADOW
Bible and could explain almost any part, having gone
over it and over it in Tibetan as he taught Mr. Ogden.
The hope was, if the mother and father never became
Christians, the two little children would come to the
school and eventually be led to Christ. One day he
came and said he had to return to Tachienlu. As
he was Mr. Ogden's personal teacher and his school
teacher and translator, it was like losing his right
arm to give him up. He was very trustworthy and
could be depended upon for everything, and with it
all was his knowledge of Jesus and the hope that we
all had that some day he might be a Christian.
This is how Jan Tsen came to go to Tachienlu.
Some time back the big abbot of the yellow-cap mon-
astery in Tachienlu had died, and search had to be
made for his reincarnation. So the lamas cast lots to
see in which town would be found the reincarnated
abbot, and the lot fell upon Batang. A very holy lama
was journeying from Tachienlu to Lassa, the sacred
Tibetan capital, by prostrating himself all the way.
He would only travel a little bit every day, his hands
shod with wood as he measured his length, marking
it with his outstretched arms ; then rising, stepping to
the mark, and prostrating himself again; and so on
and on through the cold, over the mountains and roads
— endless roads.
This lama brought a letter, and he was to choose
the baby — and he chose Jan Tsen's baby; the little
lad being then just a little over a year old. "Old
Giggy" ("Ciggy" being teacher in Tibetan) said at
first he would not go to Tachienlu with the baby. He
126
RESULTS
had been fighting the affair for some three or four
months, but finally he and his wife went to see the
big lama at his place, and he said if they did n't go
in that month the baby would die the next month. So
that settled it, and they left on May 15th for Tachi-
enlu. It is a great honor to have the baby chosen as
the great abbot, and gives the parents unlimited money
and power. But after the baby is weaned it belongs
to the lamasery, and the mother is not allowed to kiss
or carry it again, as she is unclean to her own baby
boy who is to be a great priest. He at once dons the
red-and-yellow garments of his holy order, and wears
them forever. The Tibetan teacher said he would re-
turn after the baby was weaned, and he did. He is
now Mr. Ogden's right-hand man in the mission.
Perhaps one of the greatest problems we have to
face is the problem of our own little ones. Bless the
babies! — our babies who came to us in this foreign
land. What a comfort they are, and what sunshine
they bring with them ! They are not consciously miss-
ing the beautiful easy things at home, nor the clean,
wide streets and beautiful music. They are always
busy, always happy, and can get into just as much
mischief here as there. Perhaps "papa" and "mamma"
will be said in the native tongue first, but it sounds
just as sweet as it does in America.
They are greater missionaries than any of us, for
they speak the language as the people do, and there
is no chance to misunderstand them. When going
into Batang the people were afraid of us, but when we
stopped for the night and they saw the children play-
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SUNSHINE AND SHADOW
ing they would come near them, and soon lost all
fear of us, too.
To educate our children properly is perhaps the
hardest problem, and that has not yet been solved. To
leave them in America and let them forget father and
mother, or to remember that they were too busy with
missionary work to care for them, seemed impossible.
For the mother to stay in America with them and let
Dr. Shelton go back for his heaviest year's work and
be without a home and them, seemed also impossible ;
so we believe that taking them with us is best : taking
the course of study, the books necessary, and teaching
them ourselves. Travel in itself is an education. So
we leave the result with Him who guards and guides
us, knowing that only the problem of one day at a
time is given us to solve, and trusting Him for strength
to do whatever He wills.
Now everywhere are the open doors of opportunity.
Men come asking for medicine, for Dr. Shelton to go
to their homes and help their sick and suffering. They
are not yet asking for the gospel, as that is the big
step yet in the land; but they will soon know that
with the medicine goes something that is strange and
new, that is love and sympathy and help and the name
of Jesus ; and when a Tibetan becomes a Christian he
will be no weakling, and soon the world can say:
"There is but one homeland, that is where God is ;
There is but one foreign land, and that is of sin."
128
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CHAPTER XV.
Good- Bye to Batang.
"The inner side of every cloud
Is always bright and shining;
I therefore turn my clouds about
And always wear them inside out
To show the silver lining."
The first seven years of service were ended, and
it was time to go home for a while. Good-byes are
hard things to say, always. Perhaps there is no better
way to close this book than by the following little ar-
ticle written shortly after the arrival in America:
Tell you how I got home from Batang? Well,
I can, but I do n't want to ; I 'm home now, resting
and playing and just looking at these beautiful, clean
American things, at the pretty churches, and listening
to the music that makes the tears come whenever I
hear it. It seems to me it would be easy to be good
in America.
We left Batang on October 8th. As I couldn't
walk, I was carried downstairs and put into the sedan
chair. (I had fallen down a mountain gully, with a
horse on top of my leg, and it had been broken and
badly crushed.) Dr. Shelton was draped around with
a few silk strips; my chair was likewise decorated;
fire-crackers were fired, and we were off. Many of
9 129
SUNSHINE AND SHADOW
the natives went a piece outside the city with us ; but
the best sight was a long line of Dr. Shelton's opium
patients standing in a row, giving him the Chinese
good-bye; then his Tibetan teacher, with tears in his
eyes, telling him to "go slowly."
It was hardest to leave Mrs. Ogden and the dear
little babies. Finally we were off on the long journey
to America. I could n't walk one step ; so every night
I was carried on a man's back into the inns, and every
morning carried out and put in the carrying-chair
for the day. Most days the traveling was pleasant,
though we had one snowstorm, rain a day or so, the
strong wind one day — so strong I thought I would be
blown off the mountain road ; but I was n't. We met
caravan after caravan of loaded yak, and I was always
sure one of their big horns would stick into my chair
and rip it to pieces ; but perhaps they were as afraid
of me as I was of them.
I don't know how to tell you of our going away.
It was sad and joyful too. It was hard to leave Mr.
and Mrs. Ogden and the children, but it was good
to know that so many Tibetans were friends and were
sorrowful to see us leave. The women ran along by
the chair giving me milk to drink in a bowl with bits
of butter on the edges, and we all cried. Perhaps they
are dirty, and I would n't have cared so much a year
or two before, but sometimes a greater love than you
have known before grasps you, and you love more
abundantly, and we love them even more than they
love us, though I think they felt the love as little chil-
dren feel it.
130
GOOD-BYE TO BATANG
Many of the women took off their rings and gave
them to me as a parting gift — precious to them, but
of how much more value to me! — showing the love
they felt. It was much in money from people so very
poor as they. I do n't know the way to tell you how
we felt. It was not ourselves that inspired it, but He
whom we serve, within us, that made us feel so close
to them. It is n't easy to live in that land, no ; but
there are compensations, and you feel that you want
to return, for the Master seems nearer over there than
here. And may some who read this volunteer to go.
You can travel where my babies have been. "No
money," you say ? Faith and prayer would bring more
than we could use.
We have been happy since coming home, meeting
our friends once more, but Oh, so grieved to hear of
the death of Mr. Ogden's baby boy ! Are you pray-
ing for them over there now ? Their hearts are very
sad, and we wish we might have been with them at
such a time. We are safely home. We feel that we
have been marvelously protected on all the long jour-
ney and sent home for a purpose.
What the purpose of the homecoming was, only
the future can tell. Now, shall we say good-bye,
you and I, dear friends ? You know us all ; those here
and those in the "bright land." Let me name them
again to you before we part. Little Bertha Ogden
left us in Tachienlu for the "other side," while the
rest of us were to wait a little longer. Mr. and Mrs.
Ogden and baby Ruth, Dr. Hardy, Dr. Shelton, with
little Dorris and Dorothy and me. Then our Dr. Loftis
131
SUNSHINE AND SHADOW
and baby Jim, who lie buried on the road to Lassa —
"God's last milestone to Tibet."
Protect us, O Master, in Thy service, and may we
all say with our little doctor, when it is Thy will that
we serve Thee no longer here, Lord Jesus, take us
to be with the others whom Thou hast loved and called
to Thee! Keep us humble, near to Thee, that Thou
canst work through us ! Give faith to those we leave,
and to us, O Father, give strength and love to do Thy
bidding even to the uttermost!
13*
CHAPTER XVI.
The Situation One Year Later, the
Close of 1912.
"Men, my brothers, men the workers, men reaping something
new;
That which they have done but earnest of the things that they
shall do.
I dipt into the future far as human eye could see,
Saw the Vision of the World, and all the wonder that
would be.
"Till the war-drum throbbed no longer, and the battle-flags
were furled,
In the parliament of man, the federation of the world.
There the common sense of most shall hold a fitful realm
in awe,
And the kindly earth shall slumber, lapt in universal law."
In the early fall of 191 1 Dr. Sun Yat Sen at
last succeeded in bringing about the revolution he had
spent so many years in instigating. The Chinese were
successful in overthrowing the Manchu dynasty that
had ruled absolutely for almost three hundred years.
Within three months the rigid monarchy was over-
thrown and the dragon flag trampled underfoot and
the new flag of five colors was hoisted over the infant
Republic of China. The whole of China was in an
uproar, seething from one end to the other with new
133
SUNSHINE AND SHADOW
thoughts and new ideas. It spread like the waves of
the sea, from the coast to the interior places. It was
impossible for this state of affairs not to affect Tibet,
the last province that China was acquiring and fitting
under Chinese rule, watching for any opportunity to
throw off the Chinese yoke and regain her old power
and authority. Farther and farther west spread the
disturbance and unrest. All food supplies and tele-
graphic communication was cut off from Batang.
Mail and money ceased coming. For a time the mis-
sionaries there felt quite safe, indeed safer than any-
where else in the old empire, believing that they were
so far inland that the trouble would not reach them.
Rumors of all kinds reached them; the garrison of
Chinese soldiers that had been stationed there had been
ordered to Chentu to help in quelling the war in that
vicinity. The China Inland Mission missionaries from
Tachienlu fled westward to Batang; also the French
bishop, priests, and nuns. It had been the plan of the
Tibetans to capture a foreigner and hold him as ran-
som until their seals of authority were returned by the
Chinese, who had taken and retained them. Upon the
arrival of the two young men from Tachienlu they all
thought the best thing was to leave and go southward,
at least for a time, and then return again. Upon go-
ing to the Chinese official and asking for protection,
he said he could not give it, as his soldiers were gone ;
and so he told them to go, and loaned them money
with which to leave. Subsequent developments have
proved beyond a doubt that they all pursued the
wisest course possible. The United States minister
134
THE PRESENT SITUATION
urged that all residents, especially in cases where there
were women and children, in interior localities be re-
moved to places of safety. They had ten days of warn-
ing in which to leave their homes, the little church,
and all those who loved them. Mrs. Ogden, soon to
become a mother, must make this journey into an un-
known land, over an unknown road, and through and
into untold dangers. Let me tell you of their going
as Mr. Ogden wrote it for me : "The day before and
the day we left Batang there was a continuous stream
of Chinese and Tibetans bringing presents of flour,
bread, eggs, meat, butter, and little gifts of silver rings
and ornaments. There were sad faces everywhere, in
the yard and in the house, and some one sobbing the
whole time. Gayeng Ongder brought leather-covered
boxes for our things and helped us greatly. We left
the houses as they were, a Tibetan caretaker in each
home, while the official sealed the doors. As we left
there were many good-byes and cries, and tears be-
yond description. The women giving Mrs. Ogden
their rings, and weeping as they gave. We were doing
the best we knew. Had I been a single man, Hardy
and I could have remained awhile, as did Mr. Cun-
ningham and the China Inland Mission. In my own
heart I knew I was leaving for the sake of my wife
and child and unborn babe. Whippings, executions,
and punishments of all kinds were occurring daily
under our eyes in the city, from the time that the sol-
diers rebelled in Shangchen, the year before, but we
always hoped for the best and did n't expect to have
to leave. The men went horseback and on foot, as
135
SUNSHINE AND SHADOW
they could. Mrs. Ogden rode a part of the way, then
had a chair, and part of the road had to creep and
crawl over rocks, as it was too rough for the men
to carry the chair. Little Ruth was carried on a faith-
ful Tibetan's back in a basket. Part of the forty-four
days* journey was along a narrow cliff high up on
the mountain side, where a slip or a fall, a misstep
would have hurled them to death, one thousand feet
below." Through the robber country they had to go ;
and upon reaching Talifu received message after mes-
sage, by wire, letter, and runners, urging them to hurry
on to the coast. Into places they went where there
had been fighting and beheading. Often the officials
were afraid to let them remain for the night. Once
they kept a special train waiting in case of a riot. At
another time they must wait until a battle was fought.
Through it all they were marvelously protected on
that long, perilous journey. Days and days of this
travel did Mrs. Ogden endure, brave, patient, and
sweet through it all. At last reaching Yunnanfu, they
took the railway to Hongkong, and thence by steamer
to Shanghai and home, to learn afterwards that three
days after they left Talifu missionaries were killed
there. After the long sea journey of twenty-three days
from Shanghai, exhausted and worn, they reached Los
Angeles, and fifteen days later little Walter Harold
was born in the hospital at Los Angeles; all of them
tended and cared for by the loving hands of the Living-
link church there, which supports Mrs. Ogden on the
field. «
Just now the Dalai lama, who has been for some
136
New Missionaries to Tibet.
H. A. Baker.
Mrs. H. A. Baker.
Dr. and Mrs. W. M. Hardy.
Those Who Have Fallen Asleep.
James Clarence Ogden.
Dr. Z. S. Loftis. Dr. Susie Rijnhart Moyc
THE PRESENT SITUATION
years a refugee in India, has returned to Lassa and
started a rebellion against the Chinese Government in
his dominion of Tibet. As nearly all the soldiers had
been sent out of the towns to help in the revolution
in China, the garrison left was small indeed and fell
easy prey to the vengeance of the Tibetans, who mas-
sacred them all and established Tibetan authority once
more. The treaty as it exists at present between China
and Tibet is that the Chinese Amban and his escort
remain in Lassa, all other soldiers being sent out, arms
remaining under seal. Only Chinese traders being
allowed to remain within the country of Tibet.
The Tibetans at Litang captured the city, killed the
garrison stationed there, and gained complete control
of the city once more. All territory west of Tachienlu,
the city where our station was located for five years,
was in a state of rebellion. The king was deposed,
his yamen burned and looted. Now the Chinese are
gaining a foothold again, sending in several thousand
soldiers, have restored the king to his place again, so
that he may aid them with cattle and grain, as they
try again to take over Tibet. The last heard from
Batang was that our little possessions were still safe
and the members of the little native church still faith-
ful. Dr. Hardy, who had been doing Red Cross work
during the war, is now studying Chinese in Shanghai
and is soon to wed Miss Nina Palmer. Mr. and Mrs.
Baker, of Buffalo, who left in May, 191 2, are study-
ing Chinese in Nanking — all awaiting the time when
we can be permitted to join them and, with Mr. and
Mrs. Ogden, all go back to the little station at Batang.
137
SUNSHINE AND SHADOW
This time will come if we are only patient and are
willing to wait until the Lord is ready for us to go
on, and the work there can go forward as He wills,
and as we are ready to do what He requires. Let me
close this little sketch by a talk of Dr. Shelton's :
" 'Om mani padme horn, Om mani padme horn/
Day after day, month after month, year after year this
is the prayer the Tibetan prays without ceasing. Not
satisfied with saying it alone he uses a prayer-wheel,
which he turns incessantly; not satisfied with these
two methods, he also carries in his other hand a string
of beads, which he counts continuously. So he gets
three shots at it all at one time. It is pathetic in that
it is the best expression of his heart's search for God.
You see him on his road to Lassa prostrating himself
day after day, measuring his own length, taking from
three to five years to make his journey to the holy city.
Tibet is the last hermit nation on earth. It is some-
times called the roof of the world, the football of the
nations, the keystone in the arch of Asia, the home of
the pope of Buddhism. Nobody wants it, yet nobody
wants any one else to have it. There it lies, the last
stronghold of Satan, where paganism is making its
last stand against the onward march of the gospel.
"In all Tibet there is not one church, not one
schoolhouse, not one hospital, not one missionary
home. For fifty years the Moravians, the greatest mis-
sionary people in the world, on the Indian side have
been waiting to get in. The first generation are dying,
the second generation are getting old, and the third
138
THE PRESENT SITUATION
generation are on the field ; but they are still waiting.
It seemed, however, that Dr. Susie Rijnhart was es-
pecially led of God when she returned to Tibet, in'
that we, with her, were led to the Chinese side, where
the border is a much more flexible affair than are the
cast-iron boundaries of British rule. We stopped first
at Tachienlu ; and then, by the political movements of
the Chinese Government, we were allowed to go on
five hundred miles farther, to Batang; and there, five
hundred miles from a postoffice, seven hundred miles
to the nearest doctor, we, your representatives, are
working for the redemption of this the last heathen
nation of earth, into the capital of which no Christian
missionary has ever as yet been allowed to enter. The
work will not be done until every man in all Tibet has
had a chance to hear the gospel, and this will require
six stations — one at Batang, one at Chamdo, one at
Lassa, and three others in different parts of the coun-
try. We already have one at Batang, and just last
summer, before they were forced to leave, Dr. Hardy
and Mr. Ogden were permitted for the first time to
cross over into Tibet and to cover a stretch of terri-
tory as large as the State of Kansas, and still five hun-
dred miles further on established the first little Chris-
tian congregation on Tibetan soil since time began.
"By having these six stations, and by itinerating
for a distance of nine days in every direction, every
man in all Tibet will be within reach of the gospel.
The cost thus far has not been light. Many nations
and many people have contributed toward the price
139
SUNSHINE AND SHADOW
which the church is paying for the redemption of the
roof of the world. William Soutter, a Swede, laid
down his life for Tibet, and he is buried at the foot
of the great snow mountain, three days east of Batang.
Dr. Rijnhart's baby lies sleeping in a cracker-box,
buried in a glacier far up to the north. Her husband's
bones also lie bleaching in one of the rivers far down
toward Lassa. It seemed that God wished this family
to pay a heavy price, for, with baby and husband gone,
their payments were not yet all made, and Dr. Rijn-
hart herself made the last payment that it was possible
for her to make, and her body lies buried beneath the
snows of Canada. Then you know Ogden has had
to contribute rather heavily, too. He has made two
payments, and one of his babies is sleeping at Tachi-
enlu and little Jim sleeps in Batang. Then a widowed
mother down in Texas was called upon for a payment,
too, and Dr. Loftis, who, when he saw Soutter's grave,
three days before he reached Batang, that night wrote
this prayer in his diary: 'O Lord, if it be Thy will
that I too should fill a grave in this lonely land, may
it be one that shall be a landmark and an inspiration
to others, and may I go to it willingly if it is Thy
will!' And in less than two months later he was
filling that lonely grave, and he too is sleeping at
Batang. The price has not all been paid yet. How
many more payments shall be required we do not ask
to know. When they have all been paid, then will
Tibet have become one of the Kingdoms of our Lord
and Savior Jesus Christ, and long before we shall all
140
THE PRESENT SITUATION
gather up yonder at the foot of the cross with Dr.
Loftis, Dr. Rijnhart, and with all those whose lives
have been part of the price, and with those whom they
shall bring with them; long before this, I say, 'Om
Mani Padme Horn' will have become 'Our Father who
art in heaven.' "
Note. — Since the writing of this chapter conditions have
calmed in Western China. During the summer of 1913 Dr. and
Mrs. Shelton returned to China preparatory to making the long
journey to Tibet in the fall. Dr. and Mrs. Hardy will accom-
pany them, and Mr. and Mrs. J. C. Ogden and Mr. and Mrs.
H. A. Baker plan to return to Tibet in the spring of 1914.
Cincinnati, Sept., 1913.
141
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