James Gilmour of Mongolia Part 4

In a letter to an intimate college friend, the Rev. T. T. Matthews of Madagascar, which he wrote, November 21, 1872, he vividly describes this part of his work, giving some of his typical experiences:--

'I am writing in the Yellow Temple, about a mile and a half from Peking, and three or four miles from our mission premises. I have rented a room, brought my Chinaman servant, and live as a Chinaman, all but the clothes and the paganism. The reason of all this is that near here, and in this temple, numerous Mongols put up when they come from Mongolia to Peking. Our premises being three or four miles away, and in a busy part of the town, the Mongols can't easily find our place; so if they can't come to me I just go to them. I came here yesterday, and can't tell yet how I may get on.

Mongols are shy in Peking, and even out here a little difficult of access; but I must do what I can, and have patience.

'Just now a company of eight or ten have arrived and put up, three or four of them in the same court with me, the others in a place close by. These are likely enough to come to see me; of course I'll go and see them. You in Madagascar, I suppose, can't realise what it is to be a missionary to a people whom you can't approach without difficulty. Here the difficulty does not end; those I can catch don't care one straw for Christianity. They have a system which quite satisfies them, and what more do they want? Such is their feeling, so you see I have got quite plenty to do; a hard enough task, even the human part of it. But don't mistake, I am not bewailing my lot, for that I have neither time nor inclination; I am only telling you about my state.

'I don't believe much in people talking about what they mean to do in the future, but perhaps you will permit me to say that I would like to start for Mongolia again in February or March. I have got a sheepskin coat, so need not fear the cold. I perhaps may take with me a stock of made-up medicines for specific diseases which are common, and this may make an introduction in some cases at least.

Dr. Dudgeon has on our premises in Peking a hospital well attended by Chinamen, and I go there sometimes and see how he doses them.

'Now let me tell you a little about the inner life of Mongols.

People travelling through Mongolia wake up in the morning as their camel-cart pa.s.ses some rural encampment; they rub their eyes and say, "How pleasant it would be to live in Mongolia like these Mongols, free from care and the anxiety of busy life. They have only their sheep, &c., to look after." This reflection is accompanied with a sigh when they reflect on their own hard lot.

Now the fact of the matter is, these travellers know nothing about it. They may print as much as they like about the pastoral felicity of the simplicity of Mongol life; it is all humbug. Last night, two Mongols whom I know well, a petty chief named "Myriad Joy" and his scribe named "Mahabul" (I can't translate this last), came into my room, and we had a tea-spree there and then. The two have been for fifteen days in Peking on Government duty, and last night their business was finished, and they were to mount their camels and head north this morning. The chief gets from Peking about 30_l._ a year, the scribe about 4_l._; and when they come thus on duty their allowances, though small, enable them to make a little over and above their salaries. The chief can stand no small amount of Chinese whisky. I suspect he is deep in debt, and am sure that he could pay his debt two or three times over if he only had the money it took to paint his nose. The scribe was one of my teachers in Mongolia. I lived in his house some time, and know only too well about his affairs. He is hopelessly in debt. He had a large family once, but now they are all dead except one married daughter and one lama son about seventeen years of age, and good for nothing. His "old woman," as the Mongol idiom has it, is still alive, and fond of whisky, like her husband. If they had only been teetotalers they might have now been comfortable; such, at least, is my impression.

I shall say nothing about what I saw in his tent, and confine myself to last night and this morning.

'Drinking my tea last night, Mahabul (the scribe) says to me: "My chief here won't lend me nine shillings to buy a sheepskin coat for my old woman, therefore she must be frozen to death in the winter; my chief won't lend _me_ anything, other people he lends." The chief said nothing for a while; but the scribe went on harping on this string, till at last the chief launched out right and left on his scribe, shouting loud enough for all the compound to hear. The scribe took it coolly, and stopped him, saying: "Enough, enough; it is past, it is past; my old woman can die, all die; no matter."

This did not soothe the irate chief at all, and a minute or two later a furious quarrel broke out between them about something else. The storm raged a long time, and in my room too, while they were my guests! After some time the scribe left the room to attend to the camels, when the chief confided to me his opinion of his scribe. Later the chief left the room, and the scribe confided to me his opinion of his chief; and I must say that the two seemed well matched, with very little to choose between. The freedom with which they spoke of each other was partly to be accounted for by the fact that both were more or less drunk.

'The chief squared up his accounts with the people about here, and showed me in the scribe's absence a small parcel of silver which he had reserved for use on the road. He showed it me under strict injunctions not to tell the scribe. The scribe had more difficulty in squaring up _his_ account. The last item that stuck in his throat was a little bill his son had left. This son had started a day or two before, and of course the father was responsible for the debt. How he was to pay it he did not know, as he had not a single cash about him. The Chinaman of the place threatened to detain him, and the scribe laughed a bitter laugh at the idea. After a great row they went off to sleep.

'This morning early the scribe was at me before I was dressed. It was the small debt again. The Chinaman knew better than to seize the man; that would not have paid; he seized his coat, and actually was detaining that as ransom for a sum equal to fourpence English!

He made a direct appeal to me to pay it, and of course I did it; though I was a little disgusted with the man's meanness, as I had given him a present of money amounting to about 1_l._ a few days before. This son of his is a great eyesore to me. He is a young lama, about as wicked a boy as I know. His brothers died of consumption, and this fact enables him to do anything he likes with his parents. If they refuse anything, he has only to feign sickness, and they are in a huge state over him. He is a thoroughly bad lad. Will not work, will not study, will do nothing but make trouble and expense for his parents. Just fancy! His father and mother are poor as church mice; and when his father was coming to Peking the boy must beg to come too, and the father like a fool must take him, and be at great expense for travelling, &c. One thing made me furious. Out of the money I gave him he spent about 4_s._ or more buying his good-for-nothing son an elegant snuff-bottle. In short, the man's folly makes it utterly useless to help him. I once before relieved him from threatened detention for debt for the amount of twopence-halfpenny, just after I had made him a present, and I expect perhaps to have to do so again. What astonishes me is that the Mongols _can_ get into debt so far. I don't believe my Mongol can pa.s.s a single man he knows without being in danger of being dunned for some hopeless debt or other.

And yet his debt does not seem to distress him. He is most distressed because people will not lend him more money.

'The last of the chiefs was rather rich. He is (he says) to have a profitable piece of Government work in hand in spring, and on the strength of that wanted me to lend him now a shoe of silver, about 15_l._, to be repaid to me in spring. Of course I did not. He then, though my guest, kept on saying, "Heart small, heart small," which pretty much amounts to saying, "Coward, coward." He finally took revenge by offering to lend _me_ a shoe of silver in spring, but of course I declined. A pretty pair they are! If what they say be true, in spring they may make a good thing of it; but this has happened to the scribe before, and in two months after he was as poor as ever. In short, they are foolish and thriftless.

'While I have been writing this letter I have overheard my Chinese servant saying, in reply to a question from a Chinaman, "There is such a thing as a preaching letter: you can preach by a letter." So I am going now to preach. Don't get weary; stick to it. Don't be lazy, but don't be in a hurry. Slow but sure; stick to it. We have no great effort to make, but rather to stick to it patiently. "_No good work is lost_," Sir William Thomson used to say in his philosophy cla.s.s, and it is eminently true in our case. (I wish these Chinamen would hold their tongue.) All our good work will be found, there is no doubt about that. All I am afraid of is that our good work will amount to little when it is found. (These Chinamen are a bore.) I sometimes think that if all we say be true, as it is, that men at last shall stand before G.o.d--and we shall see them after they know that all we say is true--and they will pitch into us for not pitching into them more savagely; for not, in fact, taking them by the "cuff" of the neck and dragging them into the kingdom of G.o.d. I speak now of our countrymen and foreigners. As regards heathen, they too shall stand revealed; and their mud G.o.ds also, and rotten superst.i.tions, shall stand revealed: how then shall we feel when they shall look at us and blame us for not waking them up more vigorously? An infidel has said that if he could believe that men's future state depended at all upon what was done in this life, he would let nothing hinder him from being up and at men. He would be content to be counted a madman--anything, if only he could do anything to make men's state better in the world to come. (I wish these Chinamen would shut up; I came here to meet Mongols, and I am like to be flooded out by Chinamen whose language I only half understand.)

'Now, _we believe_: how much do we do? Are there not some men whom we might stir up who now escape? Could we do more? Are not souls valuable enough for us to face anything if only we can save some?

Let us look to the end, or rather let us look at the present. In the room in which I now write (the Chinamen have gone) is Jesus, where you read this is Jesus: He stands and looks to us. He has given up the clean heaven, and walked here and lived among dirt and poverty, in solitude, misunderstood, without one intelligent friend; He has borne the scorn of men, He has been put to the horrible and shameful death of the cross, _all to save us_ and others. We trust Him, He saves us; and all He asks is that we should tell men about what He has done; and is there one man we meet to whom we shall not speak? shall Christ look to us in vain to declare simply what He has done? Perish the thought! Whatever may be between us and speaking to men, let us go through it. If it be a foreign language, remember Christ lived thirty years in preparation. If it be hardship, cold, poor food, scorn, slight, deaf ears--never mind, go ahead. Christ looks to us to go ahead, or _come_ ahead, for He has gone through it all. Trouble, hardship, trial, suffering,--all will soon pa.s.s and be done. And is there a trouble or hardship we have yet surmounted for Christ's sake that does not seem sweet to look back on? Then, come what likes, let us face it; or, if we be overwhelmed, let us be overwhelmed with undaunted faces looking in the right direction. By the mercy of G.o.d may we be saved; and if saved how splendid it will be--no trouble, no trial, no indigestible beef and brick-tea: everything _better than_ we could wish it, and complete joy.

'All this is not imagination or rhetoric, but _really before_ us; so, by the strength which Christ gives, let us go on to it. Pray for me. I pray for you; and if we don't meet on earth, you know the trysting-place, "_the right-hand side_."'

It can readily be seen that, under conditions of the kind sketched in this letter, time was not likely to hang heavily on his hands.

Interviews like the following were held from time to time, and were not only encouraging and hopeful but reacted strongly upon his own heart and brain:--

'This afternoon (Sabbath, November 24), I met Toobshing Baier in the dispensary of the London Mission Hospital. At first I could not remember the man. The face I knew. After a time his name came out without, I flatter myself, his perceiving that I was fishing for it. He was most anxious to see the doctor's medical instruments and appliances. After he had seen quite a number of these, he came to my room, and we sat down for a talk which lasted nearly from 5 to 7 o'clock. He began by reading a part of the rough draft of the new translation of St. Matthew in Mongolian, which happened to be lying on my table. He suggested that in place of "prophet," a word which has been transferred bodily, we should use _juoug beelikty_. He also remarked that our translation of "the foal of an a.s.s" was not the thing, and gave the word he thought was right. He was accompanied by a young lama, who agreed with him in this suggestion. The lama seemed well up, read Mongolian as easily as Toobshing himself, and when Toobshing gave the Thibetan word for _juoug beelikty_, the lama looked over his shoulder, spied a book on a shelf, took it, found the place at once, and showed me the Thibetan and Mongolian side by side.

'Shortly after this Toobshing set himself up and proposed questions and cases such as:

'"Is h.e.l.l eternal?

'"Are all the heathen who have not heard the Gospel d.a.m.ned?

'"If a man lives without sin, is he d.a.m.ned?

'"If a man disregards Christ, but worships a supreme G.o.d in an indefinite way, is he saved or not?

'"How can Christ save a man?

'"If a man prays to Christ to save him morn and even, but goes on sinning meantime, how about him?

'"If a man prays for a thing, does he get it?

'"Do your unbelieving countrymen in England all go to h.e.l.l?

'"Are there prophets now?

'"Is a new-born child a sinner?

'"Is one man then punished for another's fault?

'"Has anybody died, gone to heaven or h.e.l.l, and come back to report? [A Mongol has!]

'"Did Buddha live?" and so forth.

'[Answer, He lived, but did not do what is now said of him.]

'"If so, how do you know that the account of Christ is not made up in the same way? Could not the disciples conspire to make the Gospels?

'To these and all other questions I endeavoured to give proper answers; and this, our most delightful and profitable talk, lasted till there was just time for me to s.n.a.t.c.h a hasty meal before the usual service at 7.30 P.M.'

Discussions of this nature were calculated to deepen thought and to promote heart-searching on the part of the Christian worker. They also ill.u.s.trate some of the special difficulties which missionaries in China and India have to meet. With an elaborate religious ritual and literature, both Buddhist and Hindu can often, and do often, object against Christianity many of those, sometimes obvious, sometimes subtle, difficulties which the Gospel of Jesus Christ alone can remove, and which it removes by sanctifying and dominating the heart.

In February 1873 Gilmour visited Tientsin for the first time since he pa.s.sed through it on his arrival in China. Here he took part in several readings, temperance meetings, and religious services. At one of the readings:--

'One joke happened. I was asked to give a recitation at a penny reading for sailors. The piece was "The Execution of Montrose." I got up in tragic style, said,

"Come hither, Evan Cameron,"

with the appropriate beckoning action, when a sailor in the middle of the audience responded to the call, pressed his way out of the pa.s.sage, and was making for the platform. I could not stand this, so I uttered a yell, and rushed off to hide myself, and it was some time before the audience and speaker could compose themselves for a fresh start Next day we were told that the unfortunate sailor was beckoned to come hither from all parts of the ship.'

CHAPTER IV

THE FIRST CAMPAIGN IN MONGOLIA

In 1873 Gilmour resumed his visits to the Plain and on March 15 he was at Kalgan, writing, 'No appearance of getting away to the north. I promenade daily the streets and accost Mongols, but with no success as to getting camels, or even a horse to hire as far as Mahabul's. A day or two later Mahabul arrived in Kalgan on his way to Peking, and by his aid Gilmour secured two camels, and on March 24 he started north, reaching Mahabul's tent on the 28th. He at once endeavoured to secure the services of a Mongol named Lojing, and the usual series of delays and vexations occurred.

'To-day (March 29) I got impatient and went for a walk. Came back, and Lojing came and said he would go. Felt relieved; he wants me to come back this way, and I consent, though I would rather not. He came back in the afternoon, saying that he could not get off his engagement to read prayers with some other lama for Gichik's soul,[3] so that we cannot start before Thursday at noon. Mahabul's wife gave him some whisky, and he went to the officers and got drunk. He waited for a camel which was offered for sale. The camel came when I was out. He was drunk, did not watch it, so it drifted away before the storm. A boy on horseback was sent after it. When it came it was a perfect object, yet they asked twenty taels for it. He is to go after a camel to-morrow. He was so drunk that, remembering Gichik's fate, I am uneasy to think of his riding my tall camel. O Lord, give me patience!'

[3] The son of the chief referred to on page 80, who had recently been killed by a fall from his horse.

This and the three subsequent journeys over the Plain, made in the course of 1873, were full of incident ill.u.s.trative of the difficulties of the work, the peculiarities of the people, and the restless energy and indomitable perseverance of the missionary. But the limitations of s.p.a.ce forbid us to linger; we extract a few notes from the diary. It was on the second of these journeys, while at Lama Miao, that he witnessed the 'Mirth of h.e.l.l,' as he calls it, described in _Among the Mongols_, Chapter XI.

'_April 19, 1873._--To-day had more provocation from my Mongol, and my earnest prayer is that I may be able to stand it all, and not get soured in temper and feeling against the Mongols. I must have patience. Some knowledge of camel's flesh also would help me not a little. As it stands, I feel an incompetent "duffer."'