The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, April 1, 1906, Page 11

mise. Rev THE SAN FRANCISCO SUNDAY . Rev mmence amer Cop- dowr sedate, d alm, mat- ourney would but an American girl nt to China ing behind tist cler- arry him, ary work lay In one of the rts of China. in the province % miles up from the Yang-tse-Kiang the sits e two years she worked barbarous province faith- and unremittingly, her- barbarian by the strange, ople; and at last the two » end and the time came come home and keep her Robert Wellwood, who was and director, seized the oppor- nd them to send his little daughters “home” at the very time when wo e were in the throes of ha t our Christmas trees . nts and Happy New way little mission in excitement, too, making the 3 Chinese boatmen—and Mis the two Iittle girls embarked, anled by any white man, uny tected, €xcept by their faith and courage In a native boat, with & native crew of nine 2nd a native cook, they set out The poat was a rude, canoe-like craft. 1 feet long, three fe wide and three fect deep, with no flooring, and fit- ted to,carry five or six tons of freight. It was held together by bulkheads; there earthenware stove in the bow for enware stove in e of .the cook ip a mat covered cabin pla open at both ends, where the young mis- slonary girl and her littie c ng ted and encouraged d not room enough to The river upon which they embarked i f the wildest and greatest in From the snowy helghts where it the Himalayas world. ens out into is a distance is and nearly half that succession of gorges, cas- s and races. Even the Yukon t moments is a mild and e gorges. the rapids and cascades s are the least of Its terrors. Infested with water thieves.and all who tra pirates, menacing its length, and for the white trav in China wow, and more especially {or the missionaries, there are fearful and un- known dangers in the fanaticism and hos- tility of the natives. 5 re ferocious ma res of misstonaries are shocking storfes enough when they come to us by cable, but wnen they come by word of mouth to the other mission- aries there, to the little knots of white folk laboring hundreds and hundreds of miles apart. they speak u danger real ahd imminent. Ahg out into dangers such as these the OB WENTWORTH tucked his sis- ter and himself snugly into their cutter, and started old Dobbin on a brisk trot, for there were three miles of crisp white road to be covered, and it was almost chore-time. When they were fairly under way, Went- worth turned to his pretty sister, christ- ened Elsie, but known as “Toots” to all * her many friends, and said, “I hear you're going o get married, Toots.” Miss Wentworth’s very becoming flush was no doubt due to the weather, for the thermometer hovered about zero; at any rate, she answered very composedly: ““Oh, indeed; and who told you, Mr. Smarty?” “A little bird, Eiste, from Chelsea, a little bird.” He bent a waggish glance upon her. “I say, which one is it going to be?” . “Ask your little bird,” she retorted. Bob tried a new tack. “Well; Harry Crossman is a nice fellow.” “Indeed he is,” replied his sister. ““Good-looking.’ “em “Better looking than Luke Cotter, I missionary with. her little ventfired -1 girl ang is called aiso the iang—meaning the long river, and the .Ta-Kiang, meaning the great river. Two-thirds of its length it’ flows through a -wildly ainous country through that is on as wide itn the cliffs rising on_eithe 0 to 4000 feet high, with liitle native villages perched on the terraces. It tumbles and.roars over rocks and through gorges like the mountain torrent that’ it and then It broadens out’from Hankow down into =almost lakelike width,- where the porpoises come up from the sea to play about the®junks, the alligators lurk in the tributary and pt for the want of ‘companionship of her kind the journey was not a lonely one. Of white-skinned voyagers there were only three—Miss Cole and the two little girls—but the river was alive with Chinece traffic, for it is the great high- way of China. All the way down they met coming up swarms of junks loaded with cotton, silk and merchandise, with coolies “tracking” and pulling the tow- lines. and they were in the company of salt junks, sampans and boats like their own Jodging in and out among the rocks, shooting the rapids and riding the waves going down. They traveled only by day, in.order to avoid the dangers of the rapids and the think.” “Do you?” . Toots reficctively smoothed Then she said, cautiousiy: promise not to tease me?”’ “Cross my heart.” The girl looked down ‘They've both asked me.” “Good!"” . her muft, “Do you pensively. “And—and they’re both coming to- morrow for their answers.” ““Hurroo!" A sharp turn in the road had brought them to a most interesting tableau. ‘A team of horses, attached to a sleigh, stood facing them. Behind the sleigh a man in a fur coat clung stubbornly to a long rope. At the other end of the rope an angry steer was plunging and bellow- ing. Evidently the animal had been tied insecurely to the sleigh, had worked the knot loose, and had been about to make I : fiver thieves, and they tied up at nignt m cotapany with other cautious voyagers, the boats lying so close together that every human murmur and movement In the fleet came to. them distiactly througn their mat coverings. They were not without a certain show and pretense of official protection, for ever since the murder of Margary in Yunnan some years ago, it has been the custom uf the governors of Szechen to send an escort from each city to the next along the river route with all foreign travelers. whether commercial or mission- ary—at the expense of the traveler. Phere are supposed, and officially con- cedeq; to be two persons in the escort, but according to the Chinese custom of graft, “there is as a matter of fact only one in the flesh and two on the official docu- .a dash for libesty. At this moment the driver had digcovered the status of things and taken 2 hand. . The steer swung abruptly to the left. The man in the fur coat was swept off his feet by the\move, and sprawled full length in the snew. The steer charged the rail fence by the roadside, scattered the rails as if they were so‘many matches It Is Better to Laugh Than to Cry. and galloped into the smooth weadow lot beyond. The man,still dangled at the end - of the rope. As the animal began moving in a wide circle through the field he at- tempted repeatedly to rise, but his heavy coat and the plunging of the steer hamp- ered him. 5 Bob leaped out of the cutter. “Luke Cotter,” he remarked. “His arm's tan- gled in the rope so he can’t get up.. The beast . can’t hurt him, but_that dragging will play the mischief with his coat.” There was a rapid thudding of hoofs CALL. ment. The traveler pays to the’escort .a fee of 20 cash, the ‘“cash” being the Chinese copper with a hole in it that we sec in this country occasionally as orna- ment on a calendan, and each cash is worth one-thousardth cf a Mexican dollar. In addition to.this official escort there is a Letter .and more real protection af- forded by the liftboats that are stadioned along the river where the raplds are most dangerous. This quite modern and almost Ameri- can protection to voyagers was establish- ed after the wrecking of a distinguished Chinese boat in the wife and two sons were drowned with him. Since that disaster a lifeboat has been stationed at the foot of each of the rapids along the Yang-tse in the province of Szechen, to patrol the waters and give assistance to unfortunate boatmen and their passengers. When it is remembered that there are over 114 miles of rapids the extent of the service can aimost be real- ized. The sailors that man the lifeboats get sixpence a day, and 100 cash ior every life saved, as well as 800 cash for every corpse recovered, yuite régardless of whether if Is a man or a woman— which is liberality of an unusual sort in down the road from behind, and a horse- man, a handsome fellow with dark hair, dashed by with a smile and a nod. He swung his horse through the gap in the fence, and bore down on Cotter and the steer. Bob climbed back into the cutter and grinned. ‘‘Harry Crossman” Hedset- tled himself to enjoy the denouement. ‘Within half a minute the big bay was running easily in-the rear of the pros- trate Cotter. Crossman shrewdly antici- pated the steer’s mext turn, grasped the rope midway, and set his horse back upon its haunches: Checked in mid-career, the steer rolled over in the snow. . Cotter scrambled to his feet, freed his arm and secured a firm foothold. Then he and the steer fought it out. In vain the animal threw his weight against the rope; he was conquered, and, accepting philosophically the fortunes of war, he suffered himself to be led back to the Kung-ling rapid.. General Pao was the noble victim. and his * China, where women are held of such small consequence. This lifeboat service meunt a good deal to Miss Cole and her little girl charges on their journey. They”were, of course, given the usual escort from city to city, and graciously submitted to the infliction, and fed and paid the escorts cheerfully, but when it came to the lifeboats they found them on one occasion of real service. They made the trip through the 114 miles of rapids with safety until they came to the last few miles above Ichang. There, when the natural dangers of the Jjourncy seemed almost over, in the very early morning, after their boat had start- ‘ed on the daylight travel, and while Miss Cole and the little ones were still asleep, they were caught in the rapids and whirled against the rocks. It was at 2 point about forty-five * miles above Ichang, where junk after junk has been smashed to matchwood, but their light- er, tougher canoe-shaped boat had a hole stove in the bottom, sinking with everything, and Miss Cole and the lit- tle girls were cast into the turbulent water in thelr nightdresses. The boatmen thread the channels 4% near the shore as possible, and Miss Cols manuged to rescue the little girly and scramble upon a rock with them, and then, the only sane one in the wreck, she directed the Chinese boatmen what to do and how to'save their luggage. Shiver- ing and wet she snuggled the little girls in her arms and together they made a breakfast off rice and Chinese turnips, all the provisions the distracted cook could muster. Then she spread out to dry upon the Tocks the contents of the luggage they had succeeded iIn saving. and waited for the lifeboat,. which was out of sight at the time of the wreek, to return and take them off. Most of the curios and pretty things she C sleigh. This time he was tied beyond the pessibility of escape. Beyond a brief word of thanks to his Tescuer in the field Cotter had preserved the most profound silence. Crossman rode up to.the Wentworth cutter. ‘When Cotter had finished tying the steer he walked over to the cutter. He surveyed his coat, here and there worn bare from contact with ice and snow and fence ralls, in silence; he turned to the fleld and the circle, marked by bits of fur, around which he had so recently swung. The twinkle in his eye as he caught Miss Wentworth’s eye was_irre- sistible. % “T've decided, Bob,” said Toots, when they had driven on. - “I thought that would catch you,” re- marked her brother, gloomily. “He rides like a flend.” “But it isn't he: it'’s Luke. I guess it's always been Luke. Imagine Harry Crossman laughing after being dragged all over- a ten-acre lot by a wretched steer! He'd ery-with mortification. And it's better to go through life with a man who will laugh instead of cry, lsm't it?” was bringing home were lost, but noth- ing daunted, she secured another boat and continued on her journey. In Bliss Cole’s mind the interest of the trip. far exceeded the dangers. She says that the country through which they passed above Ichang was as wildly beautiful as the mest romantic could wish to see, and the people in the little villages, perched high on the cliffs rising from the stream, were kindly, cour- teous and so far as the white travelers were concerned, merely curious. At the cities they passed the bare yvellow folk would come down the stone steps, slimy with neglect and crumbiing with age. and crowding from top to bottom, would wait for a glimpse of the Si-fan (West- ern strangers). They saw many curious sights on the jourrey—the Yun-tun <(smoke towers), where fires of shavings are kindled to warn the inhabitants when there is dan- ger in the country: the strange mountain people on the upper Yang-tse, more like Tibetans than Chinese, with shaggy, unkempt locks, and skins or cogrse wook en garments for covering. and a friendH- ness quite out of harmony with their wild appearance. One of the strangest sights she saw, that appealed to her American eyes, ac- customed to our enterprising ways of advertising, was the writing on the cliffs that rise in so many places sbeer from the river./ Could it be that the Chinese were calling attention to the merits of this one’'s soap or another's breakfast food? But she found on tr_nslating the writ- ing on the face of nature that it was merely the Chinese way of dropping into peetical appreciation of the landscape. “Chiang tien yi sai,” written high upon a cliff’s face, meant “the river and the sky are onk color.” “Shan shui ching yin,” lettered upon & pinnacle, was from one wayfarer to an- other, saying, “the hills are bright and the waters dark.” Shanghai, Hankow and Ichang are tha ports open to the trade of the “foreign devils,” and above Ichang not even the term “forelgn devil” is known to the people, and it was through a country where many of the population had rarely seen a white man and most of them had never seen a white woman that Miss Cole traveled with nothing to pro- tect her but her pluck and her faith in her Heavenly Father. How many girls would venture upon such a journey—even to get married? Miss Cole only iles quietly when you wonder, and says: - “1 wouldn’t care particularly to do 1t~ again—but T am glad I did it. I wouldn’ have missed the experience for anything."” She was just one month making the trip down the river, having left Sul-fu on the 15th of * January and reaching Shanghai on the 13th of February. The wild and perilous part of the jour- ney was on the upper Yang-tse-Kiang, ag far as Ichang, and even as far as Han- kow. From Hankow to Shanghal the _journey was made by steamer—a comfort- able, well equipped American-built steam-~ er, and there were no more rapids to shoot, but there was the uncertainty of the Chinese temper toward foreigners to consider. The trip from Hankow to Shanghal was one of physical ease and comfort compared with the exeiting days of travel in the small boat, but it was not without its anxieties and apprehensions until Miss Cole and the little girls found themselves safe and sound under an American roof in Shanghal. -+ Then she could look back over the 2000 miles of adventure and congratulate her- self on having done what no other Amer- jcan. girl has done alone before.