HOWLING gales! Towering waves! Storm-lashed ship!
| HAT WAS AN EVENTFUL VOYAGE on the Emzpress of Ireland!
It was my first sight of the ocean, and I had never traveled anywhere before on water. Looking out over the vast expanse of sea, I thrilled with the expectancy of the journey ahead
It was a lovely day as we steamed out of the harbor, But the first ground swell tipped the ship up on one end and down on the other; it seemed to me as if the world had turned over and the sun had gone out! I surveyed again the endless miles of now rough water, but this time my thoughts were back at that placid farm pond I had known in my girlhood days! My heart! Water! Water! Water! The waves dashed higher and gainst the sides of the ship!
The first day was just rough weather, It seemed to me like a terrible storm. But, oh, on the second day |
One of the worst storms in years broke over that turbulent North Atlantic and our poor ship staggered and struggled until it seemed that every lurch would be its last. I promptly went below and lay down in the stateroom.
With every roll of the ship I would clasp the edge of my berth and cling for dear life! The ship rose until it felt as if it must have touched the sky, and then sank until the very seemed to scrape the ocean bottom.
This sort of thing kept up all the way across eel
We left Canada shivering in the wintry blasts, but arrived in England a week later to be greeted by the warmth and green countryside of Spring,
After Robert's evangelistic campaign in Belfast, we again left his beloved land, famed for song and lore, and went to London, England, where he preached while waiting for our Orient-bound boat,
One morning he said: “Well, dear, it's time we were leaying.
At the dock our friends gathered in throngs to wave goodbyes and sing:
“God be with you till we meet again!"
Their voices died away in the distance. Our eyes, teardimmed, gazed at the last receding shoreline. Then we turned our faces toward that land where we were to minister in the name of the Lord.
Forebodings melted with sunny days and hours on deck, with Robert reading to me from “Pilgrim's Progress.”
Whales spouted and plunged as we skirted the edge of that turbulent graveyard of ships, the Bay of Biscay, We rounded the gun-studded heights of mighty Gibraltar, and glided into those sky-blue waters of the-Mediterranean, where flying fish spread their glistening wings and soared above the smooth-surfaced depths.
To the Suez Canal, and on into the Red Sea we went—that Sea through which the children of Israel were led dry-shod.
“What makes the Red Sea red?" I asked the captain. “It doesn’t look red today.”
“Sand storms,” he replied. “The wind blows the sand off the desert and lays a light covering of it on the surface of the water. The reflected rays of the sun give the waves a reddish
Robert and I spent hours on deck speculating as to just where Pharaoh and his hosts had crossed. What a day it must have been when those proud waters reared their heads, pausing in their onward rush to allow the hosts of Israel to pass through! What confusion must have reigned when, with a deafening thunder, the waters rolled together again and buried the Egyptians in their foaming depths!
It was on these banks that Miriam once stood with her timbrel and sang in triumph when the horses and riders of Pharaoh's hosts had been defeated!
Soon we were plowing through the waters of the Indian Ocean, and then suddenly found ourselves on the soil of India! India, the land of fakirs, Bengal tigers, trained elephants and massed tropical foliage; India, the land where huge leopards prowled in search of human prey and fought continually to enter the village streets to obtain it!
My memories of Calcutta and Ceylon are tinged with the horrors of that dread disease, leprosy. At Ceylon, from the leper colony, hordes of beggars poured out daily into the streets and huddled on the curbs, holding out begging bowls with unspeakably hideous hands. Worse, those who had no hands waved fly-infested stumps of putrefaction. All cried in nightmare voices:
“Alms, for the love of Allah!”
These sights shocked my nerves, so sensitive at this time, until my fingers became locked in a viselike grip on my sunshade. After I returned to the boat, Robert had to pry them loose!
Strange India, on one hand, its unspeakable woes and on the other hand, its lovely homes, wealth, gayety, balls and lavish entertainment; castes as high as the Rajah and as low as the beast; gilded mosques and temple shrines; sandal-shod priests and wailing worshippers; hourly calls to prayers from the lofty minarets; the thrum of the tom-tom and the rhythmic rise and fall of white-clad bodies, now erect with hands upflung, now prostrate with heads in the dust — India, superstition-ridden, beautiful and ugly, lovely and horrible!
Pungent memories lingered long after we again put to sea, even as the incense from the temples clung to our linen garments
It was on the Indian Ocean that a simoom overtook us—a terrific Oriental storm, the like of which I have never seen in the Occident. The waters became deadly calm, and shiny like a sea of black oil.
The captain, anxiously watching the barometer with experienced eye, ordered all passengers below and all portholes and hatches locked.
The whole universe seemed breathless and hushed, Only the distant muffled beat of the ship's great engine heart and the gentle swish of the waves could be heard as the liner glided smoothly along. Even the ever-present sea-gulls disappeared. No sign of storm was apparent to our inexperienced eyes, but the rapidly falling barometer could not lie.
Then, on the distant horizon appeared a black funnel-like cloud, racing across the water. I heard a high-pitched sound, as @ woman's shrill scream, rising in intensity until it became one prolonged ear-splitting shriek!
Suddenly, under the oncoming cloud, I saw, through my porthole observation post, a wall of inky water sweeping along at terrific speed. Just before it struck, the ship was riding motionless on the unbroken mirror of the water.
Now with one long zoom, the boat plunged, nose down, and then shook and shivered and plunged again until every timber cried out against this agonizing grip of the mad winds.
There was nothing to do but run with the storm. This we did for two long days. Tons of water heaved over the sides and sloshed down the bridge and sloping decks.
Even after the gale had howled itself out of breath, moving around on that ship was a precarious experience. The crew tied ropes about us and staked us out on deck for air.
Of course it was a gala event for the old-timers! Everybody told everybody else about all the terrible storms they had weathered, and related how storm signals were placed along the China coast, ever ready to be hoisted when a gale threatened. They said that when the signals were up, all ships would scatter for their harbor homes like frightened ducklings. They lamented the junk boats in which thousands of poor Chinese, forbidden to land, were drowned like rats.
It was all very new to me and I listened with wonder, as they talked of this new and grotesque land!
After the storm, the gallant little ship righted her course, nosed into the China Sea, and we sped along as if nothing had happened. Finally, the captain announced we would see Hongkong in the morning,
There was not much sleep that night for us. By this time the Orient and China had lost a good deal of the cherry blossom, colored lantern, embroidered kimono romance for me. China was going to be a serious matter!
Robett, at the prow of the ship, looked shoreward with the light of purpose and conquest in his eyes. His purpose was to see souls saved.
The greatest joy the soul winner knows is obtaining that bright prize—the jewel of a soul! It matters not the color of the fleshly tabernacle which houses that jewel, be it brown or llow, black or white, it is precious in his sight. For that prize, countless missionaries have laid their all on the altar — life, health; home, comfort, worldly possessions, * Hazy hills rose upwards to meet the shimmer! rays of the sun that pushed down like fiery darts. Shifting, scurrying sampans plied to and fro in the harbor. We were in Hongkong at last!
Cork helmets pulled low, as unaccustomed eyes winced from piercing sun-shafts, we stood on deck and viewed the scene before u
Rising up out of the distant heat fog appeared “the p The great skeleton ladder of an inclined railway wound up its precipitous side.
Boys swarmed about our ship like minnows, shrieking up in their “pigeon English,” exhort passengers to drop a coin into the clear tepid depths. With a little flutter of the water they would flash to the bottom like gleaming yellow fish, then pop to the top, spouting little geysers of water and clutching triumphantly their coin, their almond eyes shining as they looked up expectantly for more of the same
Pointing to the closely packed mass of “house boats,” an officer of our ship explained that thousands of families dwelt in these tiny craft, generation after generation, living and dying without ever landing from their “city on the water.” Sometimes, he concluded, a family of twelve or fourteen Chinese would wallow out their existence in one little, frail boat hardly big enough to turn around in, It seemed this water population had no land grants and had to eke out a pitifully meager sustenance from the deep, not only remaining always on the water ig, scorching but practically cut off from communication with the shore world!
The gayly bannered city, elongated between the mountains and the sea, stretched out in both directions. The Oriental buildings, strange in their carved, elaborate architecture, had a beauty peculiarly their own, Teeming, perspiring humans toiled and struggled ceaselessly along the scorched thoroughfares.
~ Hot stones burned yellow sandaled feet. With bewildering clamor of Oriental tongues, Chinese taxi drivers, the rickshaw men, swarmed the dock in ever-increasing hordes, each man beneath a wide-brimmed coolie hat, insistent almost to the point of physical combat that he take us to our destination!
What a sight it was, amid the inscrutable, strange countenances of the natives, to see the white-clad European figures of the missionaries. They, hearing of our arrival, had made it a gala day and had come from everywhere to welcome us and get the latest first-hand news from home and loved ones who had sent them greetings.
We were eager to view the sights of Hongkong and one of the older missionaries asked us to accompany him to the matkets. We descended a flight of stairs, past fly-infested meat stands, peculiar food-stuffs which the Chinese consider edibles. There were ten-year-old eges which commanded a tremendous price, the eggs having been buried in the earth and "seasoned.”” There were “rats” which the Chinese insisted were not rats but squirrels! To this day I have never been sure which they were; but they resembled rats! There were strange fruits and vegetables. The bananas were green instead of yellow, though they were thoroughly ripe.
Just down the aisle from these was a large wooden keg, around which was gathered a group of Chinese men. As we drew near we observed that the container was full of worms; peculiar, long worms. As we watched, horrified, a native put one sen, one-tenth of a cent, down on the counter in payment for one of the wrigely creatures, reached into the keg, drew out a long one, lifted it high, threw back his head and slowly lowered the worm into his mouth, where it disappeared with one last despairing wiggle!
We suddenly wanted to go away from there and get some air!
62 - THE
‘ORY OF MY LIFE
Later I often heard the missionaries remarking upon the hospitality and sensitiveness of the Chinese converts. They said, for instance, that if invited to dinner at a convert’s home it would be bad taste to refuse to eat what was placed before you They spoke about the various dishes of food, many of them lovely, some not so enticing, such as the “ant appetizer of pleas ing sour flavor.”
As I would sit and listen to the missionaries t was expected of a good soldier of the cross at a Chinese dinner table, I wondered whether I should every have the courage to rise to the occasion when my time should come! Though I was spared this painful ordeal, my respect has always been unbounded for end their native hosts.
When in the Occident, one sees the Orient through rosehued glasses, considering largely the romance, travel, picturthose who have had the grace not to of esque scenes, cherry blossoms, lotus and magnolia, delicately painted vases and tea served in frail chinaware on teakwood tables inlaid with ivory and mother-of-pearl
‘These things were in evidence, but for Robert and me life in China was to be a very grim reality