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 illustrative 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 space 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 Hell,' 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."'
'May 6.—Travelled parallel to the road in a stupid manner over hill and dale, because Lojing chose to consider it a nearer way. The way was no nearer at all and much more steep. At last got to a lot of tents down in a hollow, called the "Great Water" (Ihha Osso). Had quite a lot of people. One lama the most provoking child (25 years old) I think I ever met. He was a perfect nuisance; even the tone of his voice I could not abide. This individual came to my tent even after I was down in bed. I was glad he was done for once. Next morning he was in my tent before I was up, remarking, "What a great sleeper you are!' Last night he had remarked, "How early you go to bed!" I am afraid he is the most empty, poor fellow I have known.'
'May 13.—To-day also occurred another of my lama's conspicuous stupidities; after asking the road to a set of tents where dwelt friends of his own, he suddenly left the road and began the ascent of a steep hill. I asked where he was going. He said to the tents. I followed some distance, and then from the convergence of paths judged that there was no pass where he was going, and accordingly shouted to him to stop. Stop he did, and also looked thunder. I asked him, "Have you travelled this way before?" "No," said he. "Come this way, and follow the road." "You go that road," said he, "I go this road." "Nothing of the kind," said I. "You come here, and we'll get to tents." He came; but then and there began one of his intolerable tirades against me, saying how disobedient I was, and that this was his own native place, he knew. What a bad man I was! He had hardly finished his fury when lo, behold, close before us, right in our path, the very tents we were looking for! He is, to use a Mongol idiom, "Stupider than stupid."'
'Sept. 12.—We are now in a diphtheria district. I go into it, and hope to remain some time, trusting myself to the hands of God. I am safe enough in His hands. If He can forward mission work more by my death than by my life, His will be done.'
'Sept. 18.—To-day let pass me, as all were starting from the temple, about six men and three women without telling them of Jesus.'
At the close of the year Mr. Gilmour sent home another elaborate report, a large portion of which appeared in the Chronicle of the London Missionary Society for December 1874. We extract here a few paragraphs not then printed for obvious reasons. There was still a difficulty with the American Board, and there was still in London some inability to grasp the exact bearing and the full needs of the situation. The first extract is given here simply because it illustrates the noble unselfishness of Gilmour's character, and the way in which he persistently refused to be stopped by hindrances that would have barred the road against most men. He supplied a statement of account showing that even with the most rigid economy he had exceeded his allowance by 110 taels, equivalent to from 25l. to 30l.
'This leaves me with a deficit of 110 taels 63 cents, and explains how it is that I ask next year's (1874) grant to be raised to 150 taels at least. I had only two courses open to me, either to use up the grants for 1872 and 1873, and stop without accomplishing all I could, or to make full proof of my ministry and exceed the grants. Considering the cause more important than silver, I chose the latter course, and, despite the most rigid economy, exceeded to the above amount. Present circumstances enable me to make up the deficit from my own private purse, and I don't ask to be refunded, but I don't know that I shall be flush of money next year, and do ask that the grant may be not less than 150 taels, which is the lowest estimate I can make.
'As proof of the reasonableness of my request, and of my anxiety to avoid drawing on the funds of the Society beyond what is absolutely necessary, I may be allowed to state that this year, in addition to making up the lacking 110-63 taels, I walked afoot behind my caravan in the desert for weeks, to avoid the expense of purchasing another camel.'
On the question of Christian literature he placed on record some wise words, as needful now almost as when he penned them, in order to correct the notion that it is enough simply to place into the hands of a heathen a copy of the Word of God in his native tongue. The reply of Candace's eunuch, 'How can I understand unless someone shall guide me?' meets the missionary of to-day, as it met Philip in the days of old. The practically unanimous opinion of the Shanghai Conference held in 1890 shows that the same need is still strongly felt by the missionaries of all the societies.
'In addition to the Scriptures and the Catechism, I think small simple books containing little portions of Scripture history or little portions of Scripture teaching would be very useful. The Bible is all very well for those who have advanced a little, but there is very little of the narrative portions even—the simplest parts of the whole book—which you can read without encountering terrible names of persons or places, or quotations from the prophet Isaiah or Jeremiah. When a Mongol comes upon these he feels inclined to give up in despair. Even in China my experience has been that people are slow to buy a complete gospel, even at less than the paper on which it is printed costs, while they will buy with avidity very small books at almost their full value.
'Chinamen themselves notice this, and when surrounded by a crowd I have heard them remark laughingly, "Small books go quick." Remembering my instructions, which among other things say, "Pause before you translate," I have hitherto refrained, but now have a very small illustrated narrative in the press, another also illustrated in manuscript, and other two not illustrated in contemplation. If I find funds—the Peking branch of the Tract Society is bankrupt just now—and get them out, you shall have specimens. Probably they won't look well, being first attempts, but you need not be ashamed of the Mongol of them, as they have been written under my direction by a "crack" native scholar, and carefully revised by Schereschewsky, who is a general linguist of good ability, and has paid so much attention to Mongolian that he revised the Gospel by Matthew in conjunction with Mr. Edkins, and is at present at work on a Mongol dictionary.'
Medical missions were only in their infancy in 1874, and Gilmour in the same report describes what many another has felt. He illustrates also one of his fixed principles, viz., always do something; and never let the work stop simply because you cannot do what is ideally the best.
'I know very little about diseases and cures, but the little I do know is extremely useful. Almost every Mongol, man and woman and child, has something that wants putting right. To have studied medicine at home would have been a great help, but though I cannot hope now ever to gain a scientific knowledge of the subject, I am glad that in our hospital here I have a good opportunity of learning much from Dr. Dudgeon, and all I can do now is to make the best of this good opportunity. I am told that professional men at home are suspicious of giving a little medical knowledge to young men going out as missionaries. I sided with them till I came here, but here the case is different. At home it is all very well to stand before the fire in your room, within sight of the brass plate on the doctor's door on the opposite side of the street, and talk about the danger of little knowledge; but when you are two weeks' journey from any assistance, and see your fellow-traveller sitting silent and swollen with violent toothache for days together, you fervently wish you had a pair of forceps and the dangerous amount of knowledge. And when in remote places you have the choice of burying your servant or stopping his diarrhœa, would you prefer to talk nonsense about professional skill rather than give him a dose of chlorodyne, even though it should be at the risk of administering one drop more or less than a man who writes M.D. to his name would have done?
'I speak earnestly and from experience. No one has more detestation than I have for the quack that patters in the presence of trained skill; but from what I have seen and known of mission life, both in myself and others, since coming to North China, I think it is a little less than culpable homicide to deny a little hospital training to men who may have to pass weeks and months of their lives in places where they themselves, or those about them, may sicken and die from curable diseases before the doctor could be summoned, even supposing he could leave his post and come.'
During the summer of 1874 James Gilmour continued his itinerating work among the nomads of the Plain. He met with much to discourage him, but he steadily enlarged his knowledge of the people and his acquaintance with the best methods of work among them. How difficult it was to adapt ordinary methods of teaching to their habits may be judged from the following sketch:—
'My tent is not only my dwelling-house and dispensary, but also my chapel. I always endeavour to instruct the visitors and patients as far as I can. Preaching to Mongols is a little different from preaching at home—a little different from preaching in China even. You can get a congregation of heathen Chinese to listen for, say, twenty minutes, or half an hour, or even longer; but begin to preach to a lot of Mongols, and they begin to talk to each other, or perhaps to ask you questions about your dress and your country.
'The nature of their own service is partly to blame for this. When a Mongol sends for a lama or two to read prayers in his tent, the inmates, though present, don't think it necessary to attend much to what is going on. Though they did attend, they would not be able to understand, so talking goes on among them pretty much as usual. If I were to stick myself up and begin, and start off sermonising to them, I would be treated much as they treat their own lamas; so I confine my preaching to conversations and arguments—a style of teaching which I find secures their attention'.
Many, too, are the sketches in his letters and diaries of the men he met. They are all drawn with that remarkable and largely unconscious power, which he possessed so fully, of being able to see very vividly the striking points and details of passing events, and of enabling those to whom he wrote, by his aptly chosen words, also to see exactly what passed before his eyes. One or two out of many examples must suffice:—
'This season (1874) I met a deaf and dumb man. He was uneducated, but of great quickness and intelligence. He could converse easily and readily with his fellow-Mongols by signs, and I could ask many simple questions and understand his answers without trouble. His perception was remarkable. While sitting in the dusk outside my tent, a messenger came from his father's tent to tell him that some of the sheep were missing. A single turn of the hand followed by a glance around, as if searching for something, was all that was required. He had been sitting quietly in the circle, looking at us talking; but the moment the communication was made he uttered an inarticulate sound betraying great excitement, knocked the ashes out of his pipe, stuck it into his boot, threw himself into the saddle, and rode off into the gathering darkness to search for the lost sheep. All agreed that he had an extra share of intelligence, and he was evidently regarded as a capable and useful member of the community.
'One of the sad sights seen was that of a sick Chinaman near his end. He was one of a company of four, who went about dressing skins of which the Mongols make garments. He had been an opium taker, and an incurable diarrhœa had seized him. At the time he was lodging with the Mongol for whom the party had come to dress skins; but the Mongol, seeing he would die, and fearing trouble and expense over his death, ordered him off the premises. Borrowing an ox cart, his companions had him conveyed away some five or ten miles, jolted in the rude vehicle and suffering from the blazing sun, to a place where some Chinese acquaintances were digging a well. They had a tent of their own, most likely a poor ragged white cloth affair, open to the winds and pervious to the rain; and in this the poor man hoped he might be permitted to die. It was the dark side of the picture. The glorious summer, the green and flowery plains, the fattening flocks, the herds exulting in the deep pastures, the gay Mongols riding about, the white tents bathed in the sunlight and gleaming from afar. In the midst of all this, a feeble man, far from home and kin, sick unto death, cast forth from his poor lodging, and seeking for a place to lie down and die in. The Mongols are a hospitable race, but pray ye that ye may not get sick on their hands.
'On the whole I have been very well received everywhere, and have been treated with great confidence. I have sometimes wondered at the readiness with which they take medicine from the hand of an utter stranger. One reason why they are ready to trust me, doubtless, is that going among them, they can go round my tent and see that there is nothing secret and terrible behind it; they enter it and see all that is in it. They know and see that I am utterly in their power, and, perhaps, reason that I am there with no intent to harm, because if I made trouble I could not move another step without their consent.
'In the shape of converts I have seen no result. I have not, as far as I am aware, seen any one who even wanted to be a Christian; but by healing their diseases I have had opportunity to tell many of Jesus, the Great Physician.'