A short time before he returned to England on his first furlough he drew up a report, in which he places on record some of the results of his ten years' experience of Mongol life and habits.
'On one occasion I was living some weeks in a Mongol's tent. It was late in the year. Lights were put out soon after dark. The nights were long in reality, and, in such unsatisfactory surroundings as the discomforts of a poor tent and doubtful companions, the nights seemed longer than they were. At sunrise I was only too glad to escape from smoke and everything else to the retirement of the crest of a low ridge of hills near the tent. This, perhaps the most natural thing in the world for a foreigner, was utterly inexplicable to the Mongols. The idea that any man should get out of his bed at sunrise and climb a hill for nothing! He must be up to mischief! He must be secretly taking away the luck of the land! This went on for some time, the Mongols all alive with suspicion, and the unsuspecting foreigner retiring regularly morning after morning, till at length a drunken man blurted out the whole thing, and openly stated the conviction that the inhabitants had arrived at, namely, that this extraordinary morning walk of the foreigner on the hill crest boded no good to the country. To remain among the people I had to give up my morning retirement.
'The Mongols are very suspicious of seeing a foreigner writing. What can he be up to? they say among themselves. Is he taking notes of the capabilities of the country? Is he marking out a road map, so that he can return guiding an army? Is he, as a wizard, carrying off the good luck of the country in his note-book? These, and a great many others, are the questions that they ask among themselves and put to the foreigner when they see him writing; and if he desires to conciliate the good-will of the people, and to win their confidence, the missionary must abstain from walking and writing while he is among them.
'On another point, too, a missionary must be careful. He must not go about shooting. Killing beasts or birds the Mongols regard as peculiarly sinful, and anyone who wished to teach them religious truth would make the attempt under great disadvantage if he carried and used a gun. This, however, is a prejudice that it is not so difficult to refrain from offending.
'The diseases presented for treatment are legion, but the most common cases are skin diseases and diseases of the eye and teeth. Perhaps rheumatism is the disease of Mongolia; but the manner of life and customs of the Mongols are such that it is useless to attempt to cure it. Cure it to-day, it is contracted again to-morrow. Skin diseases present a fair field for a medical missionary. They are so common, and the Mongolian treatment of them is so far removed from common-sense, that anyone with a few medicines and a little intelligence has ample opportunity of benefiting many sufferers. The same may be said of the eye. The glare of the sun on the Plain at all seasons, except when the grass is fresh and green in summer, the blinding sheen from the snowy expanse in winter, and the continual smoke that hangs like a cloud two or three feet above the floor of the tent, all combine to attack the eye. Eye diseases are therefore very common. The lama medicines seem to be able to do nothing for such cases, and a few remedies in a foreigner's hands work cures that seem wonderful to the Mongols.
'In many cases, when a Mongol applies to his doctor, he simply extends his hand, and expects that the doctor, by simply feeling his pulse, will be able to tell, not only the disease, but what will cure it. As soon as the doctor has felt the pulse of one hand, the patient at once extends the other hand that the pulse may be felt there also, and great surprise is manifested when a foreigner begins his diagnosis of a case by declining the proffered wrist and asking questions.
'The question of "How did you get this disease?" often elicits some curiously superstitious replies. One man lays the blame on the stars and constellations. Another confesses that when he was a lad he was mischievous, and dug holes in the ground or cut shrubs on the hill, and it is not difficult to see how he regards disease as a punishment for digging, since by digging worms are killed; but what cutting wood on a hill can have to do with sin it is harder to see, except it be regarded as stealing the possessions of the spiritual lord of the locality. In consulting a doctor, too, a Mongol seems to lay a deal of stress on the belief that it is his fate to be cured by the medical man in question, and, if he finds relief, often says that his meeting this particular doctor and being cured is the result of prayers made at some previous time.
'One difficulty in curing Mongols is that they frequently, when supplied with medicines, depart entirely from the doctor's instructions when they apply them; and a not unfrequent case is that of the patient who, after applying to the foreigner for medicine and getting it, is frightened by his success, or scared by some lying report of his neighbours, or staggered at the fact that the foreigner would not feel his pulse, or feel it at one wrist only, lays aside the medicine carefully and does not use it at all.
'In Mongolia, too, a foreigner is often asked to perform absurd, laughable, or impossible cures. One man wants to be made clever, another to be made fat, another to be cured of insanity, another of tobacco, another of whisky, another of hunger, another of tea; another wants to be made strong, so as to conquer in gymnastic exercises; most men want medicine to make their beards grow; while almost every man, woman, and child wants to have his or her skin made as white as that of the foreigner.
'When a Mongol is convinced that his case is hopeless he takes it very calmly, and bows to his fate, whether it be death or chronic disease; and Mongol doctors, and Mongol patients too, after a succession of failures, regard the affliction as a thing fated, to be unable to overcome which implies no lack of medical ability on the doctor's part.
'Of all the healing appliances in the hands of a foreigner none strikes the fancy of a Mongol so much as the galvanic battery, and it is rather curious that almost every Mongol who sees it and tries its effect exclaims what a capital thing it would be for examining accused persons. It would far surpass whipping, beating, or suspending. Under its torture a guilty man could not but "confess." Some one in England has advocated the use of the galvanic battery in place of the cat in punishing criminals, and it is rather curious to note the coincidence of the English and Mongol mind.
'The Mongol doctors are not, it would seem, quite unacquainted with the properties of galvanism. It is said that they are in the habit of prescribing the loadstone ore, reduced to powder, as efficacious when applied to sores, and one man hard of hearing had been recommended by a lama to put a piece of loadstone into each ear and chew a piece of iron in his mouth!
'Divination is another point on which Mongols are troublesome. It never for a moment enters their head that a man so intelligent and well fitted out with appliances as a foreigner seems to them to be cannot divine. Accordingly they come to him to divine for them where they should camp to be lucky and get rich, when a man who has gone on a journey will return, why no news has been received from a son or husband who is serving in the army, where they should dig a well so as to get plenty of good water near the surface, whether it would be fortunate for them to venture on some trading speculation, whether they should go on some projected journey, in what direction they should search for lost cattle, or, more frequently than any of the above, they come, men and women, old and young, to have the general luck of their lives examined into. Great is their amazement when the foreigner confesses his ignorance of such art, and greater still is their incredulity.
'The great obstacles to success in doctoring the Mongols are two:—First: most of the afflicted Mongols suffer from chronic diseases for which almost nothing can be done. Second: in many cases, where alleviation or cures are effected, they are only of short duration, as no amount of explanation or exhortation seems sufficient to make them aware of the importance of guarding against causes of disease. But, notwithstanding all this, many cures can be effected on favourable subjects, and the fact that the missionary carries medicines with him and attempts to heal, and that without money and without price, aids the missionary cause by bringing him into friendly communication with many who would doubtless hold themselves aloof from any one who approached them in no other character but that of a teacher of Christianity.'
CHAPTER VII
THE VISIT TO ENGLAND IN 1882
From 1880 onwards Mrs. Gilmour suffered severely from illness, and medical advisers recommended at length the rest and change of a visit to England. Mr. Gilmour's furlough was also nearly due. Consequently, in the spring of 1882, he and his family returned to England. This visit was helpful and memorable in many ways. The rest so thoroughly well earned was greatly enjoyed. The return to civilisation, the society of loved relatives and friends, the comforts of ordinary English life, and the change of thought and occupation which these involved—all reacted happily and refreshingly upon both Mr. Gilmour and his wife.
But a sojourn at home is not by any means a season of entire rest for the jaded worker. The Churches constantly need the stimulus and awakening that are best supplied by the men who have been filling the hard places in the field. Gilmour also was so full of enthusiasm for his work, and so eager in his desire to benefit the Mongols, that he would doubtless have found for himself many opportunities of pleading their cause, had not the authorities of the London Missionary Society, following their usual custom, furnished him with a long list of deputation engagements, Into these he threw himself with an energy that very greatly enlarged the circle of his friendship, secured very many new supporters for the missionary cause, and obtained for himself, on the part of many, a devout, prayerful sympathy for the remainder of his earthly service.
He had brought with him a large quantity of manuscript material dealing with his twelve years of Mongol life and experience. From this he prepared the volume which was published by the Religious Tract Society in April 1883, under the title of Among the Mongols.