From Trebizond Mrs. Bishop travelled quickly back to England, and was soon very busy preparing a book with an account of her travels. But she found time to speak at many missionary meetings, so anxious was she to plead the cause of the poor people whom she had seen. Her pleasant voice and way of speaking and all the interesting things she had to tell made people eager to hear her, and she spoke also to gatherings of learned men. She was considered one of the greatest of missionary advocates, and an address, in which she pleaded for the poor secluded women in Eastern lands, was printed and sent all over the world. She spoke of the terrible sins of the non-Christian lands in the East and of the degradation of the women, and said she would give all she had to help them.

As usual when at home Mrs. Bishop was constantly ill, and only three years passed before she started on another journey. She longed for the East and wished to visit China and Japan. Whilst she was at home, she had taken lessons in photographing, that she might be able to take better photographs on her travels. She improved immensely, and after this her books were always illustrated by her own beautiful photographs. She first went to Korea, the strange country which lies between China and Japan, and which both those countries desired to possess. At first she did not like Korea nor its people, but she soon grew to love them, and especially enjoyed the beautiful, sunny climate. She wrote that she felt this journey to be more absorbing in its interest than any she had yet had. During the three years that she now spent in the East, she paid three visits to Korea, in order that she might thoroughly study the land and its people. She had a great many hardships to go through in some parts of her journey. Once after riding for eleven hours under a hot sun, she found the only night’s lodging she could get was in a filthy fishing village full of the vilest smells. Her room in the inn was such an awful black hole, full of vermin and rats, that when her Chinese servant left her for the night he said, “I hope you won’t die.” In other places she was annoyed by the crowds who came to stare at her, never having seen an Englishwoman before. Once her servant had his arm broken by a fall from his horse, and she was obliged to set it herself. He was so touched with her care of him that, in spite of his pain, he somehow managed to do his work just as usual, and said, “The foreign woman looked so sorry, and touched my arm as if I had been one of her own people. I shall do my best.”

Between her visits to Korea, Mrs. Bishop went back to Japan, and also travelled in China. Her first object was to visit the mission stations in China, and she was much interested in all she saw, especially in the medical missions, and was full of admiration for the missionaries. On a second visit to China she made a long journey into the interior, going up first by boat on the river Yangtze for 300 miles, and then alone 300 more miles into the country in a carrying chair borne by Chinese, the only way of travelling. Far in the interior, she visited the missionaries of the China Inland Mission, and there she gave money to found a hospital to be called the Henrietta Bird Hospital after her sister. Wherever she went she photographed, undisturbed by the curious crowds who gathered round her. Once as she was being carried along, the people got so angry because she would not stop her chair to let them have a good look at her, that they threw stones at her, and one hit her a sharp blow on the head from which she suffered for a long time.

In 1897, after an absence of over three years, Mrs. Bishop came back to London. She had accomplished these long and tiring journeys at the age of sixty-six. She brought back with her a beautiful collection of photographs which she had taken, and materials for writing two books, one on Korea and one on her travels in China. She busied herself with writing her books, lecturing about her travels, and speaking at missionary meetings and doing all she could for the cause of missions. She tried to settle down in a house, and took first one in London and then one in the country, but never stayed anywhere long, and was as usual always ill as soon as she tried to live in a civilised country. So after a while she went off to Morocco, and there at the age of seventy she travelled through the wild parts of the country, riding astride on a superb horse and camping out at night. This was her last journey. After she got back to England she still lectured and spoke for missions, and studied photography. She began to plan another journey to China, but she fell ill in Edinburgh. For some months she was confined to bed, but still saw her friends, and was full of eager interest in everything that happened. She was not afraid to die, and waited peacefully for the end, saying that she was going home. She died in March 1904, at the age of seventy-one. Those who wish to know about her travels and the wonderful things she saw must read her many books, which are full of life and adventure and enable us to share her experiences and admire her pluck and energy.

XI
SISTER DORA

Dorothy Pattison, who was afterwards known as Sister Dora, was born in 1832 in a little village called Hauxwell, near Richmond, in Yorkshire, of which her father was the rector. She was the youngest but one of a family of twelve children, of whom ten were daughters. They grew up in all the enjoyment of country life. Dorothy was delicate as a child and not allowed to do regular lessons, but she describes herself as having all the same been a great romp, as wild and merry as a boy, and good at all outdoor sports—riding, rowing, shooting, swimming, and skating. But even as a tiny child she loved to wash and nurse her dolls, and longed to be able to do the same for real people. When she talked over the future with her nearest sister she used to say, “I’ll be a nurse or a lady doctor and do everything for my patients.” When she was twelve, one of her sisters fell ill, and Dorothy begged, at first in vain, to be allowed to sit up with her and nurse her, but at last she managed to slip into the room unnoticed, and once she was there, she was allowed to stay and helped to nurse her sister till she was well. A couple of years afterwards a fever broke out in the village, and an old woman whom Dorothy knew very well took it. She called at the house to ask how she was and found the old woman left quite alone. In a moment, she made up her mind, and without thinking of what her parents might say, she hung up her coat and jacket behind the door and told the old woman she had come to stay with her. In the evening she sent a message home to say that she was going to stay all night, and word came back that, as she had chosen to stay without permission, she must now remain with the old woman. She washed her and nursed her and read the Bible to her, but she grew worse and worse, and the next night she died. A kind neighbour came in and helped to lay her out, but Dorothy, tired out and frightened, was left to spend the night alone in the cottage. Next morning she sent a message to the Rectory to say that the poor woman had died, might she come home. But the answer came back, “Stay where you are till you are sent for.” She was terrified lest her parents had cast her off and she should never be allowed to go home. But soon a carriage arrived with her old nurse to carry her off to spend a month at the seaside, so that she might be free from all infection before going home. When at last she returned home she was welcomed as a little heroine, and got rather puffed up by the praise she received.

Photo: Mrs. Williams, Wolverhampton.

Sister Dora.

As she got stronger and able to study more, she was inclined to rebel at the time spent over lessons, and said she did not see why, as she was going to be a nurse, she should learn languages and music. But she was told that a nice Christian nurse should learn everything she had time for; she might some day have French or German patients, and music would be a pleasure to everybody; it would not do to be one-sided, for she ought to be able to care for the minds and souls of her patients as well as for their bodies. So she was persuaded to study gladly, and would often wonder how the thing she was learning would come in afterwards. Later she found that there was not a single thing she had learnt which had not in some way been hallowed in the service of God. She used to say to others, “Never feel that it is waste of time to get knowledge of any kind; you can never tell how handy it may come in.”