When We Were Strolling Players in the East

by Louise Jordan Miln

Eighteen years before, at Heidelberg, my father found and gave me a wild white rose. It was the first wild white rose we had ever seen, and, though William Black tells of wild white roses in England, my father never saw another. Now I saw a wilderness of wild white roses at my feet. They lay like unmelting snow-flakes on the breast of the Chinese summer. We went on, up the hills. We passed through three or four Chinese farmyards. No one molested us, and they scarcely looked at us, though Europeans were almost unknown there. Chinese dignity is imperturbable.

I grew tired. A woman who was hulling corn gave me a glass of milk. But when my two comrades intimated that they too were tired and thirsty, she shook her head and frowned. Who shall say that the women of the Orient are not emancipated?

Half-way up the hill we stopped and looked across China. Green—green—green! Rice—rice—rice! The food of the nation was growing on the land of the people. Every known and unknown shade of green was there. The boundaries of each farm were cleanly outlined; and in the atmosphere, as clear as that of Italy, we could see for miles and miles; far in the distance the green fields and the blue sky melted into each other—making by their mingling a lovely indescribable gray.

We had reached a little chapel. Over the doorway was a crucifix. On the hill above stood a white cathedral. It would have adorned any street in Paris or Vienna; and the great gold cross that tipped it flashed like intersecting rainbows in the noon-day sun.

We waited in the chapel while our cards were sent up to the fathers. The walls were hung with Scriptural texts (in Chinese characters) and Biblical illustrations from a Mongolian point of view. Joseph, and a greater than Joseph, wore “pigtails,” and Mary had “little feet,” and the ample trousers of a Chinese woman. I have noticed all over the world that the Church of Rome is very wise in her concessions to the peoples she would convert. She adapts her teachings to the language her hearers can easiest understand.

Our messenger came back. The fathers were in retreat, and of course could not see us; least of all could they see me. But the head of their order kindly sent me down his “chair,” and two coolies to carry me up to the cathedral. I appreciated that courtesy, before we reached the top; for my husband and our friend found the climb very hard. The steep steps were cut in the rock in a manner typical of the Journey to the Cross. The first set of steps bore upward to the right; then a rude shrine was cut in the rocks. That represented the first station. The next set of steps bore upward to the left; then another niche represented the second station. The third set of steps bore upward to the right; the fourth bore upward to the left. There were twelve sets of steps, and at the end of each a holy lamp burned in front of a niche frescoed with the pictures that you will find in every illustrated Roman Catholic prayer-book. From the last station three broad, easy steps led into the beautiful cathedral. There were no pews; mats lay upon the mosaic floor. The huge building was empty. At the door the marble basins held holy water unrippled by devout fingers. The altar-piece was wonderfully fine, and reminded me of the admirable figure of Mary on the high altar of the cathedral in Montreal.

We lingered a long time in the cool, vacant fane, speaking in hushed tones of the vast enterprise of Rome. Her priests have made practically no converts in China; and they know it. But they persist. They spare no expense, count no cost of life; because they believe that in after generations they shall have so permeated Chinese life with Roman Catholic thought that real conversion of the Chinese may be possible. I am not a Roman Catholic; but the longer I live—the farther I travel—the more deeply I respect the Church of Rome. She sent her Sisters of Charity into the battlefields of old Europe; she has encouraged art and literature when, but for her, they must have perished; and her pioneers press always in the advance guard of civilisation.

It was sunset when we returned to our house-boat. We seized upon the dinner table. I had had a glass of milk since breakfast, and the hospitable priests had sent us a light lunch into their outer garden; but we had climbed eight miles at least; the men had walked up and down the long, steep steps leading to the cathedral; and we were very hungry.

We went on deck for coffee. We had begun our return journey. I tried to paint the sunset. How I failed! Red melted into orange, and warm violet faded to cold green, before I could fix either to my half liking. A few miles down, the canal widened into a lake. We waited there a little to watch some novel fishing. On the centre of the lake were three or four motionless sampans; in each were two or three Chinamen; but the fishermen were huge cormorants. Each man had two birds; each bird was fastened, by one foot, to a long string, the other end of which was secured to the Chinaman’s wrist; each bird had a metal ring about his throat, to prevent his swallowing the fish he caught. The birds sat on the edge of the sampans, peering intently into the water. Suddenly one would plunge into the water, coming up almost instantly, with a silver fish gleaming in its cruel beak. The cormorants never made a mistake. It was only after a fierce fight that they could be made to relinquish their prey; and the men who had them in charge had many a torn finger. When the boats were full, the men poled to the shore. The birds were carried some distance from the sampans; the rings were taken from their necks; and they were given a few of the fish they had been used to catch. I have seen few sights more weird, more distinctively odd, than the fishing cormorants of China.

An hour later—it was still bright and light—we passed through a Chinese town. A high picturesque bridge that spanned the canal was teeming with people. It was the Chinese hour of rest; the Chinese (the busiest people on the globe) were doing nothing but enjoying themselves. They were all talking—their language is never musical, but it is characteristic.