''THE YANGTZE VALLEY AND BEYOND" 367 



traveler, but, although often disenchanted, she did not turn back nor abandon 

 any part of her contemplated tour. As she wore Chinese woman's dress, with 

 a Japanese jinrikisha coolie's hat, and European russet leather shoes under 

 straw sandals, she naturally attracted attention and drew crowds of the cu- 

 rious ; and Chinese mol)S, not respecting her sex or her gray hair, pursued her 

 savagely at times. " Child-eater" and " child-stealer " were the names shouted 

 most often, and the cries of " Kill her!" and " Burn lier !" were voiced in many a 

 Szechuen city. Twice the mob pursued her into hiding places, pried open and 

 battered down the doois, and Mrs Bishop had often to sit in some dark and 

 noisome hole, revolver in hand, waiting for the last moment to come. Once a 

 stone struck her and left her senseless and bleeding in her chair, and she suf- 

 fered the effects for many weeks. Chinese officials tried to discourage and 

 prevent her visiting remoter Szechuen, but she pushed on and on, into more 

 hostile regions, encountering fresh assaults, more discomforts, hardships, liltii, 

 and horrors of every kind. Tlietrue traveler's si)irit seems to have possessed 

 her, and one would hardly look for greater zeal in a missionary seeking mar- 

 tyrdom for the sake of spreading the faith, or in an explorer who had hap- 

 pened upon an unknown country, discovered a new race, or found mines of 

 fabulous richness. Marco Polo, Abbe Hue, and many travelers have written 

 of the Szechuen country and the borderland of Tibet, but Mrs Bishop's nar- 

 rative is the latest and a most interesting one, and she rejieatsall their jiraises 

 of the scenery and Certilit}' of that province. 



Trade problems and statistics are woven in with the narrative, and as Mrs 

 Bishop was everywhere the guest of the missionaries, one has a very clear 

 picture of the mission work that is carried on in the far interior under condi- 

 tions that would discourage any but the truest, most earnest Christians. She 

 speaks encouragingly of the progress and results of mission work, and her 

 testimony is the ablest and most appreciative that can be ottered. Mrs Bishop 

 struggles earnestly to make out a good case for the Chinese, to prove them a 

 great and admirable people ; but some of her experiences were too much for 

 her plan of praise, and her readers easily understand when she says : " China, 

 with its crowds, its poverty, its risks of absolute famine from di-oughts or 

 floods, its untenable horrors, its filth, its l)rutality, its venality, its grasping, 

 clutching, and pitiless greed, and its political and religious hopelessness, sat 

 upon me like a nightmare." One follows less easily when she alludes to " a 

 certain lovealjleness aljout the people "-the repulsive people, whose lack of 

 all kind or admirable traits is shown so clearly in her daily life of travel. 



After one frightful experience at the hands of a mob, Mrs Bishop com- 

 plained that " these rows are repulsive and unbearably fatiguing after a day's 

 journey, and always delayed my dinner unconscionably, which, as it was i)rac- 

 tically my only meal in the day, was trying." Also, " Tiie mannerless, brutal, 

 coarse, insolent, conceited, co\vardly roughs of the Chinese towns, ignorant 

 beyond all description, live in a state of filth which is indescribable and in- 

 oretlible, in an inconceivable beastliness of dirt, among odors which no 

 existing words can describe. I wondered daily more at the goodness of people 

 who are missionaries to the Chinese in the interior cities, not at their coming 

 out the first time, but at tlu-ir cuming back, knowing what they t-ome to." 



