Our next halting-place was Hong Kiang, where we arrived at 8.30 a.m., and
spent a pleasant day with two missionary families, one being a doctor’s.
He was rather depressed, because the town is under the control of a
military governor of irascible temper. The doctor’s cook had recently
been suffering from insanity and was being treated in the hospital,
when he was suddenly seized and condemned to death. The doctor, on
hearing of it, went instantly to the Governor to explain matters, but he
pleaded in vain, and found the man had been shot while he was with the
Governor. Executions are continually taking place, and so badly done that
frequently the offenders linger wounded for hours after they have been
shot. Often the doctor is begged to go and help, but what can he do? On
occasion he has been allowed to go and bring them back to life! In one
case he had taken stretchers on which to bring the sufferers back to the
hospital, but they were one too few, so that he told one man he would
come back for him. The man dare not wait for his return, and managed,
despite being in a terrible condition, to drag himself to the hospital on
foot.
Mr. Hollenwenger took us up a high hill behind the city to see the view,
and it was certainly worth while, although the heat was great. The river
winds round a long strip of land, and a narrow stream across it could
easily be made navigable so as to save the junks having to make a detour
of several miles. Another big tributary joins the river almost opposite
the stream, by which quantities of wood are brought down from the hills.
The valley is full of ricefields, and we saw men transplanting the rice
with incredible rapidity from the small field in which it is originally
raised to the larger fields where it attains maturity.
When we got back to lunch we found Dr. Witt had to go at once to an
ambulance class, which the Governor had requested him to undertake
in view of the troops being sent to fight in the struggle now going
on between North and South. In various parts of the country we found
missionaries being used by the authorities in this way. At the time that
China joined the Allies during the war they told the German missionaries
to leave the country, but exceptions were made in the case of many like
these, whose work was felt to justify their remaining.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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