Itinerating in China by Fred Lee

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Jul 8, 1915

Itinerating in China

By Fred Lee

FRED LEE

You may like to know how we visit the twenty-two outstations of Honan, which are scattered three hundred miles to the north of us, one hundred miles to the west, and one hundred and fifty to the southeast. Only a portion of the trip can be made by train. Yet the people must know the truth, and brethren must be visited; so we must go, no matter what the weather or what or how inconvenient the mode of travel.

We have a variety of ways of traveling. I shall mention the various stages in a hundred-mile trip. I first took a chair cart, then I went twenty-five miles by rowboat. My next stage was taken on muleback. (The mules are just high enough so that the rider's feet do not touch the ground.) Later I took a wheelbarrow. This means that I walked most of the time, as it seems to be the habit of the wheelbarrow man to get tired very quickly, and tell how hard he is working for so little money; so of course one takes pity on him.

I might say that the weather changed about as often as the vehicles, the latter part of the journey being made in a hailstorm. Because of this I was obliged to stop at a very small and dirty Chinese inn overnight, when only three miles from my destination, though it would not be dark for three hours.

We travel generally by cart. There are no springs on the cart, the wagon box resting on the axle. These carts are made for Chinese roads, and the best of springs could not stand the jarring and bumping. However, a man's constitution must stand what the springs cannot. A Chinese, whose constitution is very elastic, does not notice it, and can sleep very soundly while traveling. But to one whose nerves are tense it becomes very tiresome. When one has taken the jars and knocks for two or three days in succession, together with the prospect of being tipped over at any moment into the mud, he hardly feels physically fit to do the work he came to do. However, this is the way we must carry the gospel in China, and we are happy to have the privilege.