Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
teachers are obliged to live in secret, and are liable to persecution, expulsion, and sometimes
death, every province, even those farthest in the interior, has a permanent Jesuit mission es-
tablishment, constantly kept up by fresh aspirants, who are taught the languages of the coun-
tries they are going to at Penang or Singapore. In China there are said to be near a million
converts; in Tonquin and Cochin China, more than half a million. One secret of the success
of these missions is the rigid economy practised in the expenditure of the funds. A mission-
ary is allowed about 30
l
. a year, on which he lives in whatever country he may be. This
renders it possible to support a large number of missionaries with very limited means; and
the natives, seeing their teachers living in poverty and with none of the luxuries of life, are
convinced that they are sincere in what they teach, and have really given up home and
friends and ease and safety, for the good of others. No wonder they make converts, for it
must be a great blessing to the poor people among whom they labour to have a man among
them to whom they can go in any trouble or distress, who will comfort and advise them,
who visits them in sickness, who relieves them in want, and who they see living from day to
day in danger of persecution and death entirely for their sakes.
My friend at Bukit-tima was truly a father to his flock. He preached to them in Chinese
every Sunday, and had evenings for discussion and conversation on religion during the
week. He had a school to teach their children. His house was open to them day and night. If
a man came to him and said, 'I have no rice for my family to eat today,' he would give him
half of what he had in the house, however little that might be. If another said, 'I have no
money to pay my debt,' he would give him half the contents of his purse, were it his last
dollar. So, when he was himself in want, he would send to some of the wealthiest among his
flock, and say, 'I have no rice in the house,' or 'I have given away my money, and am in
want of such and such articles.' The result was that his flock trusted and loved him, for they
felt sure that he was their true friend, and had no ulterior designs in living among them.
The island of Singapore consists of a multitude of small hills, three or four hundred feet
high, the summits of many of which are still covered with virgin forest. The mission-house
at Bukit-tima was surrounded by several of these wood-topped hills, which were much fre-
quented by wood-cutters and sawyers, and offered me an excellent collecting ground for in-
sects. Here and there, too, were tiger pits, carefully covered over with sticks and leaves, and
so well concealed, that in several cases I had a narrow escape from falling into them. They
are shaped like an iron furnace, wider at the bottom than the top, and are perhaps fifteen or
twenty feet deep, so that it would be almost impossible for a person unassisted to get out of
one. Formerly a sharp stake was stuck erect in the bottom; but after an unfortunate traveller
had been killed by falling on one, its use was forbidden. There are always a few tigers roam-
