Book manuscript- (c) 2009 by William Sims Bainbridge

In Peking, Lucy and William resolved to investigate the roots of Chinese superstition by penetrating its most holy shrine. Once every year, the Emperor of China rode forth from his palace to burn incense to his ancestors and sacrifice animals to his gods in the Temple of Heaven, an immense structure set within a wall that encircles nearly a square mile. Lucy heard that General Grant had been the first foreignor who had gained entrance in all of recorded history, and where he had gone she felt she, also, had the right to go. Mrs. Grant had been barred because she was a woman, but Lucy gathered up a party of Christian ladies and set out for the temple before dawn, riding in a cart belonging to the president of the Imperial University and proclaiming, “What has been done can be done!”³¹⁷

At the outer gate, a priest refused to let them in, even after they had offered a handsome bribe.³¹⁸ William left Lucy and her friends resting under the trees while he penetrated it by climbing unobserved over the wall. “When I returned to my party, and the exorbitant priests found they had been outwitted, they were glad to accept a dollar each entrance money, and to make the remainder of our stay as agreeable as possible.”³¹⁹

“The rusty bars and bolts were not only withdrawn,” Lucy was pleased to see, “but the guard conducted us through all the buildings, smilingly permitted us to gather leaves from the Altar of Heaven, and against our earnest entreaties to the contrary, climbed up to the blue glass blinds of the azure temple and broke off a handful of the tiny rods as a gift for us ladies to carry away.”³²⁰

Ambassador Seward kindly provided horses for an excursion to the summer palaces and the wall, one with a side-saddle so Lucy could ride like the proper lady she was. “So away we went, jumping the puddles and low stone-walls, and leaving the mules in the dim distance to plod along in their swing-song way.”³²¹ Before noon they came to Wan-sho-shan. “On the summit of a hill in the centre stands a lonely building of marble and illuminated porcelain in nearly perfect condition; below it, on the terraces of the hill, are the grand staircases and smaller buildings in heaps of ruins.” Two decades later British troops would demolish this White Pagoda.³²²

That evening they stopped at the Temple of the Black Dragon’s Pool. “But what a weird place in which to sleep, with those big, grim idols looking right in at us from the opposite side of the moonlit court.”³²³ From this point onward to Nankow Pass, the way was too rough for the horses, so they continued by mule until they reached the Great Wall, where Lucy and William spent a night tortured by insects.³²⁴ A view of the Ming tombs, an audience with Prince Kung, inspection of salt extraction from sea water at Tientsin, and they returned by ship to Chefoo where Willie was waiting for them.

“He was glad to see us; there was no mistaking that. His trials were many and soon told. His donkey was lame, his bird dead, the dog ill, and he himself just getting through with the mumps. The patriotism of this young American on the Fourth of July had been sufficient to lead him to wear a bamboo sword on his side and the Stars and Stripes on his hat all day, and close up by a speech and fire-crackers in the evening. But his loyalty to his parents was true, even at such exciting times as the Fourth, and a whole pack of firecrackers had been carefully hoarded up and were fired in honor of our safe return.”³²⁵ William considered his son to have “a very delicate constitution,” and his prompt recovery from mumps was a good sign that the tour was giving him strength.³²⁶

The three travelers went to Foochow and Amoy and Swatow, where they stayed with missionaries Dr. Baldwin and John Van Nest Talmage and William Ashmore, then continued to Canton.³²⁷ It was here that they completed their experiments with Chinese cusine. Half a century later, Willie would recall vividly. “I had my first experience in eating dog, and cat and mouse! You need not shudder. These animals live much more hygienically than most of the pigs and some of the other animals we eat in this country. A little mouse inhabiting the rice fields of earth is certainly much cleaner than the slimy eel or the average hog.”³²⁸ When his father shot two enormous rats, during one of their inland boat trips, the crew immediately confiscated the bodies for dinner.³²⁹

In Canton, Lucy visited restaurants that served stewed dog, dried rat, and cooked cat. Diners could check the authenticity of these dinty dishes by the tails which the cook had left attached to the meat. “Dog meat is considered very strengthening, and is used by men who have hard manual labor to perform. Cat meat is given to those needing tonic, while I am told a diet of rat meat will cause the hair to grow. If any young man with a very downy moustache wishes to try this choice recipe, he is at perfect liberty to do so, without feeling it necessary to send me a testimonial of its efficacy.”³³⁰

William scorned the medical practices of all the countries he considered heathen, and he was convinced that only the partnership of Christianity and science could liberate Asia from mysticism and pseudoscience. He considered the Chinese “foolish in their use of medicines prepared from dried snakes, lizards, toads, bats, and other creatures. It is said that some of their herbs and roots are used with skill and success, but the grand principle is the doing of something supposed to favorably affect the invisible fung-shway influence moving about in the air. In these north and south currents are the secrets of all the ills to which flesh is heir. In one case the forefoot of a lizard will ward off bad influences. In another case the hind leg of a toad will encourage good influences.”³³¹

Burma
The family sailed to Singapore and then parted, with William going to Bangkok where he infuriated the American ambassador by interviewing a member of the royal family without permission.³³² Lucy and her son took the steamer Pemba a thousand miles to Maulmain in the British-occupied part of Burma, where Willie dragged his mother to a lumber yard to watch the elephants at work.

Mrs. U. S. Grant had marveled at the intelligence of these beasts a few months earlier when she saw them piling logs.³³³ Lucy was more impressed by the capacity of the pacyderms to cooperate: “Two elephants will work together in placing the timber, the one lifting while the other pushes into position; and all this is done quietly, slowly, without a word of direction from any one. A native is perched on the animal’s neck with his bare feet braced behind the great ears, and with his toes and feet manages this huge living machine.”³³⁴

Their host in Maulmain was Lucy’s dear school-chum from Ipswich Seminary, Martha Sheldon, who was in charge of a substantial mission school for girls called the Tyke.³³⁵ There Willie, still short of his tenth birthday, developed the first romantic attachment of his life with a Burmese girl named Mah Soo. “Aunt Mattie” Sheldon had given Willie the run of the school, and while the girls were learning about Christianity he managed to learn about Buddhism. “He thought that even the moon seemed different,” Lucy observed. “It swung low to the earth, and he felt he might reach it if only he could stretch his arm a little further.”³³⁶ At the October full moon, the Burmese floated thousands of tiny, lighted boats down the river.

Mah Soo accompanied the Bainbridges upstream, past stagnant, malarial swamps to see the missionary outposts at Seejaw and Dong-yan. “The boat was a hollowed log about thirty feet long,” Lucy recalled, “one-third of the length being covered by a thatched roof and plank sides. Into this house, too low to stand erect, a company of us packed outselves like sardines in a box. The Kalah rowers occupied all the space in front, and the steersman and baggage all of it behind. It was necessary under such arrangement of travel to be ‘in harmony with one’s environment.’ If any body imagines that a missionary feels it necessary to wear a solemn and dignified countenance at all times, he needs only to have been on that jungle trip to have had all such illusions dispelled.”³³⁷

Another boat trip took them to Amherst so Lucy could survey the simple stone and the fence-circled weeds that marked the grave of Ann Judson, “one of the most heroic of America’s noblest women.”³³⁸ Ann had come to Burma with her Baptist missionary husband, Adoniram, in 1813, and discovered that the Burmese suffered under one of the most corrupt and vicious regimes in the entire world. It was the custom of each new king to have thousands murdered to extirpate possible opponents and instill terror throughout the population. Nothing in Burma could be accomplished without bribing hoardes of rapacious officials. Confessions obtained under torture aided these worthies in seizing the property of anyone unlucky enough to arouse their envy.

After six years of effort learning the Burmese language and translating the first fragments of the Bible into it, Adoniram gained his first convert to Christianity. Before there were more than two dozen, Burma went to war with Britain, and he was seized for being an enemy alien despite his cries that he was an American. The sadistic captors twisted his arms behind his back with cords that cut deeply into his flesh, and they threw him in a dark, filthy room with fifty hopeless prisoners. Shackeled heavily, by night their legs were hung above their heads on a bamboo pole, as they labored to sleep despite the groans and the vermin. Without the food brought by Ann, and the slight reduction of the cruelty bought by her bribes, he would have died. For more than a year he endured the most horrible agonies and dangers, before British victory liberated him. During Adoniram’s imprisonment, Ann gave birth to a daughter who accompanied her on perilous errends to feed her starving husband. Adoniram learned of his wife’s death from smallpox a month after it had occurred, and the best care a wet nurse could provide kept the baby alive only weeks longer.

Many of the pioneer missionaries suffered and died without saving a single soul, and at times William’s faith would falter. “That sudden death of Rev. J. Thomas in 1837, when, just in sight of his expected life-work, a tree fell over on his boat from the bank of the Brahmaputra, killing him instantly — what could God have meant by this?”³³⁹ But in a moment, Christian resolution would reassert itself, and Ann Judson’s personal agony became glorious Christian martyrdom. Ann spoke her last words to Burman disciples. “I must die alone and leave my little one, but as it is the will of God, I acquiesce in His will. I am not afraid of death, but I am afraid I shall not be able to bear these pains. Tell the teacher that the disease was most violent and I could not write. Tell him how I suffered and died.”³⁴⁰

Some western intellectuals called Buddhism the light of Asia, but William was convinced it was the deepest darkness, worse than Islam and Confucianism, responsible for the indifference to human suffering and the refusal to strive for progress that he found so prevalent in Buddhist lands. In Maulmain he saw the perfect metaphor, the decaying body of a high priest all covered with goal leaf. “We have been touching Buddhism at thousands of points all over its great glittering surface, and have found only a rotting corpse of religious faith and life beneath. The vision may be very bright and dazzling to the culture of unbelief in far off Christian lands, but the grave is the only fit place for the whole system. The gold is not worth the disgusting and unhealthy process of removal. Let it go. Clean hands have better business in this little life of eternal issues.”³⁴¹

Lizards danced on the ceiling of the mission buildings at Maulmain. The small lizards ate the insects, and the big lizards, called tauk-taw because that was the verse they sang in their loud voices, ate the little ones. Lucy complained, “The ceaseless buzzing, chirping, whirring and cawing must be heard to be appreciated. The crows hover about the house in crowds, ready to fly in upon the dining-table as soon as the servant’s back is turned, and keep up a steady concert of caw, caw, cawing.”³⁴² In a chapel at Rangoon, William shouted his sermon in competion with five hundred of these noisy birds.

Rangoon’s photographer, Mr. Jackson, captured Mah Soo’s declicate form in two tiny sepia pictures. Her lean, alert face gazes beneath a garland of white flowers that frames the hair pulled back from her forhead. Her flower-decked, long-sleeve shirt and floor-length dress are clean and dignified. For the scene sitting in the victorian chair, she removed her many necklaces and bracelets, but retained the three rings on her left hand. The domestic scene shows her surrounded by fine kitchen pans in the pose of Buddhist meditation, but the keen eyes reveal a spirit ready for action rather than resignation.

William left his wife and son with Mrs. Ingalls, a missionary in Thongzai beyond Rangoon, while he went on ahead to a conference in India. Mrs. Ingalls had rented a monkey for Wille's amusement, and the two women went by bullock cart into the hinterland. At sunset on a Sunday these Christian ladies spied on a Buddhist meeting. “Through a grove of palm and mango trees, to a bamboo room on posts, we hurried. It had a thatched roof but no sides. Quietly we climbed the bamboo ladder (the only means of entrance), and there saw a small company of men kneeling before the idols, praying.

“Close to the sacred platform we stood and listened, ‘O, thou great one, and most excellent, we worship thee with our minds and our bodies, and all that we have. Thou hast taken the form of every living thing. When thou wast in the last state of a Boodh, O Gaudama, thou wast the most wonderful, and hast gone into Nigban (practical annihilation of body and soul).’ The prayer then stopped, as the worshipper poured water through the cracks of the bamboo floor. ‘For this act of adoration may we all obtain great merit, O Gaudama!’

“‘My friend,’ said the missionary, touching him on the shoulder, ’I have heard your prayer.’

“‘Oh, I am glad,’ quickly replied the man.

“‘But,’ continued the mama (teacher), ‘I did not hear of anything this great god can do for you.’

“‘I will not lie; he is not able,’ was the frank answer.

“‘Well, then, why do you pray to him?’

“‘It’s our custom; our forefathers all did so.’

“‘Must you do exactly as your ancestors did? They always spent four days walking to Rangoon when they went there and slept under the trees; and yet you go in the cars in six hours. How’s that?’”³⁴³ Mrs. Ingalls then preached to them about Jesus.

On another excursion, Mah Soo, Lucy, and Willie each rode an elephant deep into the jungle. The mud was too deep for the animals to lie down, so each rider had to climb a tree and drop down onto the vast grey head, then clamber into a wooden howdah lined with straw behind the driver’s place astride the neck.³⁴⁴ A touch of “broken bone jungle fever” slowed Lucy down for a few days, and then finally it was time to take ship for Calcutta. The Christians piled a great mass of bananas on the deck of the S. S. Malda as their parting gift, and for the remainer of his life Willie would remember them all singing, “We shall meet beyond the river.”³⁴⁵ He and Mah Soo exchanged letters, but they would never see each other again.³⁴⁶

India
At Calcutta, General Litchfield, Consul-General for the United States, accompanied Lucy and her son to the mission directed by Miss Hook where they were to stay. William was still traveling in the south of India, so there was time for Lucy to indulge her fascinations with death and exotic superstitions. “The special deity of Calcutta is the goddess Kali, from whom the city derives its name. A drive of several miles along the Chowringee road brought us to the old temple and village of Kali-Khutta, where the worship was then going on. According to Hindoo belief, life must never be taken, hence the people cannot eat meat. But a goat or fowl, whose blood has been offered to the insatiable Kali, becomes sacred. After the priest has severed the animal’s head and received a good sum for his work, and the blood and prayers have been given to Kali, the worshipper can take the animal home and eat it without losing caste. Hence hungry devotees are glad to offer their homage to Kali, and the priest makes no small amount for his own pocket.

“There was blood everywhere: in pools on the pavement, on the steps and platform, and in front of the doorway opening into the dark room where Kali, in the midst of blood, sat in all her diabolical finery. Her black face and open mouth expressed nothing but murder; the long red tongue hung out over the chin, the three livid eyes glared out from the darkness, and the necklace of skulls she is represented as wearing could be seen, while in one hand she grasps a sword and the other holds a skull filled with blood, and still another has in it a bleeding human heart.”³⁴⁷

General Litchfield arranged for Lucy to visit the Burning Ghaut on the Ganges where the dead are cremated. “The building, if it may be called a building at all, is open toward the sky, and partly open toward the river, and so close that it is but a moment’s work, after the burning is completed, to drop the bones into the sacred stream. We went early in the morning. One body was nearly consumed, and the men who had been in attendance were now beguiling the time away with a game of cards and a little gambling. The body of an old man was brought in just in front of us. The logs were piled up, and a few pieces of sandal-wood laid on top. The old man could not have been very rich, or else the brother, who was attending to this last rite for the deceased, was careful of expense, for but little sandal-wood went on to this burning pile. The wealth of a man can generally be told by the amount of this precious wood used at his burning.

“The body of the old man, wrapped in a cloth, was taken off the bamboo litter, and laid upon the pile of logs. He must have been a tall man among his fellows, for the poor withered feet hung limp over the end. Other kindling and heavy logs were piled on, water from the sacred river was poured over the body, a cup of oil turned upon the head, and the hand filled with grain. All was now ready. A bunch of straw was thrust under the logs and the brother lit it. The fire crackled and licked about the mass, and wrapped the whole in a sheet of flame. As we came away, the brother was watching, with intense interest, — the burning body of this near of kin? No! but the gambling of the young men with the cards.”³⁴⁸

It was in pagan Calcutta, a year away from America, that Willie celebrated his tenth birthday. His most vivid memory was of sitting near the Ganges in the early morning, observing the Indians washing away their sins in the holy river, as a group of Christians sang the hymn, “There is a fountain filled with blood.”³⁴⁹ The mysteries of the Indian caste system were brought home to Willie one day when his shadow happened to fall upon the dinner of a servant. In a rage, the man declared that he would have to throw both the food and the dish away, or lose caste.³⁵⁰

As she had done in China, Lucy scrutinized the degraded condition of Indian women. Locked away in zenanas, hardly better than harems, wives of affluent gentlemen seemed unable to assert their individual rights and desires. Lucy attended a dance-filled nautch celebration of the piercing of a Calcutta girl’s ears. “The little maid must soon take her place in the secluded rooms of the zenana, and get such glimpses of Nautch parties and like festivities, as could be gained from the upper balcony, through the closely-woven screens, with all the other women of the house. But now she is to be the queen of the evening. She is to wear the choicest of the family jewels, and sit in the most conspicuous part of the room.”³⁵¹ Aside from Lucy and the girl herself, the only females present were the dancers, and the delighted guests were all Baboo gentlemen.

“The Baboos salaamed very pleasantly to her majesty, and very sweetly little Nahrodah, putting her hand to her lips and then to her forehead, with a little nod of the head, returned the salutations. Her dress was of green tissue and gold work. A necklace of pearls and another of flowers, strung together, reached to her waist. Her nose-ring was so large that she had to tuck it one side, putting the large pearl which ornamented it upon her ear while she munched cardamom seeds. A fringe of gold and pearls hung over the forehead, while the face was crowned with a towering aigrette of gold and feathers, each dancing swaying tip being finished with a diamond. Armlets and bracelets and earrings finished the little queen’s toilet.”³⁵²

After listening critically to the exotic music, Lucy set out to explore the house “and visit the women of the family peering through the lattice screens above. Through dark halls and dirty stairways we found our way to the women. With them we looked through the chinks of the curtain upon the gay scene below. Wishing to see for a moment more perfectly, I thougtlessly lifted a corner of the screen. A cry of horror burst from the women as they rushed backward, and the Baboo, who at that moment joined us, tucked the screen all back, assuring me that no harm had been done, but had any of the women been see it would have been a dreadful thing.”³⁵³ Some time after midnight, exhausted Nahrodah was put to bed in the zenana, her ears duly pierced, and by two in the morning when the entertainment ended, Lucy was ready to return to the liberty enjoyed by an American woman.

William finally rendezvoused with his wife and son, and the family took train westward. At Lucknow, Cawnpore and Delhi, Lucy inspected the sites of holy martyrdom in the great Sepoy Mutiny of 1857, which she had followed in the newspapers when it occurred.

The sepoys were native soldiers serving in the armies of the British East India Company, which had gained control over the subcontinent by exploiting the anarchy of an empire that was fast falling of its own weight. A tiny handful of European officers commanded thousands of Hindu and Moslem troups, as missionaries sought to convert India to Christianity, and European technology slowly invaded a stagnant culture. Indigenous potentates continued to rule, some as British puppets and others in uneasy alliance with England, living splendorously as the common people suffered. At Lucknow, the Shiite Moslem King of Oudh indulged every sensuous vice, supported by a system of tax farming in which lesser officials held contracts to extract a certain amount of revenue from a given area, pocketing whatever else they could steal from the largely Hindu peasants. Prompted by moral outrage as well as base ambition, the British annexed Oudh and clumsily set out to reform the unjust system. But from the standpoint of Hindu peasants, Moslem masters had merely been replaced by Christian ones.³⁵⁴

In January 1857, at the Dum-Dum arsenal (later famous for the invention of bullets that would spin around inside anyone they hit), a thirsty Laskar begged a drink of water from a sepoy’s drinking vessel. The soldier haughtily refused, saying that the vessel would be contaminated by the lips of a low-caste man. The Laskar angrily replied that all the sepoys would soon loose caste, because the British were introducing new rifle cartridges greased with the fat of pigs, and the sepoys would have to bite the cartridge before loading. This rumor spread quickly among the sepoys, from camp to camp. It focused the rage of a society facing dreadful hardship and expressed the deep suspicions of a people whose very religion was under assault from the foreigners. In February and March 1857, a general mutiny swept across the North of India.³⁵⁵