pestiferous attentions to be administered best in the shape of a little vigorous kicking." A sorcerer so aggravated him that, "losing my temper and my reason altogether, I dropped his gongs and cymbals down a well, depositing him in it after them." "The interpreter will suggest that he requires a servant. For this remark he should be flogged." When the poor inhabitants of a poverty-stricken village declined to sell him their scanty stock of chickens, "the grooms, the servants and the interpreter at once tackled the mob, laying about them with their whips, and fowls and eggs were at once forthcoming. The head groom came up to me, demanding an increase of thirty dollars. I refused and thrashed him

with my whip. The end of my journey for the moment had come, with a vengeance. The head groom stormed and cursed and ran raving in and out of the crowd. He then came for me with a huge boulder, and, as I let out upon his temple, the riot began. My baggage was thrown off the horses and stones flew through the air. I hit and slashed at my assailants and for a few minutes became the centre of a very nasty situation."

After having thus described the effect of his own methods upon the natives, he has the self-possession to arraign missionaries for the anti-foreign feeling which he professes to believe their "indiscretion" has caused.

The Siamese treat a foreigner with extreme courtesy ; though it has not always been reciprocated. It is common to charge them with deceitfulness and with the breaking of. promises; but no one who is familiar with the history of French dealings with Siam can truthfully deny that European duplicity has been as marked as Siamese. The "boy," as the Asiatic servant is universally called, whom we engaged in Bangkok for our trip through the northern jungles, unconsciously gave an illustration of the general conduct of white travellers in Siam. "Who is Master and what is he going to Laos for ?" he was overheard asking before we started. "He is the father of all the missionaries there," was a boatman's

reply, and is going to see them." Upon which the boy ejaculated in a tone of relief: "Oh, then he won't kick me and throw bottles at me!" A fortnight later, he said to a friend: "Master must be a very holy man, for he hasn't beaten me or sworn at me at all!" What a side-light upon the conduct of the average foreign traveller! We felt humiliated that such treatment of a servant as is everywhere taken for granted at home should in Siam be deemed so exceptional; though it was pleasant to know that the very fact that one was connected with the missionaries was considered presumptive evidence that one was a gentleman. The incident is commended to the consideration of those critics who allege that the natives dislike the missionaries.

Most travellers in Siam exhaust their vocabularies in anathematizing the local magistrates, because they do not immediately furnish elephants and carriers. We know from experience how trying such delays are. At Pré and Utradit, we lost valuable time on this account. At Paknampo, we could not secure boatmen at all, and at Lakawn we should have been unable to get elephants if it had not been for the kindness of the agents of the British trading companies. And this, though we had, in addition to a passport, a special letter of introduction from Prince Damrong, Minister of the Interior, directing all Commissioners, Governors and Magistrates promptly to give us any assistance that we needed. We were ashamed again when we found that some of the officials wondered that we did not curse them. They had evidently been accustomed to abuse in such circum

stances.

What were the facts? It was rice harvest and all the men were in the fields. Would it have been reasonable for us to complain because it took several days to find the carriers we needed? As for elephants, each animal is owned by an individual who keeps it for his own use, and when he does not need it, he hobbles it and turns it into the jungle. Securing an elephant for a traveller, therefore, means finding an owner

who is willing to stop his own work or to send a man two or three days into the jungle to hunt up one. Suppose an Asiatic were to enter an American town and peremptorily order the Mayor to furnish him immediately four saddle horses and thirty men as carriers, and that the Mayor were courteously to reply: "It will be difficult for me to comply with your request, for it is harvest time and all the men are busy, while the only horses in town are kept by private individuals who may need them themselves or who may not care to lend them to a stranger; but I shall have pleasure in doing the best I can." And suppose that if the men and horses were not at once forthcoming, the Asiatic were to become insolent and abusive, and threaten to have the Mayor severely punished. That is precisely what happens when the average foreigner travels in Asia. Instead of kicking him out of doors, as an American official would do in such circumstances, the Oriental magistrate, knowing by bitter experience the trouble that the foreigner can make for him, meekly hastens to do his bidding; frequently being obliged to seize elephants needed by their owners and to compel men to leave their fields and families to bear heavy burdens for weary weeks under a hot sun. Why shouldn't they hate the foreigners-" these violent and angry men with white faces, who come from a country beyond the sea, who are always in a hurry and who blaspheme their God as no Buddhist would ever dream of blaspheming his!"

India is supposed to attract a good class of travellers; but a prominent hotel posts this significant notice: "Visitors will be good enough not to strike the servants; any complaints made against them will be attended to by the manager."

The political ascendancy of the white nations in some nonChristian lands and their notorious schemes in others are doing not a little to intensify this bitterness. In this respect, the modern missionary finds that his relation to the natives is quite different from that of his predecessors. They found heathen lands ruled by heathen, and, save on the fringes, practic

ally closed to the foreigner; but the missionary of the present goes to an unevangelized world, large areas of which are ruled by the so-called Christian nations. Nearly one-half of Asia, tenelevenths of Africa and practically all of the island world are under nominally Christian governments; while some other countries have come so far under western influences as to be from this viewpoint under almost the same conditions. The political idea which has been developed by Christianity is becoming well known throughout the whole non-Christian world, and is causing changes which the missionary must consider. His isolation is less and his country can protect him more effectively; but the native is more restless and jealous, more sullenly disposed to regard every white man as the representative of a domineering and conquering race.

Commercially, too, conditions have changed. The products of the Western world are now to be found in almost every part of Asia and Africa. The old days of cheap living have passed away. The knowledge of modern inventions and of other foods and articles has created new wants and an economic revolution of stupendous proportions is taking place. The white man is considered the cause of this also, and between the greed of some natives who hope to benefit by it and the resentment of others who are suffering from it, his position is one of increasing delicacy.

We have noted elsewhere that we know Asia better than formerly, but a more embarrassing fact is that Asia knows us better. The printing press runs day and night in India. Daily papers are published in all the leading cities of Japan. Siam and China have a vernacular press. The same steamer that brings to non-Christian nations western goods brings also western books and periodicals. The brutal, immoral trader

1 For many facts on this subject, cf. "New Forces in Old China," Parts II and III and especially Chapters IX and XXIII.

2 Chapter I.

arrives on the same ship with the missionary. Bibles and whiskey cross the Pacific in the same cargo. Chinese gentlemen visit America and are treated with shameful indignity. The Asiatic travels through Europe and America and goes back to tell his countrymen of our intemperance, our lust of gold, our municipal corruption. "The Letters of a Chinese Official" were not written by a Chinese, but unquestionably they represent the bitter contempt of the literati for the western world that they have come to know, and they probably will not see the effective reply of William J. Bryan.

And the Asiatic discovers not only our vices, but our sectarian differences and, worse still, our irreligion. He knows that multitudes in the lands from which the missionaries come repudiate Christianity and sneer at the effort to preach it to other peoples, and that while the missionaries exhort Asiatics to keep the Sabbath, Americans at home do not keep it themselves. Brahmans and Mandarins read infidel books and magazine articles, and confront the missionary with the hostile arguments of his own countrymen.

We no longer, therefore, confront a cringing heathenism, but an aroused and militant Asia which has awakened to a new consciousness of unity and power. The old is passing away and a new-created world springs up, but a world that loves not the white man. British rule in Egypt has been of incalculable benefit to the people, but the Moslem's fanatical hatred of all Christians is so fierce as to make him forget all the blessings that the Englishman has brought to him. Practically the same feeling exists in India. Whatever criticisms may be made, the fact remains that Great Britain has abated grave evils and brought a peace and justice and security for life and property which the country had never known prior to British occupation; but the proud-spirited East Indian, even though he may admit these things, will nevertheless tell the traveller that he hates the Englishman. his conqueror.

The reason is apparent; the Englishman is No people like to be subjugated, and the atti