Page 164 - Three Score Years & Ten
P. 164
“THREE SCORE YEARS AND TEN” MISSIONARY WORK IN CHINA
Amy Moore
JOURNEY TO SHAANXI
Miss Wilson took us as far as Zhenjiang where we went by river steamer to Shanghai. There we met
Miss Martha Haslam, one of the older workers from Shaanxi just arriving back from furlough, who
would be taking us with her as far as Hanzhong, the central station of the South Shaanxi area. We
discovered that, when we reached Shaanxi, we would be with Miss Kitty Cooke who was coming from
another province to work in Shaanxi, and would be in charge of us until we had enough language to
go to the places we had been appointed to.
We went by river steamer again as far as Nanjing where we changed over to the train which would
take us through to the end of the railway at Tongguan, somewhere near the borders of Shaanxi ,
Shanxi and Henan. Between us we had 47 pieces of luggage as well as stores for ourselves and
other Shaanxi workers. These all had to be counted and checked every time we changed transport.
We had to change trains twice on the way, carefully counting the 47 pieces each time of course, and
as we got further north, we found the scenery changing to the dusty loess country of north China.
Half way through our last day we caught our first glimpse of the Huang He (Yellow River) and from
then on it kept coming into view and then disappearing again. We saw many cave dwellings in this
part of China. It was about 3 pm on 24 April when we finally reached Tongguan and found Mr.
Vatsaas of the Swedish Mission in Xi’an, the capital of Shaanxi Province, waiting to take us on by
truck to that famous old city.
One of the gates in the city wall surrounding the ancient city of Xi’an. The wall is
twelve metres high and 12 metres or more wide. The huge gates had an inner and
outer gate as you can see in the picture on the left. In between was a secure
courtyard which gave added safety if the outer gate was breached.
Tongguan, when we reached it, seemed almost like the end of the world as well as the end of the
railway. The dust was inches deep everywhere and every puff of wind blew clouds of it over us and
our possessions. All our luggage had to be taken off the train and counted again, then transferred to
the Customs shed, examined and finally packed into a motor lorry which Mr. Vatsaas had to hire for
the trip. This all took time and the train was already nearly two hours late, so it was after 5 pm before
we were beginning to see the end. We had four hours hard driving ahead of us if we were to reach
Xi’an that night, and Mr. Vatsaas decided that he would take us through in his car and leave his man
to take care of our things and bring them through the next day.
164
Amy Moore
JOURNEY TO SHAANXI
Miss Wilson took us as far as Zhenjiang where we went by river steamer to Shanghai. There we met
Miss Martha Haslam, one of the older workers from Shaanxi just arriving back from furlough, who
would be taking us with her as far as Hanzhong, the central station of the South Shaanxi area. We
discovered that, when we reached Shaanxi, we would be with Miss Kitty Cooke who was coming from
another province to work in Shaanxi, and would be in charge of us until we had enough language to
go to the places we had been appointed to.
We went by river steamer again as far as Nanjing where we changed over to the train which would
take us through to the end of the railway at Tongguan, somewhere near the borders of Shaanxi ,
Shanxi and Henan. Between us we had 47 pieces of luggage as well as stores for ourselves and
other Shaanxi workers. These all had to be counted and checked every time we changed transport.
We had to change trains twice on the way, carefully counting the 47 pieces each time of course, and
as we got further north, we found the scenery changing to the dusty loess country of north China.
Half way through our last day we caught our first glimpse of the Huang He (Yellow River) and from
then on it kept coming into view and then disappearing again. We saw many cave dwellings in this
part of China. It was about 3 pm on 24 April when we finally reached Tongguan and found Mr.
Vatsaas of the Swedish Mission in Xi’an, the capital of Shaanxi Province, waiting to take us on by
truck to that famous old city.
One of the gates in the city wall surrounding the ancient city of Xi’an. The wall is
twelve metres high and 12 metres or more wide. The huge gates had an inner and
outer gate as you can see in the picture on the left. In between was a secure
courtyard which gave added safety if the outer gate was breached.
Tongguan, when we reached it, seemed almost like the end of the world as well as the end of the
railway. The dust was inches deep everywhere and every puff of wind blew clouds of it over us and
our possessions. All our luggage had to be taken off the train and counted again, then transferred to
the Customs shed, examined and finally packed into a motor lorry which Mr. Vatsaas had to hire for
the trip. This all took time and the train was already nearly two hours late, so it was after 5 pm before
we were beginning to see the end. We had four hours hard driving ahead of us if we were to reach
Xi’an that night, and Mr. Vatsaas decided that he would take us through in his car and leave his man
to take care of our things and bring them through the next day.
164
