Page 68 - GFA – A Different Drumbeat
P. 68
GFA – A Different Drumbeat 68
swarms. It was impossible to go outside the house without seeing dead
bodies. In the little city of Anting, which at the time of which I write had
probably not more than four thousand five hundred population left, on a
certain day there was a sudden drop in temperature, occasioned by one of the
first welcome rains we had during the summer, and on that day our workers,
quite distinct from official and business organizations, buried sixty bodies.
Only those who have lived through a typhus scourge can know how terrible a
plague it is. Of the small band of missionaries in Kansuh we lost four valuable
workers through this fell disease, contracted whilst doing direct relief work
among the starving multitudes. The Roman Catholic Mission lost nine of their
workers in the same way. Dr. Rand was the first of our C.I.M. workers to be
taken and it seemed as though he could be ill-spared. His home call left but
one foreign doctor in the whole province, Dr. Taylor, who is a man with but
short experience in the province. Miss Bidlake, Mr.Belcher and Mr. Rist were
taken within a very short time of each other and it seemed as though the
missionary ranks were to be depleted yet further, but God, in His infinite
Mercy saw well to lay His Hand of Healing upon eight other workers who were
attacked by this disease. The suffering that this further visitation of typhus
entailed upon the surviving population was terrible. Many who had escaped
death from starvation succumbed to typhus. Just another little picture.
It was perhaps half past ten at night when a loud knocking was heard on the
doors of the inn which was being used as the headquarters of our relief work
in a certain district. It was only another case, alas too common, of the villagers
coming to report another death from famine fever. Some of our workers
followed the informant, out into the night, till at length at the bottom of a
deep gully they found the body. It was that of a woman to whom a distribution
of parched barley flour had been made that day. Evidently she had been on
her way toward the great city where, doubtless, she hoped to find some
means of obtaining regular relief for herself and child. Night had overtaken
them and at the beginning of the descent into the ravine a drizzIe had
commenced, making the road slippery and difficult. Possibly it was the sudden
change in temperature which hastened the end, for there, in the deep
blackness of the bottom of the gully, the spirit took its flight from the poor,
starved, fever-burned body, thus leaving the wee girlie of four a prey to any
prowling wolf or famished dog. By the flickering light of the lantern a grave
was dug by the roadside and the body buried, after which the moaning child
was taken to the inn and from thence eventually sent to an emergency
orphanage, opened in Lanchow, for famine refugees. So reduced were the
survivors that the eating of flesh from dead bodies became a not uncommon
practice. A friend told me of the experience of a mutual friend who was acting
in an official capacity and whose feelings were so shocked when he first came
across an instance of a refugee eating human flesh that he expressed his
swarms. It was impossible to go outside the house without seeing dead
bodies. In the little city of Anting, which at the time of which I write had
probably not more than four thousand five hundred population left, on a
certain day there was a sudden drop in temperature, occasioned by one of the
first welcome rains we had during the summer, and on that day our workers,
quite distinct from official and business organizations, buried sixty bodies.
Only those who have lived through a typhus scourge can know how terrible a
plague it is. Of the small band of missionaries in Kansuh we lost four valuable
workers through this fell disease, contracted whilst doing direct relief work
among the starving multitudes. The Roman Catholic Mission lost nine of their
workers in the same way. Dr. Rand was the first of our C.I.M. workers to be
taken and it seemed as though he could be ill-spared. His home call left but
one foreign doctor in the whole province, Dr. Taylor, who is a man with but
short experience in the province. Miss Bidlake, Mr.Belcher and Mr. Rist were
taken within a very short time of each other and it seemed as though the
missionary ranks were to be depleted yet further, but God, in His infinite
Mercy saw well to lay His Hand of Healing upon eight other workers who were
attacked by this disease. The suffering that this further visitation of typhus
entailed upon the surviving population was terrible. Many who had escaped
death from starvation succumbed to typhus. Just another little picture.
It was perhaps half past ten at night when a loud knocking was heard on the
doors of the inn which was being used as the headquarters of our relief work
in a certain district. It was only another case, alas too common, of the villagers
coming to report another death from famine fever. Some of our workers
followed the informant, out into the night, till at length at the bottom of a
deep gully they found the body. It was that of a woman to whom a distribution
of parched barley flour had been made that day. Evidently she had been on
her way toward the great city where, doubtless, she hoped to find some
means of obtaining regular relief for herself and child. Night had overtaken
them and at the beginning of the descent into the ravine a drizzIe had
commenced, making the road slippery and difficult. Possibly it was the sudden
change in temperature which hastened the end, for there, in the deep
blackness of the bottom of the gully, the spirit took its flight from the poor,
starved, fever-burned body, thus leaving the wee girlie of four a prey to any
prowling wolf or famished dog. By the flickering light of the lantern a grave
was dug by the roadside and the body buried, after which the moaning child
was taken to the inn and from thence eventually sent to an emergency
orphanage, opened in Lanchow, for famine refugees. So reduced were the
survivors that the eating of flesh from dead bodies became a not uncommon
practice. A friend told me of the experience of a mutual friend who was acting
in an official capacity and whose feelings were so shocked when he first came
across an instance of a refugee eating human flesh that he expressed his
