Flash-lights From The Seven Seas Part 8

For centuries, and even in these days, clandestinely; I am told by men whom I trust; the most beautiful maiden of a certain tribe among the Javanese; and some of the most beautiful women I saw in the Orient were those soft-skinned, soft-voiced, easy-moving, graceful-limbed, swaying-bodied; brown skinned women of Java; she, the fairest of the tribe is taken; and with her the strongest limbed youth; he of the fibered muscles; he of the iron biceps; he of the clean skin; and the two of them are tossed into the belching fiery crater of old Bromo.

"Why?" I asked.

"They think that in that way, they may propitiate the G.o.ds of the volcano. Their hearts are constantly filled with fear lest the G.o.ds of the volcano become angry and destroy them," said the missionary.

Then he told me of a trip that they made a year before to the top of one of the most inaccessible volcanoes which was then in constant eruption.

"We had a hard time getting native guides. Finally we succeeded. We had to travel fifty miles before we reached the mountain. Then we climbed five miles up its steep side, cutting our own trail as we made our way through the tropical jungle. At last we reached the timber. But before we entered the forest one of the guides came to me and, with the most pitiable and trembling fear in his voice and face, begged us white people not to say anything disrespectful of the mountain; not to joke and laugh, and not to sing; for that would make the mountain angry, and we would all be killed.

"I saw that he was in deadly earnest, and, while I wanted to laugh I looked as solemn as I could, for there was such terror in his face, I knew that if I laughed he would turn and run back to civilization.

"An hour later we reached the timber line. Before we entered it the first boy fell flat on his face and prayed to the G.o.d of the mountain asking that G.o.d not to hurt them. Then the next boy did likewise; then the third and the fourth and the fifth!

"Their faces were almost white with fear when we missionaries did not pray. It filled them with terror!"

And the last Flash-light of Fear is that of the baby in Medan. The Priest lived across the way in a temple.

The baby was sick with whooping-cough. It was the usual, simple case of baby sickness that American babies all have, and which is not taken seriously here by either doctor or mother.

The mother took the baby to the priest.

The priest took a red hot iron; laid the baby on the church altar and ran the iron across its neck, and then across its breast and then across its little stomach. Then he laid it on the front steps of the temple.

The baby died after a few hours spent in terrible pain.

Hate the Priest?

No!

Despise the mother?

No!

Pity them!

The priest was honest and the mother was honest. They were doing the best thing for the baby that either of them knew. They knew that the baby had a devil in its little body and they were merely trying to drive that devil out of its body.

Fear! Fear! Fear! Fear of devils in the home, lurking in the shadows of night and in the light of day; lurking in the bodies of babies; devils everywhere--always.

These are the Flash-lights of Fear!

And like unto them are the pictures of Frightfulness which I have set down in the next chapter.

CHAPTER V

FLASH-LIGHTS OF FRIGHTFULNESS

"The j.a.p is the slant-eyed Hun of the Orient. He has a slant-eyed ethics, a slant-eyed morality, a slant-eyed honesty, a slant-eyed social consciousness; a slant-eyed ambition, a slant-eyed military system; and a slant-eyed mind!" said Peter Clarke Macfarlane, the well-known author and lecturer, one day when I was interviewing him on the j.a.panese question.

"That's pretty strong, Mr. Macfarlane, in the light of your usual conservatism," I commented.

"I say it carefully and after much thought. It is said to stay said so far, as I am concerned," he added with finality.

This was also my own opinion, after spending three months in j.a.pan and Korea, another month in China; and another month or two in Manila; catching the angle of j.a.panese leaders.h.i.+p from every slant.

And after due consideration, and after a year to think it over carefully, I am here to say, that I never saw, or heard of anything worse happening in Belgium under German rule than that which I saw and heard of happening under j.a.panese rule in Korea, Siberia and Formosa, while I was in the Orient.

Suffice it is to say, at this point, that the j.a.panese is hated by the whole Orient. I do not believe that the German Hun in his worst day was ever hated more unanimously for his inhuman practices than is the j.a.p Hun hated by the whole Orient to-day.

"Is it getting better or worse?" I am asked constantly.

"Worse!" I reply, and this reply is backed up by interviews I have had with returned Korean missionaries.

I found the j.a.panese scorned and hated from one end of the Orient to the other. As far south as Java, as far east as the Suez; as far north as the uttermost reaches of Manchuria and Siberia; as far this direction as Hawaii.

For instance, after I had been away from Korea for six months and had come back to America I met a most conservative missionary in the Romona Hotel in San Francisco. The last time previous to that meeting that I had seen him was in Korea itself.

I said to him "Are things better or worse in Korea?"

His reply was, "Worse than they have ever been; generally speaking!" I have no intention and no desire to further augment ill feeling between America and j.a.pan. In fact I do not fear anything like war in that direction; but I do have an intense feeling of responsibility about telling my readers the plain and simple truth that the whole Far Eastern world hates j.a.pan.

If that thought itself can get into the mind of America, this country will understand, at least, that there is some fault that lies back in the j.a.panese military policy and character itself. It hardly seems possible, with ten races and five different countries hating j.a.pan; that j.a.pan herself is not mostly to blame. When a matter of hatred is so unanimous among all races in that part of the world, it is likely that the fault lies with the race and nation which has the hatred of so many types of people focused on its actions.

While I was in Java some high dignitaries in the j.a.panese Navy arrived in Batavia. The Chinese Coolies who live in Batavia absolutely refused to carry any j.a.panese officers or sailors in their Rickshas. It was a striking indictment of the j.a.panese nation.

In Singapore the distrust and hatred of the j.a.panese is unanimous. In the Philippines it is the same. In Hongkong you see few j.a.panese. They are not wanted and they are not trusted. In Shanghai, and Peking it is the same. The Student Movement, one of the most powerful weapons that has ever arisen in any nation in the world, has focused the Chinese sentiment against selfish j.a.panese aggression in China.

The j.a.panese officials laughed at the Student Boycott of j.a.panese goods when it first started. But in a year they were trembling in the face of that boycott. I was in Tientsin, and Peking during the days of the Student Street Demonstrations. They were like American demonstrations.

Keen, alert, intelligent Chinese boys addressed the crowds admonis.h.i.+ng them not to buy j.a.panese goods in Chinese shops. The pressure became so strong that all Chinese merchants from the lowest shopkeeper up to the owner of the great chain stores, like our Woolworth inst.i.tutions, put away j.a.panese-made goods and refused to sell them.

I took dinner in Shanghai with one of the foremost merchant princes of China and said, "Are you selling any j.a.panese-made goods?"

"I certainly am not. I am not powerful enough with all my millions of money and all of my chain of stores to take such a chance as that. I have put all of my j.a.panese goods in the cellar."

The Boycott against j.a.panese goods in China became so powerful that in Tientsin, while I was there, the j.a.panese Consul complained bitterly to the Governor of the Province and the Governor who was said to be under the influence of j.a.panese money, arrested a lot of students. There was one of the most determined and terrible riots that I have ever seen. It was war. It was not like any mild American riot. It was war to the death. Several students were killed and finally the pressure was so strong that even this j.a.panese Agent was compelled to release the imprisoned students. I shall quote from an editorial that I was asked to write for the Peking _Leader_ during my stay in China:

The weapon which most worries the j.a.panese I should say, is the boycott that the Students Movement has inaugurated. The j.a.panese Government never had anything that quite worried it so much. It is a weapon that is worth a thousand battles.h.i.+ps, or fifty divisions of soldiers. It is a weapon that will, if continuously, and consistently and faithfully used, bring a money-loving nation, like j.a.pan to her knees, and send her finally, scurrying like a whipped cur, with her tail between her legs back home where she belongs.

I talked with a ragged Chinese boy through an interpreter just to find what his reactions to the j.a.panese were. He was a beggar. He said, "The j.a.panese has a heart like a dog and a liver like a wolf."

I quote again from the editorial in the Peking _Leader_: