27
THE K I N G ' S B U S I N E S S
who were now in our party, after vari ous minor difficulties, got off at 10 A.M. on a public boat drawn by a tilg, for Hengshan one hundred twenty miles up the Siang river. By 9 o’clock at night we had reached Chuchow, thirty miles from Changsha by rail, (road not run-- ning for any one but soldiers) and fifty miles by water. There we anchored in spite of rumors that Chuchow had been looted. Before daylight we discovered why. Awakening between five and six o’clock we discovered that there was a double row of junks and rafts way a- cross the broad river, to form a bridge for the retreating Hunanese soldiers. We were also informed that the com mandant wished to commandeer our boat to carry supplies for the retreating soldiers. We at once turned to God in prayer and He brought to mind, as He had often before and would fre quently again before we were safely back in Changsha, Phil. 4:6, 7, So ws had no anxieties and no fears, and with in ten minutes word cam? that the commandant had yielded to the persua sions of our captain, and that it would not even be necessary for Dr. Keller and Mr. Tsiao to go with the American flag and present their protests. Our prayer meeting became a praise meeting. We were soon off through the narrow open ing through the pontoon bridges. Noth ing of serious danger was seen until just before night fall, when we stopped off a town where a lady of our party wished to stop and cheer and instruct a little band of Chinese women con nected with a church there, of which her husband had the oversight. The regular landing barge did not come out, but another approached with two sol diers standing up and holding rifles, just as Dr. Dreyer and I had seen the junk captured below Changsha. We all gathered together outside our cabin doors. Dr. Keller whispered to me, “ It looks like a hold up.” We-all watched and prayed silently and rested in Phil.
five rifle shots Shortly after this Mr Dreyer and I 'aw a Chinese Junk held, up* by two retreating soldiers, turned bandits. But we reached Changsha on time, and found the city not burned to the ground, as one paper reported, or even looted. But there were 3500 •wounded soldiers in the city, 1800 of them seriously wounded;' and retreat ing soldiers, deserted by their officers and following their own sweet will, were everywhere. The boat to a place a- cross the lake had been held up by law less soldiers and all passengers, includ ing foreigners, robbed of everything. The Governor had gone to Yo-chow to make the best terms he could with vic torious Woo-pei-fu. All sorts of ru mors were abroad, but most of them, as we knew was customary in China, were either altogether false or grossly exaggerated. We tried to make arrangements to get away the next morning; but there was no public launch going to Hengshan and every effort to secure a private one failed. We could get to Siangtan, thirty miles away by boat, but then must go sixty miles overland on foot or in chairs through a- country infested by retreating, disorganized and des perate soldiers, many of whom had be come bandits. We endeavored, how ever, to undertake it, but could not gei Siangtan by telephone to arrange for chairs and were told the lines were cut. This kept us in Changsha through the next day, which proved providential in many ways giving us among other important matters a much needed op portunity to inspect the buildings of the Bible Institute of Los Angeles in Changsha, those already constructed, those in process of construction and the plans of the proposed Administration building, and to have a whole day of conference and prayer with Dr. .Keller and his very able coadjutor, Mrs. Kel ler. The next morning, however, the eight Americans and the six Chinese
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