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 Scholberg, Ella C 
 
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 BEING A COLLECTION OF LETTERS 
 WRITTEN FOR A COUNTY NEWS- 
 PAPER IN AMERICA, BY A MISSIONARY 
 IN INDIA 
 
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 MAR 1 2000 
 
Copyright 191 4 
 By Ella C. Scholberg 
 
 R. R. DONNELLEY & SONS COMPANV 
 CHICAGO 
 
DEDICATED 
 
 TO MY SISTER, 
 
 MAUD A. CONRAD, 
 
 THROUGH WHOSE INSPIRATION 
 
 AND LABOR 
 
 THIS BOOK OWES ITS 
 
 EXISTENCE 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 Several months ago a sister of mine conceived the idea 
 of collecting all the letters I had written for the Big Stone 
 County Journal, published at Ortonville, Minnesota, and 
 getting them out as a book. She was much more enthusiastic 
 about it than I was — her viewpoint was the North American 
 Continent, where affairs from India must appear in romantic 
 light. But seeing the Orient at first hand makes one hesitate 
 to describe it — much more to write a book on it. It is full 
 of contradictions and inconsistencies, and the one who 
 thinks he knows the Indian best is often the one who finds 
 he knows least about him. However, I have never regretted 
 having put down my first impressions of India ; they are there 
 in tangible form to look back upon through all the future 
 years, and although making them into a book is a very serious 
 matter, I trust my readers will accept this apology and not 
 hold me to account for what I may have written under a 
 mistaken impression. There are books and books on India, 
 and one of the latest we have read is ''Irresponsible Im- 
 pressions of India," written by an English lady. That would 
 have been a most appropriate title for my book, for irre- 
 sponsible these leaves certainly are. 
 
 E. C. S. 
 
 Narsinghpur, C. P., India, September i, 1913 
 
Port Said, Egypt, November 27, 1906. 
 Dear Friends in the Homeland: 
 
 Some one told us to-day that letters mailed at Port Said 
 would reach America by Christmas, so we decided to send a 
 write-up of our journey thus far and when we reach Bombay 
 we will send the rest. 
 
 We arrived in New York too late to make final arrange- 
 ments for our out-going, so that everything had to be left 
 until Monday. On Sunday we heard Dr. Parkhurst of 
 Madison Square Presbyterian Church in the morning, at- 
 tended an Episcopal musical in the afternoon, and went to 
 the Metropolitan Temple M. E. Church in the evening. 
 Monday noon we took a train for Worcester, Mass., where the 
 first of our New England receptions was held. The second 
 was held at Roxbury, third in South Boston, and the last at 
 Dorchester. I think that our friends know that the Boston 
 District Ep worth League has taken up our support, under 
 what is known as the Station Plan and we are their represen- 
 tatives in the field. We are very much pleased with the 
 arrangement as it will keep us doing our very best and keep 
 them interested in field work. One of the circuit presidents 
 said he was glad the Epworth League had an issue now 
 besides ice cream and cake. And it is not only an interest 
 in missions but an interest in the home work, for their motto 
 is "One thousand dollars for missions and twelve hundred 
 souls for Christ this year." 
 
 We left Boston for New York the day before we sailed. 
 The editor of World Wide Missions invited us to his 
 home for dinner the last evening we spent in America, and 
 early the next morning we went to the ferry and were taken 
 across to Hoboken, N. J., where our steamer, the "Koenig 
 Albert," was being loaded for the journey. We found that 
 our trunks and other baggage had arrived safely at the 
 wharf, and friends from New Jersey and New York were 
 there to see us off. We were tired from our journey and our 
 sight seeing, but were happy until the very last good-byes 
 
 [7] 
 
had to be said and we had to witness some very sad partings. 
 Soon two little tugboats came up and towed our immense 
 steamer with its sixteen hundred passengers out into the 
 bay. The last ^'bon voyage'^ had been wafted from the 
 shore, the last gong sounded, the great engines began to 
 throb and we were out upon the boundless ocean. 
 
 For nearly a week we saw no land. On the Mediterranean 
 we see islands and passing steamers very often, but on the 
 Atlantic we saw none, until we reached the Azores. But the 
 time passed pleasantly, for we read, walked the deck, pitched 
 quoits, told stories, listened to recitals, — for we had a number 
 of musicians on board who were going abroad to study, — and 
 watched the steerage passengers at their amusements. 
 
 There were about fourteen hundred in the steerage. 
 Some of them were denied entrance into America because of 
 hereditary disease, mental incapacity, being crippled, or 
 some other reason, and then had to be taken back free of 
 charge on the same steamer that brought them over. Poor 
 unfortunates, packed like cattle in a small, unclean place, 
 with only a blanket to sleep on and a tin plate and cup from 
 which to eat and drink! Measles and scarletina broke out 
 among them before we reached Gibraltar, and before we were 
 allowed to leave our steamer, a tiny boat brought a quaran- 
 tine ofi&cer on board and we waited patiently until he made 
 an examination and reported. We were afraid that we 
 would be held at Gibraltar fourteen days, for there were 
 about forty of us to land, but we were allowed to go in peace 
 and a tender came and took us to the dock. We had a fine 
 time in Gibraltar, went through the English fortifications 
 almost to the rock where we could look out upon Spain, 
 Tangiers, the Mediterranean, and the Atlantic. On the 
 plains below we saw a football game in progress and next to 
 it was the Spanish bullfight ring — our guide told us that 
 they have no fights at this time of the year, but during the 
 spring they have one every Sunday. In the afternoon we 
 took a carriage ride about the city, stopping here and there 
 to gather wild flowers. The next morning we arose early 
 and walked across to Spain and bought some fruit and cakes 
 
 [8] 
 
in a Spanish village. Our steamer, the "Arabia," from 
 England, was due at ten o'clock, but it was seven hours late, 
 and we afterwards learned that it was on account of a storm 
 in the Bay of Biscay. The captain, who has been on the 
 sea forty years, said he never saw such a storm, but the only 
 disaster was the breaking of a lot of dishes and a general 
 mixup. A tub of soft soap left its mooring and collided with 
 a lot of jam, to the destruction of both. We got on board 
 before nightfall and were sound asleep before the boat 
 started on its journey to Bombay. 
 
 Two days later we reached Marseilles where we anchored 
 over night and had the pleasure of "touring in France" for 
 an afternoon. The city is pretty after leaving the docks — 
 streets are wide and buildings all the same height. We got 
 some souvenirs and a steamer chair. We cannot rent chairs 
 on this steamer as we could on the "Koenig." We saw as 
 much of the town as we had time for, and the next morning 
 at ten o'clock we drew anchor and were towed out into the 
 Gulf of Lyons. In Marseilles, as well as in Gibraltar, there 
 were so many idle folk, beggars, and children running about. 
 I wished that I could have packed all the children off to 
 school. On the wharf were about two dozen musicians, 
 acrobats, and dancers performing for the pennies thrown to 
 them from the steamer. We passed by Sicily and Italy in 
 the night, so we could not see them, and also Sardinia and 
 Corsica. But we passed Crete in the day and saw its coast. 
 
 Just a few minutes ago the firebell rang and we saw a 
 practice which they have once a week. We reach Bombay 
 December yth and by the time you are reading this we will 
 be preparing to go to the Jubilee Celebration at Bareilly. 
 
 Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all. 
 
 Ella Conrad Scholberg. 
 
 [9] 
 
47 Mazagon Road, Mazagon, Bombay, India. 
 Dear Friends All: 
 
 My first impressions of India may change very much 
 after we have been here longer, but I am going to give them 
 to you. 
 
 Remember, too, that what may be true of Bombay, may 
 not be true of all India. This is a large country and furnishes 
 a home for one-fifth of the world's people. It has all kinds 
 of climate, all varieties of people, all manner of filth and 
 disease, and all sorts of social and industrial conditions. 
 
 But I shall speak only of our own city, Bombay, the 
 "Queen of Indian Cities," Kipling's own birthplace. 
 
 After seeing a city of Spain, and of France, and of Egypt, 
 we dreaded to think what Bombay would be like, but we 
 were much pleased with the change that met our eyes. We 
 found broader streets than other Eastern cities, the finest 
 horse tramway in the world, and splendid Victoria hacks at 
 such cheap rates that we are not debarred from the use of 
 them. Bombay has some beautiful seashore drives, and the 
 road between here and Calcutta is the finest macadamized 
 road in the world. The streets here are electric lighted and 
 well policed, and the mission houses, as well as other Europe- 
 an buildings, are modern in every respect. We have the 
 Taj Mahal hotel, the finest hotel in southern Asia, and a 
 great many beautiful government buildings. 
 
 But there is another side of the story, and this is charac- 
 teristic of the Orient: there is such a surplus population, 
 people idling their time away, having no home to go into, 
 sleeping on the street and living upon charity or by doing 
 little services if they can find them to do. As we go down the 
 street we are met by half a dozen or more who wish to show the 
 way to go, or call a cab for us, or do anything to earn a penny. 
 And the beggars that line the streets on every hand give 
 one the heartache. I have always supposed that lepers 
 were taken care of in leper asylums, but they are not, all of 
 them. It is not because there is no room for them, either, 
 
 [10] 
 
but because the government does not force them to go 
 there and many of them prefer to keep their freedom and live 
 on the street and beg. They must find great enjoyment in 
 begging ! They need not get much in order to live. Ordinary 
 wages here are about two dollars a month and a man can 
 dissipate more on that than a man in America can on fifty 
 dollars a month. But more pitiful even than the lepers is 
 the sight of the blind, and lame, and helpless, who have 
 had their eyes put out, or who have mutilated their own 
 bodies in order to make themselves too helpless to work and 
 so have an excuse to beg. We cannot give them money for 
 it would take a whole month's salary to give each one a sixth 
 of a cent, which is the smallest coin here. 
 
 We go to conference at Baroda next Monday. Baroda 
 is two hundred fifty miles from Bombay, north, and we will 
 have direct railroad. England has a very fine system here 
 and we travel for a cent and a half a mile. After conference 
 we will come back, likely, for I think our work is fairly decided 
 upon. We will commence the study of that most difficult 
 Marathi language that "puts your tongue out of joint, " and 
 until we have it learned Mr. Scholberg will preach to the 
 people through an interpreter and wdll preach English in the 
 English churches. There are two English churches in 
 Bombay, for there are thirty thousand English people here 
 and two hundred seventy thousand of the natives can speak 
 and understand English. Bombay has a population of 
 nearly a million. 
 
 We live in a very beautiful and comfortable bungalow. 
 We have a drawing room, library, dining room and study on 
 the ground floor and three bedrooms with three bath rooms 
 on the next floor. Both up and down, there are large veran- 
 das, and the rooms are all large and high. The kitchen and 
 other rooms are away from the house and I will have the 
 servants that the memsahib had before me. I will have a 
 cook, butler and sweeper besides the pundit, who will come 
 every morning to give us our lesson. 
 
 This is the cool season, but from about one to three 
 o'clock it is hotter than any summer day in Minnesota. We 
 
 [II] 
 
stay indoors then and were it not for our cool houses we 
 could not live here. We never go out without our great 
 sunhats, which shade the neck and shoulders as well as the 
 head. Five minutes in this sun would give us a sunstroke 
 from which we would never recover. 
 
 We went with our interpreter to the native shops to-day. 
 There are large English shops but we wanted to see what the 
 natives had to sell. They are so very small that we had to 
 stand outside of them to do our buying. They have a large 
 sign that the prices are all fixed, but that is all bogus, for if 
 you know what an article is worth you can get it for that even 
 if the price marked on it is three times as much. 
 
 On the whole we are very much pleased with our new 
 place of abode — we forget we are so far from civilization 
 when we hear the ^'Honk! honk!" of the motor car — 
 Bombay has a thousand of these machines. There is a lot 
 for us to do, for there are only two dozen missionaries with 
 their families in all this great city. Think of all the preachers 
 and churches in Minneapolis, a city only one-fifth as large! 
 And one church here is used for services all day Sunday — 
 services in EngUsh, Marathi, Gujurati and Hindustani, for 
 those are the principal languages of Bombay. 
 
 In my next letter I will tell you about the heathen wedding 
 I attended this week. 
 
 Our love to all our friends, 
 
 Ella C. Scholberg. 
 
 [12] 
 
Bombay, India. 
 Dear Home Friends: 
 
 I promised to tell you about the real Hindu wedding I 
 attended. This was an unknown thing — I mean a Christian 
 going to a Hindu function of any kind — a few years ago, but 
 things are changing now. I doubt not that in a few years 
 we will be invited to sit at their board with them. 
 
 The invitations were printed on light blue cards, and ran 
 like this: 
 
 "Mr. Venayek Narayen Malgoankey presents 
 compliments and requests the favor of your com- 
 pany on Monday the loth instant, between 6:00 
 and 9:00 p. M., on the occasion of the wedding of his 
 son, Govind, with Manekbai, daughter of Mr. Shan- 
 tarom Narayen Dabbalker, at the bride's house at 
 Chaupati. 
 
 "Bombay, ist Dec, 1906." 
 This wedding was arranged by the Hindu priests, to 
 whom the groom's parents presented the matter of their 
 son's marriage. They ask the date of his birth and then by 
 astrology they find a young woman — sometimes a mere 
 girl — who was born under the same star. They, the 
 priests, are supposed to be men of profound learning. They 
 present the matter to the girl's parents and the matter of 
 dowry is settled and the date for the nuptials set. You see, 
 the girl has no choice in the matter, and when she marries 
 she renounces her home and parents and goes to live at 
 her husband's home, becoming his slave, and the slave of her 
 mother-in-law. She is kept in the woman's apartments 
 at the back of the house and is never seen by any man 
 outside of the family. Whenever she goes out she is closely 
 veiled. A case is told of a mother watching her child at 
 play in the street. A sudden danger appeared and the 
 frightened mother rushed out to save her child. Of course 
 she was seen by a number of men upon the street, who re- 
 
 [13] 
 
ported the affair to the husband, and the brave little mother 
 met her cruel death that night. Sometimes these poor child 
 wives suffer cruel treatment, but they never attempt to go 
 back to their own homes, for if they did they would be driven 
 away. If they refused to marry or refused to live with their 
 husbands, they are outcast and suffer terrible persecution. 
 There is no place for them to go, unless they can be cared for 
 and sheltered by the missionaries. Many of them are taken 
 and kept in school, and become very useful in missionary 
 work, when they grow to womanhood. 
 
 I wish that you might read the book, "The Wrongs of 
 Indian Womanhood" by Mrs. Marcus Fuller, published by 
 Caxton, New York, and you would find it interesting as well 
 as educative. 
 
 Well, this particular wedding that I attended was not 
 as sad as the general run of cases, for our missionaries know 
 the groom's family and know the little bride will be well 
 cared for. Both families are wealthy and she will have 
 plenty of gaudy jewelry — and that is all they know enough to 
 live for. So she will be contented and think herself happy. 
 
 The ceremony begins with a procession much like a 
 circus parade, down the principal streets. The groom is 
 seated upon a gaily decorated horse, himself being gor- 
 geously covered with flowers and jewelry. A thousand lights 
 are carried by attendants and the procession is headed by 
 a band. These last two features belong to the funeral pro- 
 cession as well. 
 
 After the procession returns to the bride's house the real 
 ceremony begins. The priests lead the bride and groom to 
 an inner room and they seat themselves on the floor facing 
 each other. The bride keeps her head bowed during the 
 entire ceremony of six or eight hours to show her subjection. 
 The guests crowd around them, and the poor little bride 
 nearly faints for want of air. A great dish of rice, not 
 cooked, is placed between them and they take turns in taking 
 handfuls of it and putting it on each other's heads, the priest 
 chanting something in Hindustani. Another part of the 
 ceremony is the pouring of water upon the hands of the 
 
 [14] 
 
groom, and it runs down upon the hands of the bride held 
 below. I suppose this is to illustrate the fact that ever 
 after she must let her husband eat and drink first and she 
 take what is left. Her fortune is told her while her mother- 
 in-law holds her to keep her from fainting. I could not 
 stay to see any more, but we went into a larger place where 
 some of the guests were eating. They motioned us away 
 from the place, for of course it would contaminate the food 
 if our eyes looked upon it when they were eating. We 
 went away then and as we got into our carriage they gave us 
 some cocoanuts. The bride had to sit in that position and 
 go through all that silly ceremony until midnight, but we 
 came home at seven. I was never so thankful in my life 
 that I had the privilege of being an American. 
 
 With our best wishes, 
 
 Ella Conrad Scholberg. 
 
 P. S. Of course this is only a very small part of a Hindu 
 wedding. There are celebrations and ceremonies that last 
 for a week or more, but I have described only what I saw. 
 Upon arrival at the bride's father's house, we were shown 
 into a tent filled with men, who were listening to the songs 
 and watching the dances of a professional nautch, or dance 
 woman. I, of course, did not understand what she was 
 singing, but the missionary who took us to this wedding 
 said the songs were so vile and the minds of the men so filled 
 with evil that it was not becoming for us to be there. We 
 did not even seat ourselves but told our usher we would go 
 to the place where we might see the bride, or at least the 
 women guests. He seemed very much disappointed that we 
 would not put our stamp of approval on the performance 
 by our presence, but we would not lower ourselves even to 
 please our host. 
 
 [15 
 
Bombay, India. 
 Dear Home Friends: 
 
 We have received the Journal every week since we have 
 been here and we always look forward to its coming with as 
 much anticipation as our weekly bundle of letters. There is 
 nothing like the home letters and the home papers, when 
 one is so far away, and although the news is exactly four 
 weeks old, we devour every word. 
 
 First of all, I want to make some corrections in my former 
 letters — I am anxious that whatever we write may be at 
 least truthful. I think I wrote that the "pie" is our small- 
 est coin here, and its value is about one sixth of a cent, 
 U. S. currency. But I've found that there is a coin of 
 less value used by the natives, though not so much in Bom- 
 bay as in other parts of India. It is called a "cowry" and 
 is worth one one-hundredth of our U. S. cent. It is a shell, 
 so you can see why it is said that people going marketing 
 carry their money in market baskets and bring their purchases 
 back in their pockets. Then I gave the railroad rates 
 higher than they really are. We have found that when four 
 or a half-dozen persons or more go together in one compart- 
 ment to the same destination and on the same sort of business, 
 they get concessions and can travel comfortably for about 
 one- third of a cent per mile. Ordinary travel is a fraction 
 of a cent higher. There are advantages we have here over 
 America, even if we do have many disadvantages, and the 
 day is dawning when we will have many of the modern 
 conveniences of the western world. But there are things 
 in the West that we hope will never come here. 
 
 Our daily newspaper is a source of great comfort to us 
 for it gives the news of Bombay and of all India and tele- 
 graphic messages from all over the world, leaving out every- 
 thing along the sensational line. There may be murders 
 in Bombay, but we never read about them in our daily paper. 
 Then we get articles in them on leading questions of the day 
 and instructive discussions of social problems. We never 
 
 [i6] 
 
have fearful railroad accidents here or anywhere in India. 
 We can cross railroad tracks only over bridges, and high 
 stone walls line all the tracks in Bombay. One is never in 
 danger of being killed by a shooting bicycle or motor car; 
 as you step off a street car an oxcart may be coming along, 
 but one can easily get out of the way as everything moves 
 so slowly here. And last, but not least, we appreciate the 
 spirit of the people — shall I call it their native courtesy? 
 I have noticed especially in passing a group of children 
 playing on the street — they either mind their own business 
 strictly, or rise and touch the back of the hand to the forehead 
 with '^Salaam, Memsahib," which is a very poHte greeting. 
 Of course, we did not come here to be honored, but it is a 
 great comfort to know that we need not have stones thrown 
 at us or rude things said to us on the street. So you see we 
 have a few advantages, in spite of the fact that we are in a 
 country of so low a civilization. 
 
 I suppose, in America, no one would think me very large 
 of stature, but out here I am quite a giantess. The average 
 woman here is six or eight inches shorter than I am and has 
 about one fourth the strength. They have no endurance, 
 no reserve power, and when disease comes upon them, they 
 perish like vapor. No wonder that the plague and cholera 
 sweep away half a city at a time! They are underfed and 
 have the very faintest ideas along the line of sanitation. It 
 makes our hearts ache as we see how cheerless and comfort- 
 less their homes are, and how narrow and small their lives. 
 I suppose a minister in America would consider his duty well 
 done if he called upon every member of his congregation 
 four or five times a year — we try to call upon all of our 
 people once a week. And by a call I do not mean a polite 
 little visit of ten or fifteen minutes, but we take a Bible and 
 hymn book and an interpreter, and allow them to call in 
 their Christian and Hindu and Mohammedan neighbors and 
 they all sit on the floor while a portion of the Holy Book is 
 read and explained. Many of them cannot read, so this is 
 the only way they can get to know the truths of the Bible, 
 How strange it would be in the homeland! And perhaps 
 
 [17] 
 
some one will say, "Why not get a central place and have a 
 regular Bible study class once a week?" But, you see, these 
 people could never walk the distance necessary and of course 
 they haven't the money to spend for car fare. Bible women 
 are trained to do this kind of work under supervision, and 
 in hundreds of heathen and Christian homes in Bombay 
 to-day the Bible is read and taught. Thousands of people 
 are leading Christian lives in secret, and mothers are teaching 
 their children the truths of Christianity in secret, because 
 they fear the persecution of their relatives if they should 
 openly join our ranks. But India is coming to Christ. One 
 of the most hopeful signs is the reform movement, now on 
 foot, by which idols are thrown away with all the filthy parts 
 of the Hindu religion, and Christ and some of the principles 
 of Christianity incorporated. They do not accept Christ as 
 divine but place him with their heroes. It is a great step 
 toward Christianity and shows that they are not satisfied 
 with their old religion of filth and idolatry. One of the 
 most annoying duties of the missionary is to receive and 
 treat kindly the Mohammedan or Parsee who wants to argue 
 out points of theology. Yesterday Mr. Scholberg had a 
 Mohammedan caller, who believes in the transmigration 
 of souls. From things that he said it was plain that he was 
 not satisfied with Mohammedanism, and he wanted to argue 
 Christianity, as though argument could ever save a man from 
 his sins. 
 
 Besides the church with all its organizations, Mr. Schol- 
 berg has three day schools and a night school and about ten 
 Sunday schools in different parts of the city to supervise and 
 man with workers. By the string of people who come to 
 his ofiice every day, you would know he has lots to look after. 
 In addition, we spend four or five hours a day on this difficult 
 language. It is like Latin and Greek in its inflections and 
 like Sanskrit in its written form, and like many of the modern 
 languages, especially German and French, in its spoken form. 
 We are not sorry now that we spent as much time as we did 
 on languages at college. In a few months Mr. Scholberg 
 expects to be able to preach his first sermon in it. It will be 
 
 [i8] 
 
a short sermon, of course, and not very grammatical, I expect, 
 but it will be worth the effort. 
 
 It is very warm here now — thermometer registers 
 between 70° and 90°, but this is the coolest season. We never 
 see a heating stove in Bombay, but when we were up country 
 at Conference, we saw the first air-tight since we left America. 
 One of the missionaries was so pleased that he said, "Here's 
 our old friend, the stove. Come let's shake its leg." We 
 did suffer on account of the heat the first few weeks we were 
 here, but we are getting quite used to it now. Every day 
 is the same except a little more breeze one day than another, 
 and it is very dry now and will be until the rainy season 
 commences in June. For three months, then, it rains every 
 day, so that May and September are our hottest months. 
 Our streets are sprinkled a great many times a day — they 
 are beginning to use the same tank sprinklers that you see 
 in America, but I saw one of the old-fashioned ones the other 
 day. It had a single tube and a boy ran along behind with 
 his hand placed over the mouth of the tube so that the water 
 would spurt in all directions. Some one from the West 
 must have given them the new idea sprinkler, for these 
 people cannot figure out much for themselves. The bump 
 where ingenuity is supposed to lodge seems to be entirely 
 wanting in their phrenological make-up. Next time I 
 shall make a special effort to be brief. 
 
 Cordially yours, 
 
 Ella C. Scholberg. 
 
 [19] 
 
Bombay, India, April 24, 1907. 
 Dear Friends at Home: 
 
 I imagine I never will know less than I do now on the 
 subject of the "Indian Mind," a subject that has been 
 treated by hundreds of globe-trotters, — so perhaps it is time 
 I was displaying my lack of knowledge. 
 
 We will never come to any agreement as to the Indian 
 mind except in a few main particulars. Kipling characterizes 
 the whole race by calling the Indian "half devil and half 
 child." I am willing to admit the last part but one does not 
 have to live in India very long before discovering that the 
 "divine likeness" has not been wholly obliterated through 
 all the centuries of filth and idolatry and ignorance. There 
 is a little good in the midst of all the evil, everyone must 
 admit. 
 
 Childish the Indian mind certainly is. No matter how 
 capable and strong-minded a man may seem to be, he may 
 be expected at any moment to break out and do the simplest 
 act you can imagine. It would surprise you beyond words 
 of expression what small things the best of men are guilty 
 of doing. In a former letter I have spoken of their lack of 
 ingenuity and inventiveness. The Indian mind would 
 never be capable, if left to itself, to discover a labor-saving 
 device. I am ignorant as to whether India has ever produced 
 a genius but I doubt that she has. The cause of this utter 
 lact of inventiveness, constructive ability, — call it what you 
 will, — is in the habits of the people. All down through the 
 centuries they have lived such thoughtless, aimless, purpose- 
 less lives that the idea of branching out and doing something 
 original has been lost entirely. They are quite satisfied to 
 live just as their ancestors did before them. 
 
 You have heard of the Hindu philosophy — the ability 
 of the Hindu mind to trace a thought through all sorts of 
 intricate paths and finally reach logical conclusions. Don't 
 you beHeve in anything of that sort. If you could read the 
 Hindu '^shastras^' or scriptures you would find that they 
 
 [20] 
 
contain the most illogical statements. Picture a Hindu 
 priest on a street corner with a crowd of listeners around him. 
 Does he give them a lecture on Hinduism, proving its truths 
 step by step? No. He makes a statement and then has 
 his musicians strike up a tune, and after playing a measure or 
 two, he makes another statement and the musicians play 
 again. Sometimes he varies it by dancing around, jingling 
 bells or even racing around the circle. One time I came 
 upon a group of that kind and I saw the ugly old priest look 
 my way and start madly toward me. I darted into a near-by 
 hallway and ran up two flights of stairs as fast as I could go. 
 Now the purpose of all this was to keep the people's attention. 
 The priests know that it is impossible for the mind of the 
 people to follow a thought, so they introduce all sorts of 
 variations to keep attention. It would seem queer in 
 America for the preacher to stop suddenly in his sermon and 
 ask questions, but that is the custom in our churches here 
 and the people know they must be ready to answer them. 
 
 Concerning their evil natures the Indian is capable of 
 inventing and perpetrating the darkest of deeds, but during 
 my recent illness when I was fairly burning up with fever 
 and my faithful nurse sat beside my bedside and fanned me 
 all night long, and when she went almost a whole day without 
 food because she refused to leave me though there were 
 others to take her place, I thought of KipUng's "half devil 
 and half child" and knew that she did not come under that 
 characterization. Missionaries have a horror of leaving their 
 children with these black nurses, but I shall never be afraid 
 of trusting our precious little one with her. There are cases 
 down through the years of Christian persecution where the 
 Indian has given his life for the missionary. They can be 
 as true to a trust as any people anywhere. 
 
 India has suffered much because of peculiar social con- 
 ditions and religious beliefs. According to the prevailing 
 notion, the most disgraceful thing in the world is to work, 
 and the most honorable and respectable is to beg. Hence 
 the lowest class or caste is composed of honest and dishonest 
 laborers and in the highest caste are those who hang around 
 
 [21] 
 
the temples and beg. The priests are nothing more than 
 beggars. As the people are converted to Christianity we 
 try to teach them the dignity of labor; but it is hard work 
 because of the notions that are ingrained into the very lives 
 of the people. 
 
 India has yet to learn that, if given a chance, women are 
 just as capable as men. Very few of the women of this 
 country can write their own names — only two out of every 
 hundred. The men do not come with their wives to church 
 nor are they ever seen with them on the street. A woman 
 never takes her husband's name when she marries but keeps 
 her maiden name with "Miss" still attached. It was quite 
 amusing to us when we first came to be asked what my name 
 was and to note their surprise when we told them "Mrs. 
 Scholberg." 
 
 We secretly rejoice that our baby is a girl so that we 
 can show them that she is just as worthy of affection as a son 
 would be. 
 
 But I promised solemnly to be brief, so I will leave the 
 rest for another time. 
 
 Cordially yours, 
 
 Ella Scholberg. 
 
 This letter was written by Mrs. Scholberg while still in 
 the hospital. She is doing very well, and the baby (Miriam) 
 is, without any exception, the best baby in India. She is 
 one week old to-day. H. C. Scholberg. 
 
 [22] 
 
Naval Lodge, Club Road, BycuUa, Bombay. 
 Dear Friends: 
 
 Rain! rain! rain! The real monsoon is upon us. 
 In two weeks eighty-two inches of rain has fallen. Just how 
 great an amount that is you can appreciate, if I tell you 
 that were it caught in a huge reservoir every inhabitant of 
 Bombay (and there are a million of us) could have forty 
 gallons of water a day for two years — just what has fallen 
 in Bombay. Up country and in the Deccan they have a 
 greater rainfall — in some places a hundred and fifty inches 
 during the season. In two weeks we have had our entire 
 amount for the season and it will rain off and on until the 
 middle of September. Oh, how wet it is! The poor are 
 suffering terribly, as their houses leak, and the water comes 
 up above the door sills also. The streets are flooded and it 
 looks queer to see the electric cars plodding along through 
 the water. Quite the most pitiful sight I have seen was 
 that of a blind man trying to make his way along with the 
 water up to his waist. He was feeling around with his stick 
 to find a safe place to take the next step. The monsoon 
 held off until the middle of July — it usually breaks early 
 in June — and it did look as though we would have a famine. 
 And now it has rained so much that the farmers cannot sow 
 their rice, and other grains previously planted cannot get a 
 chance to grow. Such a fickle climate — no wonder the 
 people are so poor! But if the truth were told, India is a 
 land of great productiveness if the people only could learn 
 how to till the soil and irrigate their farms. 
 
 Our first thought when a famine seemed imminent was 
 that no nation ought to send relief to these starving hordes 
 when they persisted in using a crooked stick to tickle the 
 soil a little instead of having a plow, and when they are too 
 lazy to cut down the trees and underbrush — for a large part 
 of India is not under cultivation, but is Just a jungle. The 
 people are afraid of the wild beasts and they huddle in little 
 villages and cultivate only a small portion of land surround- 
 ing the villages. So we thought that instead of sending 
 
bread to starving people, some philanthropic country like 
 America ought to send a score or more of men to teach these 
 people how to farm. But that would not work, either, for 
 the people would not be willing to learn. For, you see, they 
 worship their ancestors and it would be a very great sacrilege 
 to use a plow when their ancestors used a crooked stick. 
 And they would not kill the wild beasts that infest this land 
 for they believe that the souls of their ancestors have gone 
 into the lower animals. One would not kill a deadly snake 
 for fear of killing his grandmother ! And the superstition of 
 the people will not allow them to become good laborers, for 
 if a cat crosses a man's path as he goes to work in the morn- 
 ing he must go back into the house and stay all day. The 
 position of the birds in the trees with relation to other objects, 
 the position of the clouds in the sky, all portend something ; 
 and a man has to walk very carefully or he will offend some 
 of the gods, and then woe betide the unfortunate man! I 
 am told that a large part of the Hindu literature of India is 
 taken up with omens, and a very strange thing was told us 
 the other day. The Brahmin and the bull are the two most 
 exalted creatures of this land, and the sweeper and the pig 
 the lowest. But if a traveler, in starting out on his jour- 
 ney, happens to meet either a Brahmin or a bull, his errand 
 will be sure to end in disaster, so he turns back; and, on the 
 other hand, if he sees a sweeper or a pig, it is a most lucky 
 sign and he goes on his journey with a Hght heart, feeling 
 that the gods are pleased with him and his errand, and his 
 journey is sure to end fortunately. When we are in a rush 
 to catch a train, and we see an empty carriage not far from 
 the door, we consider ourselves in luck and we jump into it 
 at once without more ado. But a Hindu considers it a 
 most unfavorable sign, and would rather miss his train or 
 postpone his journey another day than to start out on a 
 day when his eyes fell upon any empty thing, from a car- 
 riage to a tin can. 
 
 Hinduism is such a complication of foolishness and super- 
 stition that so long as a man remains a Hindu, he must be 
 of necessity an unfortunate and unhappy man. So my 
 reasoning apparatus tells me that the only way to make 
 
 [24] 
 
India a land of gold instead of a land of poverty is to Chris- 
 tianize the people. Maybe I am jumping at conclusions, 
 but this is an absolute fact — that the Light of Christianity is 
 positively the only thing that will dispel the darkness of 
 Hinduism. 
 
 I wonder if any of you have been at all alarmed about the 
 magazine articles that are appearing in America on the sub- 
 ject of '' Political Unrest in India"? As we see it, the articles 
 are not exaggerated — there is certainly a great unrest and 
 dissatisfaction with the present government. 
 
 Our pundit (teacher) expressed a thought that I am 
 afraid is more prevalent than the English government thinks. 
 We were speaking of a certain man and he said, " Oh, he is a 
 very great man — he has been convicted twice of sedition." 
 The morning of the fifth of July, when we came down to the 
 ofl&ce to take our lessons, a Uttle United States flag that we 
 had on the wall had blown down and was lying on the floor. 
 When I saw it I picked it up and said, "We must not let Old 
 Glory lie in the dust, " and then I went on to explain that the 
 day before was a great American holiday — the day we 
 celebrate our independence — and the pundit said, "Yes, 
 you are proud of your independence but you will not let us 
 have ours," and then as if recalling that he had spoken 
 harshly, "Of course you Americans are not bitter against us 
 as the EngHsh are." We tried to explain that the English 
 had done a great deal to uplift the Indian people, but he 
 could not see it in that way. They would prefer to have 
 poor rulers of their own to foreign rulers. 
 
 Let no one be alarmed about us. I know that there is 
 little distinction between the English and the American — 
 we are white and therefore we are all foreigners to them. 
 But there is an army of three million native Christians who 
 will stand in front of the little band of missionaries, and we 
 are not afraid. We are more and more satisfied every day 
 that we did the right thing by coming here. 
 
 Next time I think I will tell you about some of the funny 
 experiences we have with our housekeeping. We certainly 
 have no time to be lonely or homesick. 
 
 Ella C. Scholberg. 
 
 [25] 
 
Naval Lodge, BycuUa, Bombay, August 31, 1907. 
 Dear Friends in the Homeland: 
 
 So I have promised to tell you about our domestic experi- 
 ences in this strange country. I am afraid it will have to 
 extend over two letters for there is so much to tell. 
 
 We are living in a new quarter of the city, as you see. 
 The mission house in Mazagon is located just below the 
 Mazagon Hill and the drainage from the Hill has long been 
 a big question mark with the health authorities. You see, 
 much of Bombay is below the sea level and therefore the 
 problem of drainage is a very serious one. Being new in 
 this country, they decided that we would better seek a more 
 healthful place — after we are acclimated we can live most 
 anywhere. So we are renting the ground floor of "Naval 
 Lodge" — our landlord lives upstairs. He is an Indian man 
 and a Parsee (fire worshiper), and very, very wealthy. 
 Besides owning a number of beautiful houses in this city, he 
 owns a number of steamers. To show you how high rent is 
 in Bombay, we are paying thirty-five dollars a month for 
 this place. We have a drawing room, library and dining 
 room and two bed rooms with separate baths, and a small 
 store room. The kitchen and the servants' quarters are off 
 from the house. We have all modern plumbing and electric 
 bells and gas lights. And on two sides of the house we 
 have a wide screened veranda where we live during most of 
 the day. 
 
 I know of no missionary's wife who has not wished again 
 and again that she might dismiss her servants and do all the 
 housework herself. But servants seem to be necessary 
 evils in this country, for our lives are too busy to be tied 
 down to housework, and the work itself is so complicated 
 and so elaborate. For instance, it is so hot and dusty that 
 our houses must be swept thoroughly every morning and 
 dusted twice a day. Each day we get the supplies for the 
 kitchen and as the vegetable and meat bazaars are several 
 miles away, we must have a servant to go and get them every 
 
 [26] 
 
morning. There is no such thing in this country as a 
 delivery wagon. Sometimes we can get fruit at the door 
 from a man who carries around a basket of it on his head. 
 Yesterday we went down town to get a carriage for baby. 
 Some time in the course of a week a man will come wheeling 
 it along. It will be a day's work and we will pay him a 
 day's wages — seven or eight cents. Every business house 
 keeps a large number of servants, called coolies, who act as 
 delivery men. 
 
 We have only three servants about the house regularly, 
 a cook, table boy, and Miriam's nurse. The man who owns 
 the house keeps the gardener. Our pundit, or teacher, comes 
 every morning from nine to ten and our washerwoman comes 
 whenever she is moved to do so. Like many another person 
 in this country, she thinks she makes a great deal more 
 money by taking a long time to do our washing. We pay 
 her fifty cents a washing, regardless of how large it is, and 
 she thinks if she gets in only three washings a month she is 
 making more money, i.e., sa\dng herself a lot of exertion, 
 than by doing four or five. Time is nothing to these 
 people. 
 
 My cook is rather an independent sort of a fellow. He 
 is a Hindu and therefore a caste man and I was not very 
 much surprised the other day when I asked him to sweep the 
 veranda to have him say, ''No, memsahib, that is not my 
 work." I told him he did not have much cooking to do for 
 just us two, but he said he would do anything I asked him 
 to do inside the house but he could not sweep the veranda 
 for some one might see him and think he was a sweeper 
 instead of a cook. The sweeper caste is one of the lowest. 
 He is a very good cook and takes all the responsibility of 
 furnishing our food. When we have company I tell him 
 how many are coming, and he sees that sufficient food is 
 prepared and sees that the boy serves it in proper order. I 
 never know what we are going to have to eat unless I order 
 a special dish, and I have not yet found him drunk under 
 the kitchen table, so we think he is extra fine. Like all 
 other cooks, he makes a good deal off our bazaaring, for he 
 
 [27] 
 
charges me more than the supplies cost, but I could not buy 
 them at the price he does, so I don't see why he shouldn't 
 have what he makes. I have neither the time nor the 
 patience to stand and dicker with the shop keepers and he 
 has, so of course he gets them cheaper. And a white face 
 always has to pay more than a black one. 
 
 Our boy is one of our own Christian orphan boys. He is 
 twenty years old, he thinks, but he is called a boy because 
 he does our table work and is general servant about the 
 house. He carries letters and hails carriages for us and 
 blacks our boots and sets the tables and washes dishes and 
 sweeps the drawing room and library and dining room and 
 locks all the doors and windows at night and takes in things 
 from the veranda. He is a good servant, we think, although 
 we never will have as good a boy as our first boy in India, 
 who died of plague in March. 
 
 Miriam's ayah is also a Christian — a Roman Catholic. 
 She not only takes care of Miriam but she looks after the 
 mending and is quite clever for an Indian girl with a needle. 
 She puts in a great many stitches here and there. The 
 wages of a tailor are from twenty to twenty-five cents a day, 
 so for a month or so every year we will have one come in and 
 do up all the sewing. 
 
 Although supplies and servants are very much cheaper 
 here than in America, it costs us just four times as much to 
 live here as it would in America, and that is not counting 
 our rent. If I could have just one servant and manage things 
 myself, I know I could make ends meet and lap over, because 
 I would use up all the odds and ends that under the servant 
 rule are thrown away or appropriated by them. And our 
 clothes wear out so soon because of the primitive washing 
 machines in this country ! They beat our clothes over stones 
 to get them clean and beat them to pieces in a short time. 
 We have to use cotton table cloths and napkins, for they 
 would soon ruin linen ones. And if I give an embroidered 
 waist to the washerwoman she is sure to put her mark in 
 indelible ink right square in the front of the waist. 
 
 If there is any place on this old earth of ours where 
 
 [28] 
 
''Grin and bear it" can be used to good advantage, it is in 
 this country. And one comforting thought is that we will 
 never run out of things to grin at — excuse the inelegance of 
 the expression. We will confess that it is a little trying 
 sometimes, but we are willing to take the bitter for the sake 
 of the sweet. And we know that we have possessions that 
 the washerwoman cannot ruin, the white ants cannot eat, 
 the rains cannot mildew, and the servants cannot break or 
 destroy. 
 
 I hope you have been enjoying the articles in the Out- 
 look on the Japanese. After all, all Oriental people are 
 very much alike. The Japanese and the Chinese are more 
 clever than the Indians and are capable of a higher develop- 
 ment, we will grant, but I am quite con\dnced that there are 
 no people on the face of the earth that are more clever at 
 begging and stealing than the people of India. The out- 
 stretched, open hand is the best symbol of India. There is 
 an organization which has charge of what is called ''The 
 Indian Christian Poor Fund," but I am not sure that it is 
 accompHshing the purpose for which it stands. It is the 
 old, old question of sociology — whether we are helping these 
 people to become more helpless. We try to make them see 
 that they are responsible for their own welfare and must take 
 some thought for themselves, but their ancestors for cen- 
 turies have lived by begging and stealing and they think they 
 can. Some of our Christians from up country think that 
 Bombay is a good place to make money and they just come 
 down without any money on hand or any friends here and 
 expect that we will take care of them until they can get 
 work, or if they can't get work they think we will pay their 
 expenses back to their country. And we have to be so 
 hard-hearted because they will never learn to walk if we keep 
 a cradle for them to rock in. In America people think tramps 
 are a nuisance — we have ten times as many here. And the 
 cripples, and lepers, and blind, and poor — how pitiful it is ! 
 Be glad that you were born in America in a land of inde- 
 pendence. How much we would like to teach the people of 
 India to stand up and prove themselves worthy of self 
 
 [29l 
 
government. They do like to lean up against somebody 
 and take all they can get. 
 
 Give our love to all who still remember us; jog up the 
 memory of those who do not. 
 
 Cordially yours, 
 
 Ella C. Scholberg. 
 
 [30] 
 
Naval Lodge, Club Road, Byculla, 
 Bombay, India, October 25, 1907. 
 Dear Home Friends: 
 
 We have been in the hills for a little rest and change from 
 the heat and fever of Bombay. I wish you could get a 
 ghmpse from the car window of this beautiful scenery. Just 
 after the monsoon everything is green and fresh and the 
 grand old hills take on quite a new beauty. Grass is growing 
 at least six feet tall and it effectually covers the old weather- 
 beaten stone wall that runs along the track on either side. 
 There is nothing regular or systematic in this view of nature, 
 for the strong winds of this country twist the trees all out of 
 shape, and the heavy rains cause the rankest kind of a jungle 
 to spring up in the valleys between the hills. But its rugged- 
 ness makes it grand. The painter has not planned his 
 picture with an eye to proportion and exactness, but has 
 allowed his fancy to run wild and unchecked, and, after all, 
 these are the master touches. We have seen only a small 
 portion of India but we are sure that it can boast of some 
 magnificent scenery. 
 
 This piece of railroad up the Ghats is one of the finest 
 examples of railroad engineering in the world, they say. It 
 is surely daring, for we jump from mountain peak to moun- 
 tain peak and whirl around on some of the narrowest ledges 
 and shoot through tunnels as dark as night. In one place 
 we come down such a dangerous grade that every driver (as 
 they call the engineer in this country) must stop his train 
 right in the middle of a long tunnel. He must come to a 
 dead stop, then whistle, and go on again. If he cannot stop 
 his train, he gives a danger signal and switchmen down the 
 track turn on the switch, and the train is run up a steep grade 
 to stop it. This grade is built expressly for that purpose, 
 for if a train could not be stopped it would run over a ter- 
 ribly steep embankment. It is said that only once in the 
 history of this road has a driver been unable to stop his 
 train. Of course, all this road is under very careful super- 
 
 [31] 
 
vision and is inspected every day. The railroad company 
 has a man stationed every six miles whose duty it is to walk 
 over the track to the next man's station and report if there 
 is any defect in the road. Now, of course, these men are 
 lazy and to make it imperative that every man actually 
 walk the twelve miles a day, what device do you think the 
 company has thought of? It is so simple! Each man is 
 given a book and when he walks the six miles to his neighbor 
 he exchanges books with him. So at night each man shows 
 the inspector his neighbor's book, and the next night his own. 
 
 I think I have not mentioned in my letters a class of 
 people in this country who comprise a substantial part of the 
 population. They are the Eurasians and you can easily 
 see they have a mixture of English and Indian blood. But 
 it offends them deeply to be called Eurasians, so we politely 
 term them Anglo-Indians and their pride is not rufSed. I 
 haven't yet studied out the difference between the two names. 
 However, they have sprung up because of intermarriage 
 between the English and the natives, and they partake of the 
 natures of the two races. They dress like the English, but 
 many of them are very, very black. They try to live like 
 the English, but as workmen they cannot command very 
 big salaries, so their style shows itself only in exterior things. 
 They are so proud that they spurn the natives, and the 
 thought of doing anything in the form of manual labor is 
 very repulsive to them. They live in the same shiftless, 
 lazy fashion as the natives but they have a servant at their 
 heels. True, some of the finest people of India come from 
 this class — but I have given you the traits of a large propor- 
 tion of them. They have more brains than the natives and 
 some of them have risen to positions of great responsibility. 
 Some are so white, too, that one would take them to be pure 
 English. Because of being born here, they can stand the 
 climate better than the English. Many of them go to 
 England and America for university training and they prove 
 acceptable workmen over here. 
 
 We have met the American consul here and have had our 
 little daughter registered as an American child born on a 
 
 [32] 
 
foreign shore. We meet a great many American people and 
 we love them more than ever. How dear America is to us 
 and how we prize "Old Glory"! Was it the senator from 
 Indiana who said that "Next to the Cross of Christ, the Stars 
 and Stripes is heaven's holiest symbol"? 
 
 Yours most cordially, 
 
 Ella C. Scholberg. 
 
 [33 1 
 
Bombay, India, December 8, 1907. 
 Dear Friends at Home: 
 
 Just one year ago this morning we woke up for the first 
 time in India. The first sounds that forced themselves upon 
 our ears were the chants of the beggars on the street and the 
 cawing of the crows in the trees of the compound. How 
 strange it all seemed then! And what a strange country 
 this, which we would call "home" for the rest of our mortal 
 lives ! But it does not seem strange now. We have become 
 quite used to the peculiar customs and manners of these 
 people. 
 
 During the three weeks and six days on the ocean, we 
 had traveled back into history about four thousand years. 
 A long distance to travel in four weeks! When we landed 
 at Ballard Pier and had left the wharf, with all the bustle of 
 a commercial city, and had gone into the heart of the native 
 city, we saw people living exactly as their fathers had lived 
 centuries and centuries ago, with all the degradation of ages 
 clinging to the wheels of their living machinery. How 
 pitiable a sight, and how glad we were that we had come to 
 lift them out of it all, and up to the light of a better life! 
 We are ten years older in experience, but I am sure we are 
 ten years younger in enthusiasm; we loved these people 
 while we were in America — we love them ten times more 
 now. Yes, even with all their deformities and peculiarities. 
 
 This has been one of the happiest years of our fives — I 
 think I could almost say the happiest. I would not have to 
 stretch the truth to say that it is the one year of our fives 
 when it seemed most that living was worth while. Just 
 to be alive in these great days when such tremendous enter- 
 prises are being conceived in the minds of great men, and to 
 be engaged in this great missionary enterprise — surely 
 living is worth while. Of course the Great Master could 
 bring his children of India back to himself, without our 
 coming here — but we are mightily glad He allowed us to 
 come, if only to see His triumphs and understand Him better 
 
 [34] 
 
and His great Book. How much more the Bible means 
 to us now, after being near the place where it was originally 
 written, and how much clearer its figures, and its poetry, and 
 its parables. 
 
 From a material standpoint, we are just as well ofif as 
 when we landed. We have neither of us lost any avoirdupois. 
 The sahib (as he is called here) has had only one attack of 
 malaria — I can boast of sixteen. I am aware that that is 
 not a good record, but it is nothing to be concerned about and 
 I am sure I will do better another year. I am well and 
 strong and as able to do as many things a day as I could in 
 America. 
 
 Concerning our work here, it is our idea that the more we 
 keep the people Indian, the happier will be the outcome; we 
 do not believe in plastering a western civilization onto them, 
 causing them to give up their own Indian manners and 
 customs. We try to teach them to love their country and 
 stand up for all that is noble and good in it. We do not want 
 them to discard their Indian clothes and dress like us nor 
 do we want them to like our food stuffs. We do want them 
 to smash or burn their idols, because their gods are supposed 
 to have lived such wicked lives and it is the wickedness 
 alone that is worshiped. We would like to have them think 
 more about the training of their minds then the filling of 
 their stomachs, however important a subject the latter may 
 become at times. We want them to be decent in their 
 treatment of their fellow travelers. We haven't as high 
 ideals for them as we would have for more capable folk, 
 because we consider what they came from only a century 
 ago, and a century of Christianity is not long enough to turn 
 out a finished product. We want them daily to draw 
 strength from a Superior Source to fight their daily battles 
 and temptations. We have disappointments — oh, you do 
 not know how bitter! and heartaches, and longings! But 
 out treasure house is not empty, our palace is not in ruins, 
 and the walls of our strongholds have not crumbled to dust. 
 We know we shall not fail. 
 
 When you are reading this, the New Year shall have 
 
 [35 I 
 
dawned, with all its promises and responsibilities. May we 
 all be true. Upon all shoulders new burdens will be laid — 
 may we all be brave and strong. 
 
 Sincerely yours, 
 
 Ella C. Scholberg. 
 
 [36 
 
Bombay, India, February 14, 1908. 
 Dear Friends: 
 
 Excitement reigns supreme these days. This is the 
 great Mohammedan festival week, yesterday witnessing the 
 close of the ceremonies. All week the poUce have been busy 
 night and day, and yesterday the militia had to be called out 
 to stop the riot on an important corner. About a dozen 
 persons lost their lives and a dozen more are laid up in 
 hospitals. All our Christian schools were closed, as we 
 deemed it unwise to force our teachers to be on the streets, 
 and I have kept strictly indoors. The sahih ventures out, 
 but of course he's a man. Hindu holidays are bad enough, 
 but Mohammedan affairs are even worse. Now compare 
 these with our beautiful Christmastide, when "peace, good 
 will" reigns in Christian hearts the world over. 
 
 The next sensational piece of news I have is that we have 
 been robbed. We were away at Dhulia in Khaudesh (near 
 Central Provinces) for a week, and we went through one of 
 the government prisons, and on another day climbed to 
 the top of the highest hill in that region and went through 
 the ruins of an old, old fort, on the very crest of the hill. 
 We were on our way to Bombay when a message overtook 
 us that we had been robbed — our house had been entered. 
 Just how serious a matter it was, we realized when we got 
 home. In this country when folks leave home they put 
 everything in the care of the servants and hold them responsi- 
 ble. I have always before locked up my choicest things, 
 but robbers would have no trouble breaking cupboards open 
 and such things. This time I left everything out, except the 
 silver, which was locked in the sahiVs desk, because we did 
 not expect to be gone more than a few days. It was not a 
 first-class robbery, as shown by the fact that they made no 
 attempt to force open the sahib^s desk, and what they left 
 was more valuable than what they took. For instance, they 
 took five napkins of one set and left six, and two of another 
 set and left ten. But they took a table cover of drawn-work 
 
 [37 
 
that I bought at Gibraltar, which, although not valuable, 
 I will never be able to replace unless we go there again, and 
 another hardanger piece that sister Maud put hours and 
 hours of work on. Miriam's new doll and silver spoon are 
 gone and the fine wool quilt that mother Scholberg made 
 for us. We reported at once to the police and they are 
 working on the case, being interrupted somewhat by this 
 Mohammedan festival. They believe our butler was the 
 culprit and the cook was a sort of an accomplice, and they 
 believe it so strongly that they are torturing them to make 
 them confess. You perhaps have heard of the "tender 
 mercies" of the Indian police, but it is one way to make an 
 Indian man confess theft. I will recover the value of the 
 goods, in a way, as I can take it out of the servant's salary, 
 but some of the things that were precious because of their 
 associations can never be replaced. Both servants have 
 begged me to let them work a whole year on almost nothing, 
 to make it square, but that is another proof that they are 
 guilty and do not want their reputation spoiled, and I'm not 
 anxious to have thieves at such close range. 
 
 Mr. Scholberg has just come home and he says the militia 
 has been out to-day also, as this is the great Mohammedan 
 prayer day after their riots. I hope they managed to get 
 through their prayers all right without any lives being lost. 
 
 Cordially yours, 
 
 Ella Scholberg. 
 
 [38 
 
BACKWARD THINGS IN INDIA 
 
 1. "Turn to the left" is the law of the street. 
 
 2. The milkman sits on the left side of the cow to milk. 
 
 3. Keys turn backward in the locks. 
 
 4. The bridegroom buys the bride's wedding clothes. 
 
 5. The bridegroom's father invites the guests to the 
 wedding, and I suppose pays the expenses. 
 
 6. The shake of the head that means "no" in America, 
 means "yes" here. 
 
 7. A horse is tied by the hind foot instead of by the 
 head. 
 
 8. Men are served before women. The man is the boss 
 of the house. 
 
 9. A caller is told when it is time to leave, instead of 
 taking leave of his own accord. 
 
 10. "It is more blessed to get than to give." 
 
 11. To call a person from a distance he is waved away 
 instead of beckoned. 
 
 12. Instead of taking oflf one's hat as a matter of respect, 
 these people put on their headgear when they come into our 
 presence, and take off their shoes and leave them outside. 
 
 13. At a party, refreshments are served first, not last. 
 
 14. Begging is a profession, instead of a disgrace. 
 
 15. Dishonesty is the best policy, and the devil is wor- 
 shiped instead of God. 
 
 [39] 
 
Bombay, India, April 15, 1908. 
 Dear Friends: 
 
 The prevailing notion, I think, in the minds of most 
 people concerning the condition of people in India is that 
 they are helplessly poverty-stricken. I cannot now recall 
 what our old geographies say about this, but I am going to 
 give you some of my discoveries along this line, and if my 
 opinion differs from that of the geography, by all means 
 believe the geography. In America, to be poor means to 
 lack sufficient food and fuel, and to wear patched clothing. 
 In this country to be poor means to have no food, fuel, or 
 clothing, and to sleep on the street. In America there are 
 the extremely rich and the extremely poor and a great middle 
 class of hard-working folk who maintain themselves by their 
 own efforts. In this country there are the extremely rich 
 and the great mass of extremely poor. As far as I can see 
 there is no middle class. Now, why are the people so 
 poor? 
 
 First, a large percentage of the people are dependent 
 upon the fruit of the soil, as in all countries. And India 
 is a land of gold in that respect. There are two, three, and 
 even four crops a year, and the greatest variety of fruits and 
 vegetables. If the people would be willing to learn some- 
 thing about agriculture, this land would be wonderfully 
 productive. But they say, " Why should we use a plow when 
 a crooked stick was plenty good enough for our ancestors?" 
 That is why our mission has so many industrial schools for 
 orphan boys, who will never know what their forefathers 
 used. Then this plan of having all the rain during two and 
 one half months of the year and all the remainder of the year 
 hot and dry does not help matters. What they want is 
 irrigation, and the government is teaching the people that 
 by digging wells all through agricultural districts. A large 
 part of India is just a jungle, and the people are too much 
 afraid of the wild animals that infest these jungles, and too 
 lazy to cut down the trees. Besides, the spirits of their 
 forefathers dwell in these wild animals, so how dare they 
 kill them? 
 
 [40] 
 
By nature the people are shiftless and care-free and if 
 they have enough for one meal, why trouble themselves 
 about the next? If they have anything left over after they 
 have bought a meal, they get some worthless trinkets for the 
 children or give it to some poor beggar. It never occurs 
 to them that perhaps some day they may be beggars them- 
 selves. They do not understand the art of saving up for a 
 needy day, nor do they trust anyone to keep money for 
 them. We have thought of having a mission savings bank 
 and take care of their small savings ourselves, and have it 
 arranged in such a way that they cannot draw out their 
 money to squander it, whenever a holiday comes along. 
 I don't know that they would have enough faith in us to let 
 us keep their money for them. We are foreigners to them 
 and they hate anything foreign. I told one of our pastors 
 one day that instead of paying out ten rupees a month to a 
 man to take care of the church garden, it would be a fine idea 
 for his boy and other boys to take care of the garden and 
 earn that money to buy their school books and he scoffed at 
 the idea. It might work in America but it would never do 
 for India, he said, because an Indian boy would never be a 
 gardener unless his father were a gardener before him. I 
 told him that Mr. Scholberg earned a part of his high school 
 expenses by taking care of a church, and he wouldn't have 
 his Ph. B. if he hadn't been willing to do butler's work. He 
 said it was all right for us, but Indian people were quite above 
 any such notion as that. They are very proud, and cling to 
 their own customs like flies to sticky flypaper. 
 
 The mission has a plan of helping the widow of a worker 
 in the mission, by a pension. It is a small amount and ranges 
 from one doUar to three a month according to the needs of the 
 family. I have opposed it from the very day I heard of it. 
 We have a worker and his wife who spend every cent of their 
 earnings on their bare living. I asked the man one day what 
 his wife would do when he died, and he said confidently, 
 "Oh, the mission will take care of her," and I told him I was 
 not so sure about it — she wouldn't get any help unless he 
 tried to save up a little. If there is anything I am decided 
 
 [41] 
 
upon, it is that we are defeating our own aims if we teach these 
 people to be dependent upon us. 
 
 India has frequent famines for these very reasons I have 
 given: the fickle climate and the unwillingness of the 
 people to save. The people love jewelry, and the govern- 
 ment can always tell the severity and extent of a famine 
 by the amount of jewelry that comes into the mint to be 
 melted down. It is the last thing the people will part with, 
 and they part with that only when starvation is actually the 
 next thing. Of course, when the cry of suffering humanity 
 goes up, all nations come to the rescue. That sympathy for 
 a brother sufferer is very precious and I would not have it 
 destroyed for all the world, but I wish that in some way the 
 Indian people might be made to feel that a day might come 
 when every nation may turn a deaf ear to their cry for help. 
 We are working so hard to teach them to take thought for 
 themselves. They lack foresight to a pitiful degree. To 
 illustrate again, a horse one time dropped on the street not 
 far from our house, as the result of a sunstroke. It was five 
 o'clock in the evening and the sun still hot. It was an 
 imported horse, I think, and was not wearing a hat. (Yes, 
 the horses have to wear hats out here — not Easter bonnets, 
 but just a plain flat piece of pith covered with canvas, with 
 two holes for their ears to stick through to keep them on, 
 for of course they are not civilized enough to have hat pins.) 
 As soon as the horse dropped a veterinary surgeon was called 
 and everything was done for the poor beast. As darkness 
 came on he was dragged to a vacant lot and a bed was made 
 for him. In the morning he seemed much better and the 
 surgeon ordered bamboo poles brought and a covering made 
 to protect him from the hot sun. But in this slow-going East 
 the poles did not arrive until the poor horse was dead. Now, 
 an American farmer would have studied the matter out like 
 this: In all probability, other things being equal, the sun 
 would rise on the morrow. Of course it might not, but the 
 chances would be that it would. Therefore he would have 
 worked through all the weary hours of the night getting a 
 covering up, or transferring the beast to a comfortable 
 
 [42] 
 
stable. The Indian man first waits until the sun does 
 actually rise before he makes any provision for it. 
 
 Another chief cause for their poverty is their habit of 
 being always in debt. Debts are handed down from father 
 to son, like heirlooms. If we take pity on them and clear up 
 their debts, the very next day they will contract others. 
 Hundreds of people have come to us to borrow money and 
 we always tell them that we are not in the money loaning 
 business. They borrow their neighbors' things and try to 
 pawn them on us. Mr. Scholberg has twelve men to pay 
 every month, — mission workers they are, — and they have often 
 come to ask for their money before it was due. They always 
 live in advance of their salaries and two hours after they get 
 it, it is all spent. Then they live on credit until next pay-day. 
 
 I have portrayed some of the weaknesses of the Indian 
 people, but after all they are very human and like other 
 people. They are not all weak, either, and whether they are 
 weak or strong, they are worth while working for. 
 
 Sincerely yours, 
 
 Ella Scholberg. 
 
 [43] 
 
Bombay, July lo, 1908. 
 Dear Home Friends: 
 
 This ancestral worship business that I touched upon in 
 my last letter is one of the drawbacks to the progress of 
 India. We get so weary of treating cases that come to our 
 door that we are quite rude sometimes, I am afraid. A 
 strong, able-bodied young man came asking for bread. We 
 suggested that he work like most folks have to do for their 
 bread, but he said he could not get work. But we know 
 that coolie work is always obtainable, so we bravely suggested 
 that. He met us with the deepest scorn, saying, "My 
 father never worked as a coolie, so why should I?" and Mr. 
 Scholberg immediately retorXed, "Well, my father never 
 had a ragged, dirty young man like you sitting on his door- 
 step, so why should I?" With that he took his polite leave 
 and we have not seen him since. I expect he is still wander- 
 ing the earth somewhere wrapped in profound admiration 
 of his illustrious ancestor who never worked as a coolie. 
 It is not disgraceful to be a coolie — it is just to be an errand 
 boy, or a worker in the street, but to beg is more honorable 
 to these people than to use one's muscle or brain. Just to 
 show you how adverse the Indian mind is to making any 
 sort of effort, I can tell you of a boy in one of our orphanages 
 who put a strong chemical into his own eyes, to injure his 
 eyesight, that he might not be made to study. Now, you 
 may think that we force our boys and girls to go to school 
 against their will. We do urge them to go and from the very 
 fact that an educated person can command four to ten times 
 the salary of an uneducated person, one would naturally 
 think that all our young people would be anxious to get an 
 education. But such is not the case. A teacher in a 
 primary school, being himself educated up to a grade not 
 much higher than his highest class, draws three to four dol- 
 lars per month. A teacher in a middle school, being him- 
 self a high school graduate, gets seven to ten dollars per 
 month, while a teacher in the high school, being a college 
 graduate, receives the handsome salary of twenty-five to 
 fifty dollars, according to his years of experience. A head 
 
 [44] 
 
master (corresponding to our principal) receives as much as 
 one hundred dollars per month if he is a man of experience 
 as well as normal training. But even then, our boys and 
 girls have very little ambition to go on as far as they can. 
 As missionaries we get support for them, so that it costs 
 them nothing but their own effort, but still they find it 
 difficult to screw up enough ambition to get through high 
 school. There are many splendid exceptions to this, how- 
 ever, and it is because of, and for the sake of, the exceptions 
 that we do not get utterly discouraged. 
 
 Of course you have heard of the bomb outrages, and the 
 arrests and trials and slaughter. Most of the troubles have 
 been on the Calcutta side, but some arrests have been made 
 in Bombay. Editors of papers in the Indian languages 
 have been arrested for publishing seditious articles. The 
 government is watching, but the Indian people are tricky. 
 
 Tilak, editor of Keshari (newspaper in Marathi), has 
 been arrested on the charge of ''attempts to bring into 
 hatred and contempt, or excite disaffection toward, His 
 Majesty's government, " and of "promoting or attempting to 
 promote feelings of enmity or hatred between different classes 
 of His Majesty's subjects." Mr. Tilak was once a member 
 of the governor of Bombay's executive council, and has 
 once before been imprisoned for sedition. This time he will 
 get a long sentence — seven or ten years, most folks think. 
 
 He is looked upon as a god by the Hindus, and if he 
 is sent to prison they threaten to rise up and kill all the 
 white folks off. The case will be tried on Monday, July 
 2oth, and we have been warned to stay strictly indoors on 
 that day, as there are sure to be riots around town. Our 
 native pastor has been concerned about us. Last night he 
 asked us if our cook was a Christian or a Hindu. He is 
 afraid our food may be poisoned. 
 
 India can never be a nation among the nations of the 
 world, or at least will not be for many years to come. With 
 twenty-nine petty kings or princes now, and Parsees, and 
 Mohammedans, and Hindus, and all races and colors — 
 how could there be one government? If it were not for the 
 English residents in the provinces where the kings think they 
 
 [45] 
 
are supreme — but everybody knows the English resident 
 is the power that decides all matters of state — there would 
 be continual war and bloodshed now, twenty-nine kings 
 fighting each other to see who would be supreme. The last 
 national congress at Surat shows pretty plainly how ready 
 the Indian people are for self-government: they failed to 
 be able to elect a president, so the congress closed with 
 folks throwing chairs and shoes at each other. 
 
 Well, we are not afraid — we are in God's hands and we 
 know He cannot err. But there is no danger, of course — no 
 immediate danger. And wiser heads than ours are looking 
 after our welfare. We are longing for the time to come when 
 India shall worship the one true God and cease all this rest- 
 lessness and commotion. Until then it is useless to dream 
 of unity or self-government. 
 
 With love to all friends, 
 
 Ella C. Scholberg. 
 
 P. S. Mr. Tilak's trial is still going on, and troops are 
 tramping through the streets of the city to scare the people. 
 A half-dozen regiments, both cavalry and infantry, arrived 
 the morning the trial began, and the chief commissioner of 
 police issued an order that no procession or assembly of the 
 people would be allowed anywhere in the city limits — not 
 even a funeral procession, as that might be a scheme to get 
 the crowd together. 
 
 As for the trial itself, the accused is pleading his own 
 case, examining the witnesses and all that. The last three 
 days he has been addressing the jury. His main argument 
 is that these seditious articles that he has published were not 
 meant to be seditious, and now it is a mere matter of what 
 he did mean. You see, the articles were published in Marathi. 
 So he is wriggling around the different words he used and 
 what meanings he attaches to them, and we are thinking 
 that he will slip through their fingers and go free, after all, 
 though they know he is as wily a fellow as one would find 
 anywhere. Ella Conrad Scholberg. 
 
 [46] 
 
Bombay, India, July 24, 1908. 
 Dear Friends: 
 
 Well, the trial is over at last. Mr. Bal Gangadhar Tilak 
 has been sentenced to six years' transportation and fined a 
 thousand rupees (about $335.00). He conducted his own 
 defense and gave an address to the jury five days long. In 
 it, he made all sorts of corrections to the translations of his 
 articles (for they were written in Marathi) and he went into 
 political questions of the day as if he were giving a series of 
 lectures on that subject. 
 
 But the Advocate-General (for the Crown) made his 
 statement to the jury in about three hours. He said that 
 the articles had the effect of exciting dissatisfaction with 
 His Majesty's government, and that meant sedition. Mr. 
 Tilak is a scholar in Marathi, but the people who read his 
 paper are not scholars and their interpretation of the articles 
 is the important thing, not what the writer had in mind when 
 he wrote them, or what he meant when he wrote them. The 
 judge in passing sentence said: ''Ten years ago you were 
 convicted of a similar charge. The Court dealt most 
 leniently with you. After you had undergone your simple 
 imprisonment for a year and a half, it was remitted on 
 conditions which you accepted. It seems to me it must be 
 a diseased, a most perverted, mind that can think that the 
 articles you have written are legitimate articles in political 
 agitation. They preach violence. They speak of murders 
 with approval, and that cowardly and atrocious act of com- 
 mitting murders by bomb not only seems to meet with 
 approval, but you hail the advent of bombs in India as if 
 something had come to this country for its good." 
 
 Immediately at 10 o'clock p. m., when the sentence was 
 pronounced, Mr. Tilak was taken in a closed motor to one of 
 the suburbs of Bombay, where he was put on a special train 
 and taken up the west coast. No one seems to know where 
 they have taken him, and no one is supposed to know except 
 those whose business it is. A crowd surrounded the High 
 
 [47] 
 
Court until 12 midnight, thinking they might secure the 
 prisoner by force and release him. As soon as the news got 
 abroad the next day, the natives closed their shops, stayed 
 home from the mills and factories, and collected in mobs all 
 day. A company of Southamptons had to fire on a crowd the 
 other day because they would not disperse, and several were 
 killed. And to-day three armed policemen ordered a mob 
 to scatter and they refused and the police fired. But the 
 company pressed upon them until the three men had to 
 retreat to a fire brigade station, where they phoned for a 
 company of the Royal Scots. There was some shooting then, 
 and a long list of casualties in to-night's paper. 
 
 The people don't know what they want — they are too 
 ignorant to know. If you should ask a mill hand why he 
 will not go to work, he will say that some one told him not 
 to. They believe Mr. Tilak to be a great man — a god in 
 fact — but they don't know why. As he is an old man and 
 an invalid, it is not likely he will outlive his sentence. But 
 it is such a pity that a man with such an intellect and such 
 powers could not have spent his life in doing some real good 
 for the country he professes to love. 
 
 Sincerely yours, 
 
 Ella C. Scholberg. 
 
 [48] 
 
Bombay, India, November i8, 1908. 
 Dear Home Friends: 
 
 I wish I knew just how much you hear of our affairs and 
 how much you would have me report to you. I wonder if 
 you have all heard about the attack on Sir Andrew Fraser, 
 Lieutenant-Governor of Bengal, so that my telling the story 
 would be of no interest to you? 
 
 I think that I will begin at the beginning of the struggle 
 between the English and India so that you will see just how 
 matters stand. As India has not much of a written history 
 the past is very vague, but we do know that always since the 
 beginning of time a class of people who call themselves 
 Brahmins ruled the lower class of people with the utmost 
 tyranny. So that when the English came and began lifting 
 the poorer classes and gave them a chance to work and to 
 live, and brought in machinery and taught the poor how to 
 use it, much of the profit of manufacturing and trade went 
 into the English coffers instead of the pockets of the Brah- 
 mins. This, of course, made them very antagonistic to 
 English rule, and the Sepoy Mutiny of '57 was the first 
 attempt on the part of the Indians to exterminate the 
 English. It was cruel in the extreme, for no people in the 
 world can be more cruel than the Indians. But it taught 
 two great lessons — it taught the Indians how strong and 
 powerful the English government is, and it taught the 
 English how treacherous and deceitful the Indian people 
 are. Because it was planned that the mutiny should begin 
 on a Sunday morning when all English people would be at 
 church and unguarded, even to this day all the English 
 troops carry their bayonets to church every Sunday morn- 
 ing. Not a native can get hold of a firearm these days. 
 The few places where firearms are sold are under the strictest 
 poHce supervision. Last July, when the riots were in Bom- 
 bay, Mr. Scholberg was thinking of getting a revolver to 
 carry for self-protection, but if he had bought one he would 
 have had to proceed in this manner: He would have gone to 
 
 [49] 
 
the store and given his name and address. They would have 
 sent an agent up to see what kind of a life we were living 
 (whether we would be apt to sell it again to a native — whether 
 we are loyal subjects of His Majesty or not). The matter 
 then would come before the authorities and perhaps they 
 would have allowed us to purchase a revolver. But our 
 name and address would remain on their books. 
 
 There are native troops in this land — of course, sub- 
 ordinate to the English army — but they use bogus guns all 
 the time except when real guns are necessary and then these 
 real guns have to be surrendered just the minute the soldiers 
 return to the barracks. Not a man is allowed to keep his 
 gun with him. At the time of the riots a native regiment 
 happened to be in Bombay and they were all packed up and 
 sent way off before the riots began. They did not have one 
 gun with them, but the police feared a little uprising among 
 them, so they ordered them sent off out of the city. 
 
 Just lately one night, as two ladies were driving home 
 from the theater, a bomb was thrown into their carriage, 
 killing the daughter outright and the mother dying the next 
 day, and one wonders where the material was obtained from 
 which the bomb was made. 
 
 One of the murderers was caught and confessed, and 
 another was captured but instantly shot himself rather than 
 be turned over to the authorities. One of the accomplices 
 confessed to his part in it and turned king's evidence and 
 told on all the rest of the murderous gang. 
 
 Well, these two women were Mrs. and Miss Kennedy, 
 prominent in social circles, but were not the intended victims. 
 These Bengali youths were on the path of a Mr. Kingsford, 
 a government official, whose carriage was just behind that 
 of Mrs. and Miss Kennedy and he escaped unharmed. 
 
 Then the awful bomb factory in Harrison Park, Calcutta, 
 was discovered and it was found out where the explosives 
 were obtained. Just at that time some daring newspaper 
 men got themselves into trouble by airing their seditious 
 ideas; and now and then we read of some new man being 
 arrested for publishing seditious articles. 
 
 [SO] 
 
Now, the murderers of Mrs. and Miss Kennedy were put 
 in the jail at Alipur to await trial. This one who had turned 
 king's evidence was there too. His name is Gossain. 
 Suddenly he was murdered in prison by a crowd of those on 
 whom he had told. One of the murderers was Bose, who 
 after the trial was sentenced to die, and because Sir Andrew 
 Fraser would not commute his death penalty, a close relative 
 of Bose's attempted the life of Sir Andrew Fraser last week. 
 When they asked him if he had any statement to make in 
 explanation of his rash deed, he said, "Some one in the hall 
 put the pistol in my hand, and pushed me in front of the 
 Lieutenant-Governor." The next day he in prison wanted 
 to go and beg the Governor's pardon. But from all sur- 
 rounding circumstances it seems to have been deliberately 
 planned. 
 
 The Lieutenant-Governor had just arrived at Overtown 
 Hall, Calcutta, on the night of the yth of November, when 
 Professor Burton of Chicago University was to deliver a 
 lecture. Professor Burton had not yet arrived. The 
 Lieutenant-Governor was accompanied by a native prince 
 and several officials. Mr. Barber, the Calcutta Young 
 Men's Christian Association secretary, met him in the hall 
 and suggested that he sit on the platform until the arrival of 
 Professor Burton. Sir A. Fraser was to preside at the affair. 
 Just at that juncture this Coundbury rushed up with a five- 
 chambered pistol, all loaded, and fired once at Sir Andrew, 
 but for some unexplainable reason the weapon missed fire. 
 The native prince who was standing just behind Sir Andrew 
 jumped in front of him and pushed him into an adjoining 
 room. For this act of courage and loyalty he is lauded to 
 the skies and is given a new title. But Mr. Barber, the 
 Young Men's Christian Association secretary, sprang upon 
 the would-be assassin and got his pistol before he had time 
 to fire another shot. He got several bad wounds and as a 
 reward for his bravery will certainly be given a medal by the 
 King. 
 
 But the puzzle is, where did the man get this gun, and 
 how many other men roaming around this land have guns? 
 
 [51] 
 
They are all getting busy now to pass a stiffer Crimes Act, 
 but I hope they will keep busy and find all the traitors. 
 England realizes that these people are hard to manage and I 
 suppose she is doing the best she can. 
 
 I see by to-night's paper that the Bengal Chamber of 
 Commerce, the Calcutta Trades Association and the Anglo- 
 Indian Defense Association are waiting upon the Viceroy's 
 private secretary, asking that the establishment of a special 
 tribunal of High Court judges, to deal with anarchistic 
 offenses, may have immediate viceregal attention. So 
 something will come to pass, no doubt. 
 
 To-morrow at six A. m. this man Bose is to be hanged in 
 the jail compound and the body will then be turned over to a 
 very limited number of his nearest relatives who will be 
 allowed to burn the body by Hindu rites, but it must be 
 done inside the jail compound. Of course, there will be 
 universal mourning by all the Hindus in Calcutta and he 
 will be honored as a great hero of his country, but there will 
 also be a few policemen around and I expect some of the 
 military. The last time one of these wretches was hanged, 
 the body was turned over to the Hindu relatives who carried 
 it off proudly and burned it with the greatest celebration. 
 All the countryside were there and rejoiced over the body of 
 one who in our eyes had been guilty of one of the foulest 
 crimes in the universe, but who in their eyes had served his 
 mother country so well that he was worthy to be made one 
 of the constellations. And they made such a hero of him 
 that the government decided to have the next affair more 
 quiet. 
 
 One should live in this land twenty years before expressing 
 one's ideas on any of the problems here, and I hope that no 
 one has an idea that we know what we are talking about, 
 when we have lived here only two years, but I do say (and 
 I think I shall still say it when I'm sixty years old) that what 
 India needs is the gospel of the Prince of Peace. 
 
 If these high government officials would live lives becom- 
 ing Christian gentlemen from Christian lands, if all repre- 
 sentatives of the government, high and low, would live such 
 
 [52] 
 
lives, I do not believe it would take the Indian mind long to 
 grasp the fact that though we are introducing new machinery 
 and new ideas to break down their old machinery and their 
 old ideas, we are giving them something a thousand times 
 better. They dread giving up their old customs — and 
 who would not? And most of the representatives of Chris- 
 tianity they see out here make the Christian religion seem 
 anything but attractive. 
 
 But I'm sure I've aired my views long enough, so I will 
 
 Cordially yours, 
 
 Ella Scholberg. 
 
 [53] 
 
Bombay, India, February 13, 1909. 
 Dear Friends in the Homeland: 
 
 We appreciate the fact that we are in British territory. 
 Our lives are not in danger so long as the British soldier stays 
 in this land. We enjoy street cars, telephones, and a fine 
 railway system, and many other things England has brought 
 to this country. And the English government acts like 
 Carnegie to us in giving us money for schools. If we put a 
 thousand dollars into a school building, government gives us 
 another thousand. In that way all the money sent from 
 America for school purposes is exactly doubled over here. 
 And every year they give us a grant-in-aid toward the run- 
 ning expenses of the school. It is two rupees (sixty cents) 
 for every boy and four rupees for every girl, on the average 
 attendance during the year. It is no more than fair, of 
 course, since we do so much to uplift these people and make 
 them worthy of British citizenship. But of course there 
 are a few things about the English people that we do not 
 like, especially those of us who were brought up in the West 
 where there are no caste distinctions. When a company of 
 soldiers lands, the steamer's passenger list is given with so 
 many ladies and so many women. A lady is the wife of an 
 ofl&cer in a regiment, a woman is the wife of a private. But 
 the idea is just the same as the Hindu idea of caste, where one 
 cannot rise above the caste in which he happens to be born. 
 In the college where we happened to be educated the young 
 man who had to sell papers on the street to pay his way 
 through college was considered just as clever and just as good 
 as the young man whose father had money, and the young 
 girl who waited on tables to meet her expenses was just 
 as popular and received just as many privileges as the girl 
 who had plenty of money. It is not so here, of course. In 
 fact, a girl or boy who does not have money cannot get an 
 education. So we are proud of our country and especially 
 the western part. I suppose it is the only place on this old 
 globe of ours where there is absolutely no caste. But I am 
 
 [54] 
 
afraid that I am stepping on disputable ground, so I will 
 change the subject. 
 
 The clouds of trouble and sedition have not cleared away 
 yet, and our daily papers are full of court cases and judges' 
 decisions. Every now and then a bomb is thrown into a 
 train and injures a number of people, but seldom kills the 
 man it is intended for. Just the other day, in Bengal, an 
 attorney was shot dead by one of these seditionists. Intelli- 
 gent Indian people are horrified by these dastardly deeds of 
 the ignorant, but England may always have this spirit to 
 deal with. There are always some folks who are out-of-sorts, 
 in every land. Government feared a general outbreak in 
 Bombay at the time of the great Mohammedan festival this 
 month, but there is none on this side, though there were local 
 troubles here and there all over India between Mohammedans 
 and Hindus. On a Sunday of the great week crowds were 
 passing our church, beating their drums and making all sorts 
 of wild noises, and Mr. Scholberg went to the door and simply 
 raised his hand in protest. That was all that was necessary, 
 for it is a law that no unnecessary noise should be made 
 by anyone passing in front of a church, temple, or mosque. 
 If a tram car passes a place of worship it must go more 
 slowly, and a carriage driver has to pull his horses down to a 
 walk. It is one of the written laws of India. But in passing 
 Hindu temples Mohammedans are not always willing to stop 
 their noises, and that is where trouble comes. 
 
 Sincerely yours, 
 
 Ella Scholberg. 
 
 [55] 
 
LETTER FROM KASHMIR 
 
 May II, 1909. 
 Dear Home Friends: 
 
 We are spending our vacation this year in the place of 
 which Tom Moore wrote: 
 
 Who has not heard of the Vale of Kashmir, 
 With its roses the brightest that earth ever gave, 
 Its temples, and grottos, and fountains as clear 
 As the love-lighted eyes that hang over their wave? 
 When the East is as warm as the light of first hopes, 
 And Day, with his banner of radiance unfurled, 
 Shines in through the mountainous portal that opes, 
 SubHme, from that Valley of BHss to the world! 
 
 This is, I suppose, one of the ideal places to spend one's 
 vacation, but Tom Moore wisely does not say much about 
 the Kashmiri — the native of Kashmir. I will tell you right 
 now that he is a rascal. We ought to be well enough ac- 
 quainted with rascality, having lived in India more than two 
 years, but we find even more of it here. For nearly a month 
 we were blissfully ignorant of the fact that every letter we 
 tried to send had its stamp taken off and never reached the 
 post office. Now we mail our letters ourselves. The people 
 up here are Mohammedans mostly — there are some Hindus 
 — and they were made Mohammedans at the point of the 
 sword. They have a belief that everything we touch is 
 polluted and they cannot eat it, but we often catch them 
 stealing our bread and butter. It would seem strange to a 
 housewife in America to lock up her tea, sugar, flour, eggs, 
 and even her matches, and dole them out to her servant as she 
 needs, but Kashmir needs a lock and key much more than 
 India ever did. As an Oriental servant eats food prepared in 
 a different way from his master, we pay them their salary 
 and they find their own food. I do not object to a servant 
 taking enough of my provisions for his own use, or even for 
 that of his family, but when he makes a merchant of himself 
 
 [56] 
 
and sells my provisions to his friends, then I have to get out 
 a padlock. Matches are not expensive, but it would cost 
 something to keep these people and all their relatives and 
 friends in matches, for they are terrible smokers. 
 
 But Kashmir itself is just as Moore has pictured it — 
 you must read the Light of the Harem — or all of Lalla 
 Rookh — in order to fully appreciate it. We live in a house- 
 boat and move around from lake to lake. It is wonderfully 
 pleasant down here in the Vale, but we are always in sight of 
 the snow-topped Himalayas. Mr. Scholberg has climbed 
 some of the lower peaks and tramped on snow to his heart's 
 content. Not having seen snow since we left America, it 
 made us feel like escaped lunatics when we did see it. For 
 the first time in her little life, Miriam has roses in her cheeks 
 — such beautiful roses that it has been worth going a long 
 way to obtain them. 
 
 This place is especially interesting to those who Hke to 
 rummage among things of the past. The gardens and 
 shrines, which are not much more than ruins now, are still 
 illustrative of the great love of nature's beauties the Mogul 
 emperors must have possessed. This was their great sum- 
 mer resort, but the mountain road that leads us to this 
 place from the railroad at Rowal Pindi was not then built, 
 and they had to travel on the backs of their state elephants. 
 The present road, which was opened in '88 or '90 by the king 
 of Kashmir, is perhaps the finest example of mountain roads 
 in the world. 
 
 The government here is a kingdom like many of the 
 petty kingdoms of India. The king is only so in name; he 
 can do nothing without the English resident who follows 
 him around wherever he goes. He spends his spring and 
 fall in Shrinagar, the capital and largest city of Kashmir. In 
 the summer he goes to Gulmarg in the mountains, and in the 
 winter he goes to Jummo on the railroad next door to India. 
 He can do nothing without consulting the Resident, so, 
 although he is a Hindu, the Mohammedan community has 
 equal rights and privileges. When one day there comes to 
 the throne a weaker king who does not do as the Resident 
 
 [57] 
 
orders, English power will make it more of an English 
 colony, and by and by it will belong entirely to England. 
 
 The cloth made in this country took the name of the 
 country, only it is spelled cashmere, — just as calico got its 
 name from Cailicut, where it was first made, but where now 
 it is an extinct industry. 
 
 When we go home it will be to Kamptee (pronounced 
 camp- tea with the accent on the tea), for Mr. Scholberg has 
 been transferred there. Kamptee contains a large military 
 cantonment, and Mr. Scholberg is to be chaplain of the 
 Non-conformists — those who do not worship in the Church 
 of England. Part of our salary will come from the English 
 Government, as a certain amount is allowed for every chap- 
 laincy. But he will be free to devote most of his time to the 
 native work and it will be in the same language as learned in 
 Bombay. Much as the British soldier needs our help, 
 our hearts are still with the people of India. 
 
 I will tell you more of Kamptee in another letter. 
 
 Sincerely yours, 
 
 Ella C. Scholberg. 
 
 58] 
 
Kamptee, C. P., India, August 13, 1909. 
 Dear Friends in the Homeland: 
 
 Once upon a time, in the year 1898, a young girl was 
 graduating from Hutchinson High School and this prophecy 
 was written of her: that one day she would be sitting under a 
 palm tree, teaching a crowd of dirty, black-faced little 
 children, in India. This morning the prophecy was fulfilled, 
 for we had an open air Sunday school in a little village about 
 a mile from the bungalow. It was not a palm tree, but a 
 banyan with its magnificent shade. The trunk was over 
 twenty feet in circumference, and the parts of the roots 
 above ground with all their tangles and intertwines, furnished 
 us as comfortable a place to sit as cane chairs. On the other 
 side of the tree, but quite hid by the huge trunk, was a 
 Hindu worshiping place with its red painted stones and evil 
 significations. But the girl of the graduating class could not 
 teach, because she could not talk freely in the language of 
 these interesting people who were gathered about and sitting 
 on the ground, so the Bible women had to do most of the 
 teaching. Our mission owns a number of school and church 
 buildings in and about Kamptee, but where we have 
 no building, a friendly tree always gives us shelter from 
 the hot sun. 
 
 This is supposed to be one of the very hot places on this 
 old globe of ours, but we have not found it so as yet. It 
 rained some in July, and still rains off and on, but they tell 
 us that from March to June it is unmercifully hot. A mis- 
 sionary here years ago was driving with a companion from 
 one station to another, and they were both suffering on 
 account of the intense heat. Suddenly one turned to his 
 companion and said, "Will, spit on me and see if I'll sizzle." 
 
 We have been very busy since landing here, three weeks 
 ago, in getting acquainted with the work. I have a family of 
 eleven orphan boys on the compound to look after. The 
 boys eat a coarse bread with curry for breakfast at 10 a.m. 
 and curry and rice for dinner at 6 p.m., when they return 
 
 [59] 
 
from school. They do not possess elaborate wardrobes, and 
 the wages of a tailor is $4.00 a month. One woman cooks 
 all their food, and another grinds the hajeri (a coarse grain) 
 for their bread, and each receives $1.25 per month. The 
 boys sleep on a bit of matting on the stone floor of their 
 dormitory, and they do not have sheets and pillows. In 
 the morning they roll up their bed, put it in a corner, and use 
 their bedroom for a study room. Now, do not pity my poor 
 orphans. They have better food and better clothes and a 
 far better place to live than their ancestors ever had. When 
 their school days are over, they will go back to their villages, 
 and not be too grand to associate with their fellow creatures. 
 How fruitless would be all our efforts in this land if we raised 
 up the boys to so high a plane that they in their turn could 
 not reach down to their fellow-creatures and lift them up ! 
 
 We have a thriving boys' day school of about one hundred 
 boys in Kamptee, and other schools in the villages around 
 about. I have a girls' school of thirty girls, with two 
 teachers. It is more difficult to get the parents interested 
 in the education of their daughters, and besides they get 
 married so young and have to stop school. We keep our 
 school under government inspection, not only for the grant- 
 in-aid they give us, but to keep our teachers up to the mark. 
 Every teacher likes to come up to the requirements of the 
 Government Educational Code. Primary, middle school, 
 and high school are the divisions here, and at the end is the 
 Matriculation. A matriculate is ready to enter college in 
 England or Canada, but has a year more of high school 
 work before he is able to enter college in United States. 
 There are colleges here, and they give B. A. and Sc. B. and 
 M. A., but there are no universities. For law, medicine, 
 or engineering degrees, the student must go out of India. 
 The colleges are called universities but are not universities 
 in the way we understand the word. 
 
 Kamptee is a military center and has a large cantonment. 
 A British regiment is stationed here now, the ist Manchester, 
 and a native regiment, the 117th Marathas. A Maratha is 
 a brave, stalwart man, and makes a fine soldier for His 
 
 [60] 
 
Majesty, King Edward. The British army is composed of 
 men of the Church of England, Roman Catholics, Jews, and 
 Non-conformists. As we are the only mission at work in 
 Kamptee, Mr. Scholberg is chaplain to these Non-conformist 
 soldiers. Every Sunday morning all the soldiers of the regi- 
 ment must go to some religious service and carry their guns. 
 You know the mutiny began on a Sunday morning when the 
 soldiers were at church unarmed, so now they must take 
 their guns; they have what they call the parade service, and 
 at the close they stand attention and sing, "God Save the 
 King." In the barracks, the British "Tommy," as he is 
 called, has rather a dull time of it, so there has been organized 
 a guild under the leadership of an industrious layman of the 
 place, and we have a tea room, reading room, and rest room. 
 We are planning a ghost party on Hallowe'en and will have 
 the whole compound filled with ghosts. Of course the guests 
 will not bring their guns. Missionaries usually gather to 
 celebrate Fourth of July and Hallowe'en, but as we are the 
 only Americans in this station, we will invite the soldiers to 
 help us celebrate Hallowe'en this year, in the good old Ameri- 
 can fashion. It will be something new to them. 
 
 English people who come out in governmental, military, 
 or ecclesiastical service are great on sports. They have 
 tennis, golf, polo, cricket, and a sort of football that would 
 put an American to sleep. Besides these, are the horse races 
 with their gambling, which is really the chief sport of the 
 season. Wherever there are English people at all, there is a 
 club. We have been advised to join the Kamptee Club, 
 but as yet have not done so ! ! ! We have a fine tennis court 
 in our own compound, and although we do not have so much 
 time for play as other people, we do force ourselves to take 
 some. Mr. Scholberg has a new rifle, and all the mission- 
 aries are planning some great hunting trips this season. 
 
 Very cordially yours, 
 
 Ella C. Scholberg. 
 
 [61 
 
Narsinghpur, C. P., India, February 4, 1910. 
 Dear Home Friends: 
 
 Of course we knew when we joined the Methodist Itiner- 
 acy that we would be called upon most any hour to change 
 our abode, but we have suffered more moving since we have 
 been in the mission field than most folks. This last time it 
 is Narsinghpur — a city of ten thousand inhabitants, situated 
 on one of the trunk lines between Bombay and Calcutta, 
 about half way between, I should say. The deputy com- 
 missioner of the district, a young bachelor Englishman, 
 drawing a salary of $500.00 a month, lives here; and a civil 
 surgeon, who has charge of the small government hospital, 
 and a police superintendent, and a headquarters inspector 
 of police make up the rest of the white population. We can- 
 not get a loaf of bread or an ounce of butter made in Nar- 
 singhpur. We send for tinned butter to Jabalpur, and we 
 have to teach our cook to make bread. Only seldom can we 
 get anything but goat meat in the market, so when Mr. 
 Scholberg does not have time to go out and get a deer we 
 content ourselves with chicken we raise on our own com- 
 pound, or with fish caught in the river. Tinned meats, 
 ham, and bacon can always be obtained by sending to Bom- 
 bay, but a duty has to be paid on all articles brought into 
 Central Provinces. If we did not have a mission garden we 
 would not be able to have English vegetables or fruits. 
 Some of the India vegetables are as good as one can get 
 in the market, but there are so few varieties that we soon 
 tire of them. The gardener has learned to cultivate and 
 raise sweet corn, cabbage, cauliflower, beets, carrots, onions, 
 lettuce, turnips, and tomatoes, and we have a nice orchard 
 of orange and banana trees, figs, custard apples, pomegran- 
 ates, papayas, pomeloes, wood apples, and guavas. So you 
 see we are not apt to starve, even if this is a jungle. 
 
 Now, among these ten thousand people there is no mission 
 at work except the Methodist. The missionaries here, 
 Rev. and Mrs. D, G. Abbott of Mount Pleasant, Iowa, 
 
 [62] 
 
were in urgent need of furlough, and this is too important 
 a station to leave without a missionary. The work at 
 Kamptee has to be practically closed, but there seemed to 
 be no other way. 
 
 Government has a primary and middle school here, 
 where about one hundred boys are educated, but our Hard- 
 wicke Christian High School and Orphanage is educating 
 nearly four hundred boys of all ages and sizes. One hundred 
 and fifty boys are orphans and are dependent upon the mis- 
 sion for their food, clothes, and all their earthly goods. We 
 have a church, hospital, and government-licensed compounder 
 or apothecary, a work-shop where blacksmithing, carpentry, 
 and shoemaking are taught, a garden and farm. In the city 
 and the villages around about, a dozen preachers and Bible 
 women are at work. It costs the mission about five hundred 
 dollars a month to keep all this work going, and it takes all 
 our time (and more if we had it) to see that everything moves. 
 So far Mr. Scholberg has devoted much of his time to teach- 
 ing in the high school, but my time is largely taken up in 
 looking after my large family. Twenty-five of the boys are 
 under six years of age, and live in the nursery right here on 
 our compound. A man and his wife are directly responsible 
 for them — the woman cooks their food and the man shep- 
 herds them. All but six of them go to the kindergarten 
 during the day, and the rest play around under the trees. 
 The police bring some of these boys to us, when they find 
 them castaways or parentless, and we care for them and 
 educate them until they are big enough to go out and fight 
 their own battles. In the orphanage, a quarter of a mile 
 from the bungalow, we have one cook and two bread makers. 
 Wheat is ground by these two women between two heavy 
 stones — the common method of grinding grain in India. 
 Then they mix it with water, and roll it out into a flat piece, 
 as big as a tea plate, and bake it. Once a day the boys have 
 their unleavened bread and curry, and for the other meal they 
 have rice and curry. One washerman washes all their clothes 
 (remember they do not possess elaborate wardrobes like 
 white folks), and one tailor, with a couple of boys for assistants 
 
 [63] 
 
learning the trade, makes their clothes. Every Saturday 
 afternoon I go down to the school and spend several hours 
 seeing the clothes given out as they come from the washer- 
 man. On Friday the clothes come and pass through the 
 hands of the tailor to be mended, then on Saturday the boys 
 receive them. Each boy has his name worked on his own 
 things and must show it up. It has been no small task to 
 learn one hundred and fifty names belonging to one hundred 
 fifty faces. A house-father acts as preceptor and is responsi- 
 ble for the boys in out-of-school hours. At meal times he 
 sounds the gong, sees that the boys are served by the moni- 
 tors, and each boy washes his own plate and puts it away. 
 It is rather a convenience that there are no knives and forks, 
 table cloths and napkins for the poor missionary to look 
 after. But I am wishing that every boy in the boarding 
 establishment might possess a comb of his own. It would 
 be quite amusing to you to see how very simply these boys 
 live, and how they get along without most of the para- 
 phernalia that white boys have to have, but I suspect they 
 are just as happy and will make just as good men when they 
 grow up. 
 
 Plague has been devastating the city, and we have been 
 fighting to keep it away from the school. The boys have 
 been warned to have no waste paper or refuse around the 
 school premises, and the sweepers have been urged to be 
 most diligent in sweeping up dead leaves and brushwood so 
 that the rats would have no place to congregate. The rice 
 and wheat have been moved from the store house to another 
 place, where the rats can not find them at once. At this 
 stage in the progress of science, the rat, I think, is the only 
 known animal besides man to contract plague, and the rat 
 gets it first and gives it to man. So government has been 
 most active in rat extermination and gives a bonus for every 
 rat killed. The natives are beginning to overcome their 
 silly notion in believing that the spirits of dead relatives 
 inhabit the lower animals and are willing to kill rats. The 
 cow remains the sacred animal of India and no orthodox 
 Hindu will eat beef or lick a stamp. If in walking along 
 
 [64] 
 
the road his foot happens accidentally to touch a bone of a 
 cow, he spends days in purification ceremony, but it is most 
 interesting to note that many of the strictest Hindus wear 
 shoes. Western civilization is bound to have its influence 
 on this country, and any time you wish to go into a restau- 
 rant in Bombay, you will find Hindus, Mohammedans, and 
 even Parsees eating in the same room. The old belief, which 
 is gradually dying away, is that food is polluted if cooked or 
 touched by one of another caste or religion, or even if the eyes 
 of another is cast upon it when one is eating. 
 
 But I was intending to say one other thing about plague. 
 Inoculation is coming more and more into favor and govern- 
 ment gives a present of a small sum of money to everyone who 
 will subject himself to be inoculated. It is a process much 
 like vaccination, and after a day or two the serum begins to 
 act, one's arm swells up and becomes painful, and a slight 
 fever follows. Whether or not it makes one immune from 
 plague is still a question, but many cases are cited of its 
 efl&ciency. All of our boys were inoculated as a matter of 
 precaution. 
 
 The climate of Narsinghpur is most delightful, at least at 
 this time of the year. Miriam has gotten back the roses 
 she had in Kashmir and we are all well and, of course, happy. 
 
 Cordially yours, 
 
 Ella Scholberg. 
 
 [65] 
 
Narsinghpur, C. P., India, April 29, 1910. 
 Dear Home Friends: 
 
 Our mission owns two bungalows in this station, because 
 formerly there were two missionary families here. There 
 should be now — one to have charge of the school and work 
 shops, and the other to be pastor of the church and have 
 oversight of the preachers of all this countryside. It is too 
 much for one missionary to do, but he must do it as long as 
 missionaries are scarce. We occupy one bungalow and the 
 other is rented to a high caste native man and his family. 
 They are Hindus but are quite civilized. Mr. Lall is one of 
 the judges in the civil court here in Narsinghpur and is a 
 lawyer of no mean ability. Being a Brahmin he has a keen 
 intellect. Mrs. Lall is a sweet little woman, and when she 
 wears one of her prettiest gowns and her jewelry she looks 
 like an Indian princess. She was probably married when 
 a mere child, so she has no education, and does not speak 
 English like her husband, but they are planning a liberal 
 education for their two little daughters. One evening they 
 invited us over for dinner. Now that is very wonderful, 
 because they are Hindus and a Hindu will not eat with a 
 Christian, or even with another Hindu if he is not of the 
 same caste. We have been invited to a number of dinners 
 and breakfasts in Hindu and Mohammedan homes, but we 
 have had to sit down and eat the food they offered while 
 they merely looked on. But Mr. and Mrs. Lall are civilized, 
 as I have said, and they gave us a very nice dinner and ate 
 with us, and we had the pleasure of returning the compli- 
 ment and having them in our home. I found out from their 
 cook that they never eat beef, so I was careful not to have 
 any. In high caste Hindu and Mohammedan homes the 
 women are kept in strict purdah, or seclusion, never being 
 allowed to see the face of man, except a near relative, but 
 Mrs. Lall goes out with her husband as any white woman 
 does, and has all the privileges of associating with other 
 people. They have lost a great many friends among high 
 
 [66] 
 
caste Hindus, because of their belief and practices, but Mr. 
 Lall says that they are willing to suffer some persecution in 
 order to set an example for others to follow. I do not know 
 how far they worship gods, nor how many Hindu super- 
 stitions they still cling to, but I do know that they are far in 
 advance of Hindu thought of to-day. It is my opinion that 
 they are not allowed to worship at a public temple, because 
 in the Hindu mind they are polluted by their association 
 with us, and in a way they are no longer Hindus, except as 
 they choose to keep it up, as a Hindu washerman did who 
 did just one washing for some missionaries and when his 
 caste fellows found it out, was made to pay five rupees (a 
 dollar and a half) to be restored to caste again. Five rupees 
 is a big amount when one considers that the average salary 
 of the people of India is twenty-seven rupees a year. Some, 
 of course, like Mr. Lall, receive about one hundred dollars 
 a month, but think how small an amount the lowest caste 
 people must receive in order to bring the average down to 
 the shocking amount of nine dollars a year. 
 
 I should like to tell you that Baby Dorothy has come 
 to make her home with us, and is eight days old to-day. 
 She is a dear, sweet baby and Miriam has welcomed her by 
 giving her her biggest doll. 
 
 In March we sent up our first class for matriculation; 
 that is, the examination finishing high school. We sent up 
 eleven boys, six Christians from the Orphanage and five 
 Hindus. The examination was held in twelve different 
 cities, and we sent our boys to Horhangabad, the nearest 
 place. They took their bedding with them and were gone 
 two weeks. One of the teachers accompanied them to see 
 that they behaved properly away from home. In July we 
 will know the result of the examinations and I am sure we 
 are as anxious over it as the boys themselves. 
 
 With kind regards to all friends, 
 
 Ella C. Scholberg. 
 
 67] 
 
August 2, 1910. 
 Dear Friends in the Homeland: 
 
 It is humiliating to write that only one boy out of the 
 eleven we sent up for matriculation managed to pass. But 
 still that record is not so bad when one knows that only one 
 fourth of all the boys who took the examination, all over India, 
 got through successfully. The hard part of it is that they 
 must pass in every subject in order to matriculate. Suppose 
 a boy fails in only one subject — then he is ever after called 
 a "failed matric." The subjects we have in high school here 
 are much like the subjects at home, and a matric is about 
 two years behind a high school graduate at home. Instead 
 of Latin and Greek we have Persian, Hindu, Sanskrit, Urdu, 
 and English, and instead of the history of the United States 
 we teach the history of India. Last week, Mr. Scholberg 
 was away and I had the joy of teaching some of his classes. 
 The class in English, seventh, or highest class, were reading 
 the Legend of Sleepy Hollow, and short sketches from 
 English history. When I would enter the class room, every 
 pupil rose to his feet and remained standing until I seated 
 myself. And likewise when class was over and I left the 
 room. It is just the custom in this land. I was afraid the 
 Hindu and Mohammedan boys would resent my teaching 
 them. They are not accustomed to the thought that a woman 
 can possibly know anything. But they never once showed 
 me that they felt I was incapable, and I found them much 
 more respectful than I ever found a set of boys in America. 
 
 For fifteen days now we have not had rain, and this 
 is the rainy season, when it is usually raining continually 
 day and night. Bombay has had only 26 inches of rainfall 
 so far, and her annual rainfall is about 70 inches. Of course, 
 there is another month yet of the monsoon season. If rain 
 does not come soon we will have a famine and high prices 
 and cholera and death everywhere. Pessimists are already 
 predicting a famine, but it is cloudy to-day and we may have 
 rain. One of the worst things about high prices is that they 
 stay high even after the famine is over. Since we have been 
 in India, prices of commodities have increased about thirty 
 per cent, and they seem to be steadily increasing, even though 
 
 [681 
 
so far we have seen no famine. I do not know what we will 
 do if a famine raises them much higher. Oh, but here comes 
 the rain — sheets and sheets and sheets of it! This is 
 certainly a return of the monsoon, and will surely wash away 
 all the dreams of the pessimists. 
 
 Our deputy commissioner here, a young man who has 
 traveled extensively, delights to air his views of America 
 before us. He told one time that he found most of the 
 women in America chewing gum, and one of our missionaries 
 
 said, ''I am really sorry, Mr. C , that you got in with that 
 
 society." Since then he has made no more remarks about 
 gum chewing, but he likes to tell how disrespectful he found 
 the American people. He said there seemed to be no sub- 
 ordinate class — no one to wait on him and serve him — not 
 even one to tell him politely whether he was going in the 
 right direction. After England, and India especially, he 
 found America very trying. We tried to explain that the 
 subordinate idea is not a very popular one with Americans. 
 Even a bootblack feels himself about as big as the man 
 whose boots he is blacking — and who knows but that he 
 w^ll be some day? The country one happens to be born in, 
 of course, shapes one's life, and we have never been sorry we 
 were born in America. 
 
 That leads me to say that when we were in Kashmir, one 
 of the boatmen said, in the simplicity of his mind, that he 
 was sure when one of our party went to America he would 
 be made a lord, because he was such a good man. And we 
 said, "No, because in America we did not have lords, and 
 such." And in wonder he asked, ''Sub log sahib log hain?^^ 
 And we answered, "Yes, every man is a gentleman in 
 America." Oh, he thought that must be an ideal country, 
 and he wanted some day to go there. It must be awful, 
 don't you agree with me, to always be as low down as you 
 happen to be born, and always be a hated subordinate? 
 
 Well, time is up if I want this letter to be sent to-day. 
 Mail must leave Narsinghpur to-day at six p. m. in order to 
 reach the steamer in Bombay harbor at two p. m. to-morrow. 
 
 Sincerely yours, 
 
 Ella Scholberg. 
 
 [69] 
 
Narsinghpur, India, November i8, 1910. 
 Dear Friends in the Homeland: 
 
 Many friends have asked what language Miriam is 
 learning out here. Just now she has the use of two languages, 
 Hindi and English, both of which she speaks with equal 
 ease, and whenever we go to a new locality she picks up the 
 language used there. You must remember that India is a 
 country of one over hundred languages, and twice as many 
 dialects, and the people of one part scarcely understand the 
 language of another part, so diversified are their tongues. 
 Hindustani of course is the main language, like a tree trunk, 
 and Hindi and Urdu are two very important branches. 
 Marathi is spoken by twenty million people on Bombay side, 
 though the Marathi spoken in Bombay differs widely from the 
 village Marathi spoken up country. The Calcutta mission- 
 aries have to learn Bengali, while in South India, Kanarese, 
 Tamil, Telegu and a number of other languages are spoken. 
 When we were in Belgaum one time for vacation, Miriam 
 learned a number of Kanarese words and when we went to 
 Kashmir, she learned to talk Kashmiri. She illustrates the 
 aptitude that all children have for languages, and she under- 
 stands the people of this country much better than I do, though 
 she does not need to spend the hours I do in study. She 
 never makes the mistake of speaking Hindi to me or English 
 to the servants. If I do not know a word in Hindi, I find it 
 out from her by asking her to express that thought to some 
 black person standing around. For instance, she asked me 
 one time to take her down from her high chair, and I said 
 to her, ''Tell your servant to put you down." So I learned 
 the word for "put me down" (it is just one word), and if I 
 had asked her ''What is the word for 'put me down,' in 
 Hindi," she never would have been able to tell. She knows 
 there is one way to make me understand what she wants, 
 and another way to make the people here understand, but she 
 has no idea she is using two different languages. 
 
 Our new viceroy and governor-general of India is arriv- 
 
 [70] 
 
ing in Bombay to-day and will pass through here to-morrow 
 morning at 5 o'clock on his way to Calcutta. Of course at 
 that hour no one would be able to see him, but the district 
 superintendent of police, with all his constables and officers, 
 must go to the station and be on guard, as His Excellency's 
 special train will stop here twenty minutes. Mr. Coode, 
 the D. S. P., has been very busy the last few weeks, seeing that 
 the railroad track has been guarded day and night. He 
 says that the special is to make three stops in this district 
 (or county), and when the train stops the danger begins, as 
 no one would be so wild as to throw a bomb at a moving 
 train. They could not get near enough to do so, without 
 being detected, but in a crowd at a station one could easily 
 go undiscovered. Shortly after Lord and Lady Hardinge 
 arrive in the capital city. Their Excellencies the Earl and 
 Countess of Minto will leave for home. Farewell receptions, 
 teas, garden parties, dinners, reviews of troops, have been 
 the order of the day for months past and it seems that folks 
 generally have been pleased with His Excellency's administra- 
 tion. He has done a great deal of good in five years, and has 
 introduced many reform measures — he and Lord Morley, 
 who is the Home Secretary of State for India. His admin- 
 istration began in dark days, and the clouds seem to be some- 
 what lifted now, though no one thinks of being less vigilant. 
 Only one attempt has been made on Lord Minto's life, but 
 all sorts of precautions are constantly being taken. It is 
 rumored that perhaps just after his coronation in England, 
 His Majesty, King George, may come out here and be 
 crowned here as Emperor of India. It will be a desparately 
 risky thing to do, but seeing the face of their Emperor may 
 quiet the spirits of some of these dissatisfied subjects. It is a 
 great comfort to be just a common citizen and to go and come 
 as one pleases, with no fear of bombs or pistols. Our greatest 
 danger seems to be from snakes just now, as two have been 
 found in our house in the last few months. Neither has bit- 
 ten us, however. They were small snakes, but very poisonous, 
 and the servants drove them out. I hope no one will think 
 I am bragging when I write of having servants. We have 
 
 [71] 
 
six and pay them collectively twelve dollars a month, without 
 food and clothes. It would be foolish for me to do my house- 
 work in this hot country when I can get servants so cheaply. 
 But there are lots of folks who go around in America talking 
 about the troops of servants missionaries have, and the conse- 
 quent elegance and luxury they live in. We try to be com- 
 fortable and take care of our health, because we do not want 
 to go home in a day. It is economy for the missionary 
 society to put its missionaries in cool, comfortable homes, 
 and give them enough of a salary to keep themselves in 
 proper food and health. Money is too precious to be wasting 
 it in sending missionaries on furlough after only a couple of 
 years of service. Many have asked how long we are going 
 to stay out here: the term is ten years, but with the advance 
 in commerce and lessening of rates of travel, it is quite possi- 
 ble the society will fix seven years as the limit, though mis- 
 sionaries have something else to occupy their attention 
 besides thinking of furlough time. We are a busy, happy 
 family out here — I have yet to see a discouraged or dis- 
 satisfied missionary. Many have asked if we will come 
 back after furlough. That is rather too far in the future for 
 me to see clearly, but I know that we are needed here. 
 
 Sincerely yours, 
 
 Ella C. Scholberg. 
 
 [72] 
 
Narsinghpur, C. P., India, February 2, 191 1. 
 Dear Home Friends: 
 
 A hundred times a day I breathe a prayer of thankfulness 
 that I was born in America. I always thought I was patriotic 
 but I'm sure if I ever loved my country, it is now. I have an 
 unutterable longing to show my own beloved land to my two 
 little girls, and I hope the time will come when they can re- 
 ceive their education in America. We hear very much out 
 here against American customs, especially the co-education 
 system, women taking positions in the business world, the 
 freedom of women socially and the rough and ready way that 
 people get into generally. Out here woman is so down- 
 trodden that she gets a good beating from her husband if 
 she dares to stick her nose outside her door. A special 
 enclosure, with a high wall, is made at the back of their 
 houses and she is never allowed to go out except in a closed 
 carriage. Suppose she is going to make a call: First the 
 servants make an enclosed passage-way, from the house door 
 to the carriage door, by unrolling and holding up two long 
 strips of cloth. Then her ladyship comes out, scuttles 
 quickly into the carriage and the door is closed, the carriage 
 driver, sitting up on the box, having turned away his head 
 in the meantime. She always has at least one driver and two 
 footmen, whose duty it wiU be to help her to alight. The 
 servants she has about her house sometimes are men servants, 
 but they must never be caught looking at their mistress and 
 they are trained to go about their work with downcast eyes. 
 When she arrives at her destination, a footman sends word 
 in that she has arrived and the strips of cloth are again 
 unrolled, the coachman stands in respect, and fixes his eyes 
 on a point in the dim horizon, her ladyship gathers up her 
 robes and runs to the house. Heavy blinds on all doors and 
 windows prevent any servant of her hostess from seeing her. 
 She is received in the woman's part of the house, called the 
 harem, or zenana, and the men of course do not come near 
 while she is making her call. Woman's suffrage does not 
 become the topic of their conversation, but the small talk 
 
 [73] 
 
consistent with their narrow lives. Our Bible women are 
 allowed to visit in these homes, and of course that helps to 
 brighten their dull lives. Sometimes a man is as mean as 
 to object to any white woman coming to see his wife, as she 
 may put silly ideas into his wife's head or make her dis- 
 satisfied with her lot. But as a usual rule they are not sus- 
 picious of us, as missionaries have been very cautious in this 
 visitation, knowing that if the door is once closed, it may be 
 centuries before it is opened again. We ask them to come 
 and see us (that is, we ask the husbands if they will kindly 
 allow their wives to come), and they are glad to do so, if their 
 husbands approve. I have to assure them that my husband 
 will not be at home, nor any men servants. They are 
 interested in our beds, and our dining table, and our knives 
 and forks. And the old rocking chair — how they rock and 
 rock in it, each taking it by turn ! And the sewing machine — 
 they want to see it really work. And they ask if I have a 
 father and mother and I take down the family picture and 
 point out each one. Then they ask me where the husbands 
 of my sisters are and I tell them that only one sister is 
 married, and they ask how many times her husband has had 
 to beat her. They do not believe the other sisters are not 
 married, or if they do, they think my parents must be very 
 low caste indeed, not to have succeeded in getting husbands 
 for all their daughters. They think that I do not love my 
 people that I've come so far away. Then they go in rever- 
 ence and on tip-toe to Mr. Scholberg's office, and his type- 
 writer astonishes them beyond words. I tell them that I 
 have a sister who spends much of her time writing on a 
 typewriter, and they can't believe it. Then they want to see 
 all my clothes, and they ask how much each material costs 
 per yard. And they say they have heard that white people 
 do not bathe every day and they wonder if it can be true. 
 And is Miriam almost four and not yet betrothed? Have I 
 no mother-love that I haven't picked out a husband for her 
 and sealed the agreement with presents and a sum of money? 
 And then they go home to their narrow, shut-in existence, 
 and talk for days of the wonderful things they saw in the 
 white woman's house. 
 
 [74] 
 
Two women, the wives of a Mohammedan, were very 
 anxious to come to see our house, but were sure the husband 
 would not let them. We wanted to ask him, but they begged 
 us not to, assuring us that he would beat them if he knew 
 they ever entertained such a thought. So they suggested 
 that they wait until one of the great feast days of the Mo- 
 hammedans, and in the evening time when all their women 
 are allowed to go to a certain place of worship, they would 
 slip away without being noticed and come over to make a 
 call. But of course we would not allow that. 
 
 Government is preparing to take the census of India and 
 is finding it the usual difficult task. The people are so sus- 
 picious of anything that savors of government that they 
 do not give information very gladly. They think it means a 
 tax or some new oppression. Especially they are having 
 trouble with the foreign element — like the Chinese. They 
 fear it means expulsion from the country, and the result is 
 that John is mum. As missionaries we can be of great use to 
 the officials in their work, and of course we are glad to do 
 what we can. Speaking of oppression, I do not mean that 
 the English government oppresses the people, far from that. 
 But you see, the common native comes into very little contact 
 with the European official, and therefore knows very little 
 of him. For instance, an official goes out on tour in his 
 district. He has a dozen bullock carts to carry his tents, bed, 
 table, cooking utensils, servants, and all camp requisites. 
 His retinue go out on the day before their master arrives, 
 pitch his tents in a cool, shady place near a village, and order 
 eggs, milk, chickens, and any fruit or vegetables they might 
 be able to get. The poor people bring in their produce day 
 after day as long as he stays in that place, and when they 
 come for their pay, the head servant calls them all together 
 and tells them his master won't pay them anything as he 
 is a government official and they must give their products 
 to him, and lest they dare go to him and complain, he assures 
 them that they will get their heads cut off. Then the servant 
 presents his bill to his master — twelve cents a dozen for 
 eggs, four cents a quart for milk, twenty cents for every 
 chicken — and the official, of course, pays it, not dreaming 
 
 [75] 
 
that it goes no farther than the servant's pocket. So you 
 see government gets the name of being oppressive, as there 
 are always the middlemen (natives, and therefore rascals) 
 who do all the harm. 
 
 We were taking a walk the other evening just at dusk, and 
 we saw the farmers leaving their farms, and new hands 
 coming on for night watches. Their grain is just ripening 
 now and the farmer watches it by day to see that no one 
 comes and steals it, and at night his wife or his grown-up 
 son comes to stand guard and make noises all night long to 
 scare coyotes, jackals, foxes, wild hogs, or other destructive 
 animals away. They each own an acre or two, and what 
 grain they are able to keep from thieves and wild animals 
 is scarcely enough to feed and clothe them after the taxes 
 are paid. Being unable to read or write, they are fooled 
 into paying twice as much tax as they need to pay, and they 
 never think of complaining because they would get into more 
 trouble, they fear. Can you see why I am so glad I was not 
 born in India? 
 
 But see, I've contradicted myself in this letter. I write 
 that women are not allowed to stick their noses out of their 
 houses, and that the farmer sends his wife out to watch his 
 grain. But you see I'm writing of the rich and the poor. 
 The low caste women, of course, work on the street or wher- 
 ever their work is, without being afraid of being seen by men. 
 But the coolie women, and others whose husbands allow them 
 to go out freely, have very hard lives in that they must work 
 as hard as men. 
 
 I have rambled on and on, and I'm sure that Mr. Editor 
 has frowned a very big frown at all these pages. But he is 
 at liberty to cut out whatever he wants to, or feed the whole 
 thing to the goat — the goat is the waste paper basket. The 
 goat, you know, eats any kind of trash. 
 
 Very sincerely yours, 
 
 Ella C. Scholberg. 
 
 Editor's note. — Our "goat" does not get fat on articles 
 like the above. Let us have more of them. 
 
 [76I 
 
Panchgani, May 4, 191 1. 
 Dear Home Friends: 
 
 Periodically every year we have to betake ourselves 
 to the hills. The winter months are fairly cool and we can 
 live in some degree of comfort, but when the springtime 
 comes living is simply a burden and work impossible. In 
 April it gets very hot, but by May the heat is so terrible 
 that people flee for their lives. It is always hard for mis- 
 sionaries to get away from their work, especially folks like 
 us who have an orphanage to look after. Mr. Scholberg 
 is still down holding the fort, while I am up here with the 
 children. I think we would have lost our little Miriam if 
 I had tried to stay down any longer, and it will be weeks now 
 before she gets her strength back. The heat was just grad- 
 ually sapping her strength away. When one loses step in 
 the march for existence out in this land, it means to drop 
 back altogether. There is no catching up by extra exertion. 
 The only thing is to get away to the hills, or to another 
 climate. 
 
 All through April we had our house closed up tight, 
 all the doors and windows, at eight o'clock in the morning. 
 Then we breathed the same air over and over again all day 
 — which of course is very unhygienic. But impure air can 
 be breathed and hot air can not. Then the pundahs were 
 set going. A pundah is a huge fan suspended from the 
 ceiling, and attached to it is a rope which, going through the 
 wall, is pulled by a coolie outside. It takes the place of an 
 electric fan. In the evening about six o'clock we open 
 the doors and venture out. It is the time of day when 
 life is least worth living. The earth is thoroughly baked 
 and the air still hot. Not a breeze is stirring. Inside it is 
 unbearable, as the air is "stuffy" and the mosquitoes 
 are just beginning to tune up for their evening concert. 
 They come from every corner in the house, and begin to 
 make merry. Of all the tormentors this world can boast of, 
 I believe the mosquito holds first prize. There are many 
 
 [77] 
 
different varieties out here, and certain ones can give malaria, 
 and others cannot. But we do not discriminate — we keep 
 as far as we can from them all. Our beds are set outside 
 and nets put over them — that is, nets are hung from four 
 poles and we sleep inside, all closed in from mosquitoes or 
 scorpions. But sleep does not come until about three or 
 four o'clock in the morning, and one has to get up early as 
 people begin passing on the street. Most folks can endure 
 hot days if the nights are cool, so the winters in this country 
 are endurable. But when 'hot nights come, one longs for 
 the hills. This place, Panchgani, is forty-five hundred feet 
 above the sea level and is delightfully cool. Hotel rates are 
 very high — three and four dollars a day, for very inferior 
 board — so we have rented a little cottage, for which we have 
 to pay twenty-five dollars a month. Mr. Scholberg will be 
 up here after a while, when some one else comes to have 
 supervision of the orphanage, and the strength we can lay 
 up in the hills has to last all the rest of the year. We are 
 not spending the time in idleness either. I have yards and 
 yards of letters to write — scholarship letters — and many 
 other duties that had to be neglected. 
 
 Schools are established for white children in all hill 
 stations. After another year Miriam must be put in school, 
 and we are talking of Queen's Hill School at Darjeeling. 
 It is in the Himalayas, and she will have the benefit of that 
 climate from April i until Christmas. Vacation in all hill 
 schools continues through the three winter months — Jan- 
 uary, February, and March — and she will stay at home 
 those months. Queen's Hill School for Girls is managed 
 entirely by American teachers and is considered one of the 
 best schools in India for girls. Wellesley Girls' School at 
 Naini Tal is another good one. Missionaries' children 
 generally go through high school here, and then are sent 
 home for further education. The high schools here are 
 very good, but English people in government service never 
 allow their children to be educated out here. They send 
 their children home when they are very young — especially 
 their boys. If they want government positions for their 
 
sons, they must have them educated in England. It is 
 more in the name of it than anything else, I think, though 
 of course one can see why an education in England is very 
 important for one who is to go into government service. 
 I suppose most of you have only the faintest idea of 
 what Hinduism is like. I must confess I myself do not 
 know much about it, — that is, the Hindu religion itself, — 
 but we can judge it by its fruits. I think I will tell you 
 something of Hinduism in my next letter. 
 
 Yours very sincerely, 
 
 Ella C. Scholberg. 
 
 [79] 
 
Narsinghpur, India, July 13, 191 1. 
 Dear Friends in the Homeland: 
 
 Most of you, I suppose, have only the faintest idea of 
 what Hinduism is like. As far as the religion itself is con- 
 cerned, I must confess I know very little about it myself, 
 but one cannot help but see the effect it has had on the lives 
 of the people of Hindustan. I never, never could paint the 
 social system of this country in black enough colors — it is 
 so fearfully corrupt. I imagine I know very little of the 
 wickedness of America, but I do know that a child can be 
 born in America and can grow up in purity and in ignorance 
 of wicked things, while out here the very beginning of a 
 child's life is wicked. Everything its little eyes look upon in 
 infancy has some evil signification. What filthy ideas it 
 does not get from its own parents, as it grows older, it is sure 
 to get from the children on the street. It has no choice in 
 the matter, and when manhood or womanhood comes there 
 is no physical or mental strength to fight the tendencies that 
 one knows are wrong. 
 
 But even if I did know more of the Hindu religion, I 
 would not write a letter describing it. In the first place, 
 it would make the Big Stone County Journal turn red for 
 very shame, and in the second place, the authorities would 
 arrest Mr. Editor for publishing obscene literature. But I 
 think I may be especially privileged to tell a Hindu story, if 
 I faithfully promise never to do it again. This is not a very 
 bad story and it illustrates the depth of their religion. One 
 of the principal gods of India is Ganesh or Gunpat. He 
 has the head of an elephant, and if you ask a Hindu the 
 reason why, this is the story he will tell you: 
 
 Shiv is one of the three great gods and Parvati is his wife. 
 One time he was away from home, and strange things hap- 
 pened. Parvati was taking a bath and, as the custom is 
 here, had rubbed cocoanut oil over her body first. Then in 
 the process of her bath she rubbed off a handful of dirt and, 
 moulding it in her hands, made a doll of it. It pleased her so 
 
 [80] 
 
greatly that she prayed it might have life. She found she 
 had a little daughter. Not satisfied, she repeated the process 
 and obtained a son. These children grew up and became a 
 great joy to Parvati's heart. But one day one of the other 
 gods sent her word that Shiv was coming home. She knew 
 that he would be angry at finding these children in his home, 
 so she wisely put the boy outside the door where the father 
 would see him first and perhaps be glad that he had a son. 
 In terror she hid the little girl in a storeroom, where only salt 
 was kept, and the poor child was smothered. Pious Hindus 
 will eat no salt in their food on the days that celebrate the 
 homecoming of Shiv. But it was as she expected. The 
 great god came thundering along, and seeing a child on his 
 doorstep, drew out his sword and cut off its head. Then he 
 went in and found his wife in tears. Her explanations seemed 
 to satisfy him, for he repented of his rash deed, and promised 
 her that he would cut off the head of the first creature that 
 came along the next day, stick it onto his boy's body and 
 cause him to live. The next day one of the other gods was 
 sending a message to Shiv by his messenger, the elephant, and 
 Shiv, true to his promise, cut off its head and stuck it on his 
 boy's shoulders. So the image of Gunpat has an elephant's 
 head. Sometime in September the Gunpati festival is held, 
 and millions of images of this god are made and carried down 
 to the river or lake and thrown into the water. They are 
 made of a sort of paper pulp which easily dissolves in the 
 water. Many folks are themselves drowned every year in 
 Bombay, by carrying their images out too far when the tide 
 is out. No matter how poor a Hindu is, he buys an image of 
 this god to immerse on this day. 
 
 A heathen is not one who has no religion, but one who has 
 a false one. India is a very religious country, as one can see 
 by the great number of devotees on every side bowing down 
 to some image, a sacred fire or the sun, or just worshiping in 
 the direction of Mecca. I suppose if the truth were told, 
 Christians spend the least time in prayer of them all. But 
 if we should say that in order to accept Christianity you 
 must spend so much time in prayer, read so many prayers a 
 
 [8i] 
 
day, or pray so many times a day — if that is all Chris- 
 tianity meant — we could get any number of converts. But 
 when we say, "Your heart must be clean before your prayer 
 can be heard," that, of course, is an entirely new religion. 
 The Mohammedans wash their feet before they go to pray. 
 We are never allowed to go inside their mosques, for fear of 
 polluting them. But we can go inside Hindu temples (that 
 is, the outer court), by taking off our shoes and stockings. 
 I have done it, especially in Kashmir, a few times, simply to 
 see their carving and ancient handiwork, as it is a very 
 interesting study. 
 
 Before the English came, this country must have been 
 in an awful state with all the crimes that are committed in 
 the name of religion. The English have put a stop to the 
 suttee, that is the practice of burning a woman alive with 
 the body of her dead husband. And girls are not allowed in 
 some of the states to be sold or given to the priests of a 
 temple to be kept there all the rest of their lives. Neither 
 will they allow a mother to dig out her child's eyes, or dis- 
 figure its body in order to give it a chance to beg when it 
 grows up. Just lately a peculiar case was tried in court, 
 which might illustrate the influence of religion upon the lives 
 of the people. A woman, who had had nine sons and two 
 daughters, but whose sons had all died in infancy, was told 
 by the priest that if she made a sacrifice of some other little 
 child, she would be able to have a son live to maturity. 
 She got her husband's cousin, whose name was Govind, to 
 help her in her plan, threatening to become a witch herself 
 and murder him in cold blood if he would not help her. 
 They proved in court that he was a weak-minded fellow and 
 gave him the sentence of transportation for five years. 
 Together this woman and Govind took a neighbor's child 
 which was sitting alone in the dooryard, when its father and 
 mother were out in the field working, took it off to a secluded 
 spot, and performed the sacred rites necessary to give the 
 woman her heart's desire. They swung the child three times 
 over the woman's head, then smothered it to death, cut 
 out its liver and fried it in butter, and piously ate it together. 
 
 [82] 
 
The mutilated body they left in a field to make it seem that 
 the child had met its death by being torn to pieces by wild 
 beasts. They passed a death sentence upon this wicked 
 woman, and let the priests, who had taught this woman to 
 commit this deed, go scot-free. 
 
 What these praying hordes of India pray for is a mystery 
 to me — they certainly never pray that they may live better 
 or nobler lives, or if they do, their prayers along that line are 
 never answered. The more immoral or sinful a Hindu is, 
 the better Hindu he becomes. Christianity is the only 
 religion over here that has anything about purity or goodness 
 or righteousness in it, though one time I was trying to make 
 a bargain with a Mohammedan and he was telling such high 
 prices that I said to him, "Now, to-morrow is your great 
 prayer day (Friday) , so you would better tell me the truth 
 about the price of these goods," and he said, "Oh, yes, 
 Madam Sahib, I would not tell a lie to-day." But when we 
 finally agreed upon a price considerably lower, and I re- 
 minded him that he had not told me the truth in the begin- 
 ning, he said, " Oh, that was just one lie, " and he was sure his 
 Allah could forgive him one. 
 
 Concerning the Parsees, or fire-worshipers, in this 
 matter of goodness they believe that the number of good 
 deeds or bad deeds are counted, and if they have done more 
 good deeds in their lifetime than bad ones, the bridge 
 across into their heaven will lie flat like a sword, and they 
 can walk across, but if the bad deeds are more in number the 
 sharp edge will turn up and they will be cut in two. If 
 they give two coins to two different beggars in the morning, 
 and steal one hundred dollars at night, the balance that day 
 will be in their favor, for they have done two good deeds and 
 only one bad one. Such is the righteousness of the Parsee 
 religion. 
 
 Some folks told us, before we came out to India, that we 
 were simply wasting our lives. We have never seen it in 
 that light, especially after coming out here and seeing the 
 condition of the people. India needs Christianity. She 
 can never become an independent nation until she accepts 
 
 [83] 
 
Christianity, and if we can help, even in a small way, to 
 bring about the better conditions, we do not consider our 
 lives will be spent in vain. 
 
 Yours very sincerely, 
 
 Ella Scholberg. 
 
 [84 
 
Narsinghpur, C. P., India, November 29, 191 1. 
 Dear Friends at Home: 
 
 I hope you have received the letters I have been writing 
 regularly once a month. There was the letter on the Coro- 
 nation Durbar, and then another letter on the subject of the 
 poverty of the people of India. Then came a letter on 
 education in India — that was a masterpiece, that was — 
 describing as it did our experiences along the educational 
 line. And then I wrote a series of letters on "Our Neigh- 
 bors" — first the Mohammedan and then the Hindu and 
 then the Eurasian. I hope you found those letters inter- 
 esting. I found it interesting calling to mind the strange 
 customs and garb of these strange people, and setting it all 
 down in black and white. But hold! — have I really been 
 writing these letters, or have I been dreaming that I did so? 
 Have I just been planning so hard on doing all this, that I 
 imagined it was really done? If so, let's begin with the 
 Coronation Durbar and get it off our hands at once. It 
 is late in the day for the coronation, for by the time you read 
 this the affair itself will have passed into history. 
 
 No, we are not going to Delhi to attend it. We are not 
 even going to the nearest station through which Their 
 Majesties w^U pass. It would not be worth the money, or 
 the while, for just common folks like us would not be able 
 to get near enough to see anything. We shall, however, go 
 out in our compound and see His Majesty's special train go 
 by on its way from the workshops, where it has been made, 
 to Bombay, to be in readiness to take the royal party from 
 Bombay to Delhi, and on December 12, the day of the coro- 
 nation, we will decorate the orphanage and school buildings, 
 and help to the best of our ability with the celebration that 
 will take place in our town on that great day. From the 
 top of the school building "Union Jack" will share honors 
 with "Old Glory," and in the evening the whole place will 
 be ablaze with myriads of lights. The Indian people know 
 so v/ell how to use light decorations. Thousands of little 
 
 [85] 
 
bowls will be made out of mud and dried in the sun. Filled 
 with cocoanut oil, and a Httle strip of cloth put in for a wick, 
 they burn for many hours. These lights will be strung 
 along the outside of the buildings, placed along the ledges, 
 and in all the niches and corners of the building. The 
 manner in which buildings are made in this country makes 
 them especially adapted to this kind of decoration. 
 
 If anyone thinks that everyone who wills may have a 
 chance to shake hands with Their Imperial Majesties, just 
 as he would shake hands with the President of the United 
 States, he is much mistaken. Great bitterness is felt in cer- 
 tain circles in Calcutta over the fact that very few people 
 are eligible to presentation at the court in Calcutta which 
 Their Majesties will hold. We are told that there will be 
 very few presentations — first, because there are very few 
 people who are eligible to do the presenting, and secondly, 
 because only those who have been admitted to the Queen's 
 Drawing Room at home can be presented here. Then the 
 question of dress has caused a great deal of hard feeling. It 
 was given out months ago that a certain style of dress would 
 be acceptable on this occasion — then the order came from 
 the throne that only another style could be worn by those 
 wishing to attend court, and it has caused a great deal of 
 commotion in the upper stratum of society. 
 
 On this occasion, i. e., the visit of the King-Emperor 
 and Queen-Empress, to India, one would suppose Their 
 Highnesses would be the guests of the Empire. But not so. 
 The Empire, in the persons of Their Excellencies Lord and 
 Lady Hardinge, and the excellent governors and the chief 
 commissioners of provinces, will be the guests of His Maj- 
 esty. About sixty motor cars have been brought out from 
 England, made especially for the tropics, and in these cars 
 the King will escort his guests about. Special cars have 
 been made for His Majesty's hunting trip in Nepal, and a 
 special road has been built through the jungles. I doubt 
 not that especial tigers have been made for him to shoot. 
 And the beaters even are having special motor wagonettes 
 to ride in, so they, poor things! will get a touch of high life 
 
 [86] 
 
after all. You know what a beater is, don't you? He is 
 the man who finds a tin pan to beat on, and scares the tiger 
 up. You see the Royal Hunter and his party will find a 
 nice shady tree, and have a soft seat put in it to sit on, while 
 the beaters — two or three hundred strong — will go and 
 hunt up the tiger, and scare him with their combined noise to 
 go in the vicinity of the Royal Tree, so to speak, and get 
 shot. 
 
 Delhi, which is the place selected for the coronation 
 ceremony, having been the capital in Mohammedan times, 
 has become a city of tents. People have to pay immense 
 sums of money for the ten days — forty dollars a day, for 
 food to eat and a place to sleep. It is hard to conceive the 
 vast sums of money that have been spent and will be spent 
 on this occasion. I believe the Indian government and the 
 home government are sharing the expense, but I am not 
 sure in what proportion. The tents are already sold — the 
 Mid-India Christian Convention bought three huge ones at 
 half price, a thousand rupees. We do not take possession of 
 them, however, until the Durbar is a thing of the past. 
 When Their Majesties go to Calcutta (and it is kept a pro- 
 found secret over what route they are to go), there will be 
 what will be known in history as the Calcutta Pageant. A 
 specialist in pageants, Mr. Lascelles, has come out from 
 England to arrange it. He says that with India's pictur- 
 esque people and environments, this pageant in our capital 
 city will be the grandest ever held in all the wide world. 
 
 This has been a hard day for us, as it is home mail day 
 and we have received the congratulatory letters on baby's 
 birth. In two w^eeks we will receive letters of sympathy, 
 which will be more comforting to read. But I wonder if 
 congratulations are not more appropriate, anyway, for we 
 have a sweet baby flower in the Garden of Paradise. It is 
 hard to bear now — the pain, the separation, and the lone- 
 liness and the loss! But it will all be made up to us after- 
 wards. _^ . , 
 
 Very smcerely yours, 
 
 Ella C. Scholberg. 
 
 [87] 
 
Pachmarhi, C. P., India, May lo, 191 2. 
 Dear Journal Friends: 
 
 Now that vacation days are here again, I think I can find 
 time to write to you. The word "vacation" does not apply 
 very well to us folks, but we do get away to the hills for a 
 month or two every year to escape the most intense heat of 
 the plains. We carry much work with us and we find always 
 that our days in the hills give us a little time for a quiet study 
 of the language. It must seem strange to you to read of our 
 still studying at the language, but you must remember that 
 this is our second language in this country. We began with 
 Marathi in Bombay, where we lived nearly three years, and 
 Mr. Scholberg could preach in it, and I was just beginning 
 to feel that I could use it a little without being ashamed of 
 making mistakes. I could at least make myself understood 
 a bit when our good Bishop transferred us to the Hindi 
 language area, and we started the Hindi tongue at once. It 
 was less than a year before Mr. Scholberg began to preach 
 every Sunday in Hindi, but I am not so good at languages as 
 he is, so I'm still studying. The greatest drawback I have 
 had since we came to Narsinghpur is that I can do most of 
 my work in English, so I have not had the practice in the 
 vernacular that I might have had. I teach in the high 
 school in English, and have an English-speaking cook, so 
 my housekeeping is usually done in English. I talk English 
 to my two little girls, and the masters in the orphanage, 
 workshop and garden are English-speaking, so I oversee 
 much of the work in English. Nearly all the writing I do 
 has to be done in English, and my assistant for the Bible 
 woman's work is a young woman who speaks very well in 
 English. But I do want to get Hindi so well while I am here 
 this summer that I can teach the woman's class in Sunday 
 School when I get back, and can express myself without 
 mistakes when occasion demands. 
 
 Speaking of languages, we had a very interesting concert 
 in our compound at Narsinghpur just before we left home. 
 
 [88] 
 
We had songs, solos, and quartettes in seventeen different 
 languages. One of the professors in the high school is from 
 the South, so he knew Tamil, Telegu and Kanerese. He also 
 gave us an oration in Latin. Another professor sang in 
 Persian, Mr. Scholberg sang in Norwegian, Swedish, and 
 Marathi, and we sang together a simple song in German. 
 The Hindi teacher in the high school gave us something in 
 Hindi and Sanskrit and another teacher sang a solo in Pun- 
 jabi. The wife of the native pastor of the church sang in 
 Bengali and Labani. Then we had a quartette in English 
 and songs in Urdu and Arabic. We might have had Arme- 
 nian and French had two of our friends come — the section 
 boss is a Frenchman and his sister knows Armenian. And 
 then, too, we might have had some Americanese if we our- 
 selves were not so rusty in it. We get out of the practice 
 living among people who speak very correct English and 
 we hear it only when a group of Americans get together. 
 Whenever new missionaries come out we g^ather around them 
 to hear the latest slang, but they soon drop it as we have 
 done. English people cannot understand it, so we just 
 gradually — my pen writes — "cut it out." 
 
 Pachmarhi is a very beautiful hill station and it becomes 
 the capital for Central Provinces during the hot weather. 
 The chief commissioner comes up from Nagpur about the 
 ist of April, with his secretaries and personal assistants. 
 The inspector general of police is here and the excise com- 
 missioner, director of public instruction, and school in- 
 spectors. The calling hours are from twelve to two in this 
 upper stratum of society. The complaint is often made that 
 missionaries hold themselves aloof from society and do not 
 mix with the English people in this country. Of course, our 
 time and money are too limited to go very far with them, but 
 we try to do the proper thing about calls. Yesterday we 
 attended the garden party at Government House. There 
 were three tennis courts, two badminton and one croquet 
 ground filled all the time and the dance hall seemed to be 
 filled. We took a ride about the grounds on the elephant, 
 but did not enjoy it much as the beast got fractious because 
 
 [891 
 
his driver would not allow him to stop now and then to eat 
 up the flowers. There are many striking views in hill and 
 valley about here and we will take time for a few picnics 
 before we go home. Pachmarhi is a small plateau thirty- 
 five hundred feet above sea level and thirty-five miles from 
 the nearest railroad. We came up in a two-wheeled car- 
 riage pulled by horses and had a change of horses every five 
 miles, so we made the trip in six hours. Our mission owns 
 an eight-room bungalow here, so we take turns at coming up. 
 This year there are six grown-ups and five children. 
 
 I shall try to write again, Mr. Editor, before we go home. 
 I am anxious that our friends should get a true idea of this 
 interesting country we live in, and I have planned a series of 
 letters on "Our Neighbors," but do not know when I shall 
 ever have time to do it properly. 
 
 Very sincerely yours, 
 
 Ella C. Scholberg. 
 
 [90 
 
Narsinghpur, C. P., India, August i6, 191 2. 
 Dear Journal Friends: 
 
 A very high caste Hindu gentleman came in a few minutes 
 ago on an errand that pleased us very much. He is an 
 extra assistant commissioner in the Forest Department and 
 is to be stationed here for some time. He has a good educa- 
 tion, technically, and makes, I suppose, between one hundred 
 and one hundred and twenty-five dollars a month. He was 
 on a quest for a lady teacher for his wife and daughters, who 
 are kept inside the house like a prison as most high caste 
 folks are. Any number of lady teachers are available in this 
 town, but instead of getting a Hindu or Mohammedan lady, 
 he came to us asking if we could furnish a teacher from our 
 mission folks, because he said he preferred a woman of good 
 moral character to come to teach in his home. I shall send 
 one of my Bible women for two hours every day. He went 
 on to say that that was the chief cause of the failure of the 
 Hindu and Mohammedan schools — the low moral standard 
 of the teachers. It makes the inconveniences and troubles 
 we daily endure sink into nothingness when we hear such 
 testimony as that from a Hindu. 
 
 Being engaged in school work we are naturally more 
 interested in that than in any other sort of mission work, 
 excepting, of course, in the preaching of the gospel. Though 
 Mr. Scholberg has time only during the evenings and on 
 Sundays for preaching, we have twenty paid and volunteer 
 preachers and Bible women, working daily here in Nar- 
 singhpur and in a dozen or more surrounding villages. He 
 has baptized about a hundred folk in the two years and a 
 half we have been here, but our greatest fruit will come in the 
 future years from the boys who have gone through our 
 school. 
 
 We have a better staff than ever this year, as it consists, 
 counting ourselves, of six college graduates and four other 
 teachers of lower grade. There are ninety-nine boys in the 
 primary school, sixty in the middle school, and eighty-two in 
 
 [91] 
 
the high school. I have only one class, that of the pre- 
 matriculation class in English, but Mr. Scholberg teaches 
 Bible to a number of the classes, besides English to the 
 matriculation or entrance class. That is the highest class 
 of the high school, the class that will the next year enter 
 college or enter upon their life's work. In my class there 
 are eighteen Hindu boys, five Christian boys, and three 
 Mohammedans. A Hindu and a Christian boy tie for first 
 place in the class. The Hindus and Mohammedans all 
 come from wealthy homes and their fathers are judges and 
 lawyers and government servants and land owners. Very 
 few poor boys ever get as far as high school. The Chris- 
 tian boys are orphans and have been educated from money 
 that has come from patrons in America. Besides them, 
 we are allowed, according to government code, to educate 
 ten per cent of free students, but they must be bright boys. 
 No stupid boys can come to school without paying fees. 
 The fees in the high school are two and three rupees a 
 month — from sixty cents to a dollar. If a boy fails one 
 year and takes that work over again, he must pay another 
 rupee a month; and if a boy does not hand in his composition 
 or examination paper, or if his mark is below passing (33K), 
 he is fined. The boys are much more anxious to escape 
 fines than they are to get an education. If they do not 
 possess any native ambition, the idea is to cultivate it by the 
 fining process. I often wish they could be inoculated with 
 ambition, just as they are inoculated with anti-plague serum 
 every winter. Ambition and ingenuity, two of fortune's 
 greatest gifts, do not thrive, for some reason or other, in 
 Oriental soil. 
 
 It is a great pleasure to me to come in daily contact with 
 a class of Hindustani boys. The pity of it is that they have 
 to study EngHsh at all. It is not their native tongue, but 
 they must take their mathematics and their sciences, geog- 
 raphy and history, in it. They study much more about 
 England than they do about their own country but that is 
 because there is no history of India (or much of it), and India 
 has no poetry or romance or art. What I would like to see 
 
 [92] 
 
would be all the subjects and all the books of the complete 
 
 course translated into their own language. They would 
 
 really gather much more from such a course and become much 
 
 more learned. 
 
 But the idea, of course, is to make the course so difficult 
 
 that very few can pass and to raise the fees so high that only 
 
 a very small proportion of the Hindustan people can ever 
 
 pay them. In one way there is some justification by such 
 
 a procedure — there are not positions enough to go around. 
 
 A man expects a big position when he gets an education and 
 
 will not stoop to any sort of manual labor. So it is creating 
 
 a lot of educated dissatisfied folk, to make education cheap. 
 
 Only by raising the level of society can we hope to solve the 
 
 problem. _^ . , 
 
 Very sincerely yours, 
 
 Ella C. Scholberg. 
 
 [93] 
 
Mussouri, U. P., India, May 6, 1913. 
 Dear Home Friends: 
 
 This is the second time we have gone to the Himalayas 
 for our hot weather vacation and I am confirming the im- 
 pression I had of them four years ago in Kashmir. I do 
 not Hke them. We have rooms only a few rods from a very 
 good view of the more distant snow-capped peaks, and many 
 people take long walks in order to get this good view, but 
 I have not once gone out purposely to take a look at them. 
 When I happen out on the road I do stand a moment to 
 gaze at them — not so much in admiration of them as in 
 adoration of their Creator. They are so silent and distant 
 and cold, and they have always represented separation to 
 me — separation from home and work. 
 
 It is very cold up here — it is hard to believe we are 
 still in India. Mussouri is a great summer resort and we 
 have taken a few rooms for the whole season, six months. I 
 do not know whether I shall be able to stick it out that long. 
 Mr. Scholberg will be up only for six weeks or two months, 
 but for Miriam's sake I have undertaken it. If she does not 
 show a marked improvement we shall send her to America 
 next year. Many folks say that all the matter with her is 
 just India. Dorothy is the picture of health and never 
 needs a hill climate. 
 
 The people up here — the hill tribes, I mean — are a 
 very independent set. They do not lay themselves down in 
 the dirt to be walked on by the Europeans, figuratively 
 speaking, like the natives do in Central Provinces. I ex- 
 pected to see them larger and stronger as all the northern 
 people are, but they seem about like those of Central India. 
 They are an unattractive lot and their language is simply 
 unintelligible. There is a missionary who lives here with 
 his wife and children, and who goes out to the villages round 
 about on the hillsides. They work independently of any 
 mission and get their support from any source. He used 
 to be a Salvation Army man, but left it to bring his wife to 
 
 [94l 
 
the hills as she cannot stand the climate of the plains. He 
 has reduced the language of these hill people to writing, 
 having lived among them many years. And of course he 
 understands them and they understand him. The Presby- 
 terians are most in evidence here — they have the chaplaincy 
 of the Non-conformists (as this is a large miUtary station), a 
 free dispensary, and hospital down in the center of the town, 
 and a large high school and college for European girls. We 
 have a Methodist Church here and our missionaries of North 
 India take turns serving it year after year. It is only for 
 English speaking folks and is open only of course during the 
 season. The population up here is almost entirely English 
 and after October everyone goes down — at least part way 
 down the hills. The Presbyterian Church being just across 
 the road and the Methodist being miles away, we attend the 
 former. At eleven they have the parade service and all the 
 soldiers who do not attend the Church of England come in 
 uniform and armed. One of the regiments up here is a 
 Scottish Highland and they are a fine lot of young fellows, 
 far superior to the English soldier. I suppose you know that 
 England's most uneducated and characterless folks get into 
 the army and the English soldier is considered so low a 
 creature that he is never received in English society. But 
 they do look nice when they all stand at attention and sing 
 "God Save the King" at the end of every parade service in 
 church; and then they pick up their guns and file out of 
 church, while the orchestra plays a march, and outside they 
 go through a drill before they march home. 
 
 I ran across something the other day the like of which 
 I had not seen since we left America. It was just rhubarb, 
 but it looked so good that I immediately bought a pound of 
 it, though I am sure the shopkeeper wondered at my paying 
 his price. You know the merchants in this land always 
 say their goods are worth four times as much as they are, 
 and then you have to spend ten minutes or so jewing them 
 down. It always finishes a purchase most quickly to say, 
 *'I won't give you one cowry (shell) more for so much of that 
 article, "and turn your back quite on the merchant and walk 
 
 [95] 
 
out of his shop. He will then call you back and give you 
 the article at your price. Well, when the merchant said 
 "six annas (twelve cents) a pound for this rhubarb," I 
 bought it at once, just to have the pleasure of holding it in 
 my arms as quickly as possible. I wouldn't let the servant 
 touch it, but peeled it all myself when I got home; and I 
 lingered over it as long as I pleased, thinking of the time 
 when I was a little girl and used to make a great fuss over 
 peeling a bit of rhubarb. It isn't as good as American 
 rhubarb, we've found, but it furnishes a fairly good sub- 
 stitute. ,, . , 
 Yours very smcerely, 
 
 Ella C. Scholberg. 
 
 [96] 
 
A TRIP THROUGH THE JUNGLE 
 
 When plague broke out in Narsinghpur, and it was 
 necessary to flee for our lives to some safe place, I took my 
 two little girls and started off through the jungle to the home 
 of some friends of another mission who had many times 
 asked us to come and visit them. They assured us that there 
 was no plague in their town, — by some strange circumstance 
 had never been, — so we at once prepared to go. The 
 distance was only thirty miles, but knowing that bullocks 
 could not travel that far in one day, we proposed to send 
 our faithful old bullock driver on with a pair of bullocks 
 the day before. He had rolled up his bedding and prepared 
 to start when he suddenly felt sick and noticed a swollen 
 gland under his arm. He wisely reported it to us and we 
 sent him to the government hospital for examination. The 
 doctor advised us to consider it a plague case, though he 
 could not pronounce it such at so early a stage in the disease. 
 So we selected one of the boys to start at once with the 
 bullocks and wait for us at a village half way. It happened 
 that the bullock driver did have plague and died the next 
 day. I never shall forget the morning we started out. 
 One little child had just succumbed to the dread disease, 
 and I did not think it wise to go over to say even a word of 
 comfort to the poor mother. A plague squirrel had died 
 on our veranda, and our house had to be vacated at once. 
 My husband was settled in the travelers' bungalow, but that 
 was not altogether a safe place, as a rat was found dead there 
 about twelve days before. However, he could not leave 
 the station, as our people w^ere in great distress. Some of 
 them had moved out to the plague camp, but all were in 
 danger. 
 
 A plague camp is a misnomer, as it does not mean a camp 
 where plague exists, but a temporary living place for people 
 who have run away from a plague-infested house. This year 
 plague was so very severe in Narsinghpur that all sorts of 
 
 [97] 
 
animals contracted the disease. Not only rats, but squirrels, 
 birds, cats, dogs, and even cows and horses were known to 
 die of it, and it was not an uncommon sight to see monkeys 
 hanging from the trees in the last agonies of the dread 
 disease, with their almost human cry for help, and then when 
 death came, to see the bodies drop to the ground. 
 
 As is our custom when plague makes its appearance, 
 all our community had to submit to inoculation. The 
 first time the inoculator came, and all the people were ordered 
 to be present in the compound, we discovered that the old 
 tonga driver had hidden himself and did not get inoculated, 
 and when the man was to come the second time to inoculate 
 those who had been left out (for all the members of one 
 family would not be done at one time on account of the in- 
 convenience of all being sick at one time), we gave him 
 strict orders to be present. He protested grandly, said it 
 was contrary to their caste rules, but we insisted on it, and 
 he finally agreed. After his death, we wondered how he had 
 come to be an exception to the rule that an inoculated person 
 is not supposed to take plague, and on inquiry we learned 
 that immediately after inoculation he had gone behind the 
 house, squeezed the serum out of his arm and bathed it well. 
 In that way he satisfied his caste relations, and lost his life. 
 
 We traveled only fifteen miles the first day, reaching the 
 half-way bungalow at four o'clock in the afternoon. Our 
 change of bullocks was there waiting for us, but as we were 
 in the midst of a dense tiger jungle we did not dare to under- 
 take the remaining fifteen miles that evening. So we took 
 our things out of the tonga, our two-wheeled cart, and got 
 what provisions we could in the village, and settled ourselves 
 for the night in the travelers' bungalow. In the morning 
 we rose before the sun in order to get a good start. We 
 had not gone many miles before we discovered that the 
 bullocks were afraid of the jungle. They refused, at times, 
 to proceed, and at one place they suddenly turned off the 
 road and ran down hill. It was with great difficulty that 
 we managed to get the cart back on the road again. 
 
 If you ask a person how far it is to Harrai, he will tell 
 
 [98] 
 
you it is only twenty miles by foot, as the footpath between 
 the two places goes " as the crow flies." So at one place when 
 Miriam and I were walking we saw a well traveled footpath 
 and decided to follow it. We let the tonga go on ahead 
 on the road, and struck off on the path. Suddenly we found 
 ourselves going down into a vale, but that did not trouble 
 us as we felt sure we would come up again on the other side. 
 But we were going lower and lower into a very dense jungle, 
 we could see only ten feet ahead, and the main road had been 
 entirely lost to us. It struck me that this would be a dread- 
 fully unsafe place to be in should tigers be prowling about. 
 Miriam suddenly slipped and fell and hurt her knee badly. 
 To turn back seemed to be the only safe thing to do, so we 
 did. I tried to carry Miriam, but a five-year-old child is 
 too heavy to carry a long distance. We reached the road 
 with difficulty, to find that the tonga was nowhere in sight 
 or hearing, and poor little Miriam was crying with pain. We 
 had to hurry, as I was afraid that the tonga driver would go 
 on to Harrai and not wait for us, thinking that we would 
 come out of the woods at some place ahead. After a mile 
 we overtook the tonga and were glad to get in and ride a 
 while. I determined to deny myself any further pleasure 
 of finding a short cut to Harrai. We reached our destination 
 at two p. M. and found a refuge, though our anxiety over 
 the folks we had left behind could not be overcome. It is 
 all past and gone now, but I do not think I shall ever forget 
 that trip through the jungle. 
 
 Mrs. H. C. Scholberg. 
 
 [99] 
 
THREE YOUNG EP WORTH LEAGUERS 
 AND THE STORY OF THEIR LIVES 
 
 Even though we have lived in this land only six short 
 years, we have come across many different sorts of folks. A 
 traveler, casually passing through India, goes home and 
 writes a book in which he pronounces the native of Hindustan 
 a very bad creature. We agree with him sometimes — and 
 then again we see such possibilities in the young lives en- 
 trusted to our care, and we watch them grow up into such 
 noble and useful young people, that we decide the traveler 
 was mistaken in some cases. The longer we liver here, the 
 more firm becomes our belief that even an Indian has much 
 chance of becoming just what God intended he should be. 
 So I shall try to tell you the story of three boys who came to 
 this orphanage about fifteen years ago and have grown to 
 young manhood in our school. 
 
 I. GANESH 
 
 The first boy is Ganesh, and he was a little lad of six, 
 presumably, when he was going home from his step-sister's 
 and lost his way. We shall never know just how he got here, 
 for it is not written down in history and his own memory is 
 very defective on that point, but we are sure it was one of the 
 providences ordered by God himself. The missionary 
 received him from the hands of a policeman, so it is most 
 likely he was found on some quiet road, not knowing the way 
 home. He was so very happy in his new home that he feared 
 some one might come some day to take him away. When he 
 would be playing on the playground and would see people 
 passing on the street he would scamper away and hide if he 
 noticed that anyone looked particularly at him. Being a 
 bright lad, he finished primary school in three and one-half 
 years and entered middle school. When he was about 
 fourteen he had a desire to see his old home, which he faintly 
 
 [lOO] 
 
remembered, so he asked to go back. The missionary- 
 granted his request when he saw that Ganesh was eager to go 
 and would take his Bible with him and preach the gospel. 
 But what changes had been wrought in those eight years! 
 His mother did not recognize him, nor he her. He began to 
 tell his story and she supplemented the parts he could not 
 tell. Yes, this was her lost son who had come back to her! 
 How gladly they received him and assured him of a welcome 
 back into his caste, which he had broken when he became a 
 Christian. They would pay the money necessary to rein- 
 state him in his caste, but was he not willing? Surely this 
 young lad, who stood up so proudly declaring he couldn't 
 leave a living God to follow deaf idols and speechless images, 
 did not know what he was saying! But gradually the truth 
 dawned upon their minds — Ganesh would never again be 
 their son in the way he was before. He remained at home 
 during the vacation, and when school began again he was 
 seen once more on the playground and in his classes. He had 
 grown much older during vacation days and gained much 
 independence, and would no longer hide from anyone passing 
 on the street. As he grew up he came into a deeply religious 
 experience and did much to deepen the spiritual life of the 
 school. When school days were over he took charge over the 
 workshop, and under his business-like management and strict 
 honesty the shop not only began paying all its expenses, but 
 began to give about ten dollars a month into the mission 
 treasury. It is not only a training school for twenty-five 
 boys, in shoemaking, carpentry, and blacksmithing, but it is a 
 training school for building manly characters, with such an 
 excellent example at its head. Though not large of stature 
 he has a commanding influence, for one cannot help but see 
 his deep earnestness and whole-hearted sincerity. His 
 parents are very proud of him, and they beg of him to come 
 back, and belong to them once more. He loves them, and he 
 keeps from his own pocket-book a man in his place on the 
 farm. He tells them of Christ every opportunity he gets 
 and has great influence over them, but so far they have been 
 unwilling to leave their caste. 
 
 [ lOI ] 
 
II. GAZRAJ 
 
 The second boy is Gazraj. Like Ganesh, he was born of 
 high caste people, but his parents made their living by 
 being professional poisoners. They did a thriving business 
 in this land of crime, before they were caught and condemned 
 to jail for fifteen years. Gazraj was taken into our orphanage, 
 as he had no relatives to whom he could go, except an older 
 brother who had service as a cook in a government official's 
 home. This brother is now at Aden, in the same service, but 
 now drawing a good salary. He, too, has become a Christian. 
 The father died in jail, but the mother lived to see a time of 
 freedom. There was nothing she could do for a living but 
 bake bread, so she was given employment in our orphanage 
 cookhouse so that she might, as she desired, be near her son, 
 who had now grown to be a young man. We came to this 
 station about that time and plague days were just on. Every 
 one who worked in any way about the mission premises was 
 ordered to be inoculated and this old woman had to submit 
 with the rest. The usual fever came on at once and she, 
 abstaining from food for several days on account of being 
 unclean (as is their belief when anything European touches 
 them), became hungry. Her guru (religious teacher of the 
 Hindus) told her that if she would bathe she could then have 
 food. So in high fever she bathed, and having moved out to 
 the plague camp and living in a hut, she took cold, got 
 pneumonia and died. Gazraj had taught her much of the 
 Bible, so for his sake we did not give her body to the Hindus 
 to be burned, but allowed him to have a quiet corner of 
 our Christian graveyard where his mother's body now lies. 
 He was given work as a teacher; had gone up three times for 
 the matriculation examination, but repeatedly failed. This 
 year he was working so very hard and persistently that I 
 offered to give him extra time in English, for that subject 
 he found the most difficult. So every evening he came to 
 the bungalow and read the entire course with me. It was 
 dreary work for me, for I felt doubtful that he would pass, 
 but I was much rewarded to learn, a month ago, that he did 
 pass at last, and had been selected to take the two years' 
 
 [102] 
 
course at the Government Training College in Jabalpur, all 
 his expenses being paid by government. Some folks say 
 that the Indian people are ungrateful, but this young man's 
 heart just overflows with gratitude for what we have been glad 
 to do for him. After two years he will again take his place 
 on our staff of teachers, this time as a trained one. 
 
 III. SABBA 
 
 The third boy is Sabba, who like the other two could 
 boast, if he wished to, of being well born. His father's caste 
 is almost as high as a Brahmin. He was a little child of 
 two years when his mother brought him with her and his 
 sister of eight years to the government hospital of this 
 place. The little girl was ill and was brought for treatment. 
 Day and night, the mother and little Sabba waited on the 
 hospital veranda for the child to get well. But she did not 
 recover. Whether it was the child's death that drove the 
 mother mad, or what it was, no one knows, but she suddenly 
 disappeared, leaving her little boy to the mercy of circum- 
 stances. The hospital authorities gave him to the mission 
 where he found a home, and he grew to be a tall, well- 
 built young man of clean habits and pleasing manners. 
 When school days were over, the position of house father 
 being vacant, he was given a trial. No one could have taken 
 hold of his work with more vim and determination than he; 
 no one could have endeared himself to the boys of the 
 orphanage more than he has done in the months since he has 
 been at this work. A house father in this country is the 
 name given to the man who takes care of the boys in an 
 orphanage. He gives out the grain to the grinders, weighs 
 out all the foodstuffs, gives out the food, when it is cooked, 
 to the boys, looks after their clothes and bedding, calls them 
 together for prayers, punishes them for disobedience, and 
 looks after their morals generally. Sabba has done even 
 better than we expected, although we felt he was just the 
 one for that work. He has often gone to his father's house 
 and knows that his mother died about ten years ago. He has 
 one married brother who lives near his old home in the village, 
 
 [103] 
 
and two sisters at home. They have many times begged him 
 to give up his religion and come back to them, but he says he 
 has no temptation so to do. 
 
 We get discouraged sometimes because we see so few 
 results, but when we consider that there may be many more 
 boys just like these among our groups of homeless and cast- 
 off ones, we take new heart. And when we wonder what 
 these boys might have been had our church never established 
 an orphanage here, we pause a moment to thank God. In a 
 few more years our faces will be turned homeward, but we 
 shall be so glad that we have had the opportunity to follow 
 up the work the missionaries have done before us. All the 
 inconveniences we have met with, and the troubles we have 
 endured, will be as nothing compared to the joy of seeing 
 these young men take their places in life's game and play 
 their part manfully and honorably. With our faces turned 
 toward the home for a year of rest and a cool climate, I am 
 sure we will say from our full hearts: "Now lettest Thou thy 
 servants depart in peace, for we have seen Thy salvation." 
 
 Ella C. Scholberg. 
 
 [104 
 
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