The Black-Bearded Barbarian by Mary Esther Miller MacGregor (latest books to read .TXT) 📕

Up and down the length and breadth of north Formosa, seeming to be in two or three places at once, went Kai Bok-su, during this time of reviving after the war. He would be in Kelung to-day superintending the new chapel building, in Tamsui at Oxford College the next day, in Bang-kah preaching a short while after, and no one could tell just where the next day.

But every one did know that wherever he went, Christians grew stronger and heathen gave up their idols. The Kap-tsu-lan plain, away on the eastern coast, seemed to be a sort of pet among all his mission fields, and he was always turning his steps thither.

For the Pe-po-hoan who lived there, while they were simple and warm-hearted and easily moved by the gospel story, were not such strong characters as the Chinese. So the missionary felt he must visit them often to help steady their faith.

Not long after the close of the war, he set off on a trip to the Kap-tsu-lan plain. Besides his students, he was accompanied by a young German scientist. Dr. Warburg had come from Germany to Formosa to collect peculiar plants and flowers and to find any old weapons or relics of interest belonging to the savage tribes.

All these were for the use of the university in Germany which had sent him out.

The young scientist was delighted with Dr. Mackay and found in him a very interesting companion. They met in Kelung, and when Dr. Warburg found that Dr. Mackay was going to visit the Kap-tsu-lan plain, he joined his party. The stranger found many rare specimens of orchids on that trip and several peculiar spear and arrow heads to be taken back as curios to Germany. But he found something rarer and more wonderful and something for which he had not come to search.

He saw in one place three hundred people gather about their missionary and raise a ringing hymn of praise to the God of heaven, of whom they had not so much as heard but a few short years before. He visited sixteen little chapels and heard clever, bright-faced young Chinese preachers stand up in them and tell the old, old story of Jesus and his love. And he realized that these things were far more wonderful than the rarest curios he could find in all Formosa.

When he bade good-by to Dr. Mackay, he said: “I never saw anything like this before. If scientific skeptics had traveled with a missionary as I have and witnessed what I have witnessed on this plain, they would assume a different attitude toward the heralds of the cross.”

Not many months later Dr. Mackay again went down the eastern coast. This time he took three of his closest friends, all preacher students, Tan He, Sun-a, and Koa Kau. With a coolie to carry provisions, their Bibles, their forceps, and some malaria medicine, they started off fully equipped. By steam launch to Bang-kah, by a queer little railway train to Tsui-tng-kha and by foot to Kelung was the first part of the journey. The next part was a tramp over the mountains to Kap-tsu-lan.

The road now grew rough and dangerous. Overhead hung loose rocks, huge enough to crush the whole party should they fall. Underneath were wet, slippery stones which might easily make one go sliding down into the chasm below.

As usual on this trip they had many hairbreadth escapes, for there were savages too hiding up in the dense forest and waiting an opportunity to spring out upon the travelers. Dr. Mackay was almost caught in a small avalanche also. He leaped over a narrow stream-bed, and as he did so, he dislodged a loose mass of rock above him. It came down with a fearful crash, scattering the smaller pieces right upon his heels; but they passed all dangers safely and toward evening reached the shore where the great long Pacific billows rolled upon the sand. They were in the Kap-tsu-lan plain.

Their journey through the plain was like a triumphal march.

Wherever a chapel had been erected, there were converts to be examined; wherever there was no chapel, the people gathered about the missionary and pleaded for one. They often recalled the first visit of Kai Bok-su when “No room for barbarians” were the only words that met him.

But Dr. Mackay wished to go farther on this journey than he had ever gone. Some distance south of Kap-tsu-lan lay another district called the Ki-lai plain. The people here were also aborigines of the island who had been conquered by the Chinese like the Pe-po-hoan. But the inhabitants of Ki-lai were called Lam-si-hoan, which means “Barbarians of the south.” Dr. Mackay had never been among them, but they had heard the gospel. A missionary from Oxford College had journeyed away down there to tell the people about Jesus and had been working among them for some years. He was not a graduate, not even a student—but only the cook! For Oxford College was such a place of inspiration under Kai Bok-su, that even the servants in the kitchen wanted to go out and preach the gospel. So the cook had gone away to the Ki-lai plain, and, ever since he had left, Dr. Mackay had longed to go and see how his work was prospering.

So at one of the most southerly points of the Kap-tsu-lan plain he secured a boat for the voyage south. The best he could get was a small craft quite open, only twelve feet long. It was not a very fine vessel with which to brave the Pacific Ocean, but where was the crazy craft in which Kai Bok-su would not embark to go and tell the gospel to the heathen? The boat was manned by six Pe-po-hoan rowers, all Christians, and at five o’clock in the evening they pushed out into the surf of So Bay. A crowd of converts came down to the shore to bid them farewell. As the boat shoved off the friends on the beach started a hymn. The rowers and the missionaries caught it up and the two groups joined, the sound of each growing fainter and fainter to the other as the distance widened.

All lands to God in joyful sounds

Aloft your voices raise,

Sing forth the honor of his name,

And glorious make his praise!

And the land and the sea, answering each other, joined in praise to him who was the Maker of both.

And so the rowers pulled away in time to the swing of the Psalm, the boat rounded a point, and the beloved figure of Kai Bok-su disappeared from sight.

Away down the coast the oarsmen pulled, and the four missionaries squeezed themselves into as small a space as possible to be out of the way of the oars. All the evening they rowed steadily, and as they still swept along night came down suddenly. They kept close to the shore, where to their right arose great mountains straight up from the water’s edge. They were covered with forest, and here and there in the blackness fires twinkled.

“Headhunters!” said the helmsman, pointing toward them.

Away to the left stretched the Pacific Ocean, and above shone the stars in the deep blue dome. It was a still, hot tropical night.

From the land came the heavy scent of flowers. The only sound that broke the stillness was the regular thud, thud of the oars or the cry of some wild animal floating out from the jungle. As they passed on through the warm darkness, the sea took on that wonderful fiery glow that so often burns on the oceans of the tropics. Every wave became a blaze of phosphorescence. Every ripple from the oars ran away in many-colored flames—red, green, blue, and orange. Kai Bok-su, sitting amazed at the glory to which the Pe-po-hoan boatmen had become accustomed, was silent with awe. He had seen the phosphorescent lights often before, but never anything like this. He put his hand down into the molten sea and scooped up handfuls of what seemed drops of liquid fire.

And as his fingers dipped into the water they shone like rods of red-hot iron. Over the gleaming iridescent surface, sparks of fire darted like lightning, and from the little boat’s sides flashed out flames of gold and rose and amber. It was grand. And no wonder they all joined—Chinese, Malayan, and Canadian—in making the dark cliffs and the gleaming sea echo to the strains of praise to the One who had created all this glory.

O come let us sing to the Lord,

To him our voices raise

With joyful noise, let us the rock

Of our salvation praise.

To him the spacious sea belongs,

For he the same did make;

The dry land also from his hand

Its form at first did take.

Dawn came up out of the Pacific with a new glory of light and color that dispelled the wonders of the night. It showed the voyagers that they were very near a low shore where it would be possible to land. But the helmsman shook his head at the proposal. He pointed out huts along the line of forest and figures on the shore. And then with a common impulse, the rowers swung round and pulled straight out to sea; for with Pe-po-hoan experience they saw at once that here was a savage village, and not long would their heads remain on their shoulders should they touch land.

The scorching sun soon poured its hot rays upon the tired rowers, but they pulled steadily. They too, like Kai Bok-su, were anxious to take this great good news of Jesus Christ to those who had not yet learned of him. When safely out of reach of the headhunters, they once more turned south, and, about noon, tired and hot, at last approached the first port of the Ki-lai plain. Every one drew a sigh of relief, for the men had been rowing steadily all night and half the day. As they drew near Dr. Mackay looked eagerly at the queer village. It appeared to be half Chinese and half Lam-si-hoan. It consisted of two rows of small thatched houses with a street between nearly two hundred feet wide.

The rowers ran the boat up on the sloping pebbly beach and all stepped out with much relief to stretch their stiffened limbs.

They had scarcely done so when a military officer came down the shore and approaching Dr. Mackay made him welcome with the greatest warmth. There was a military encampment here, and this was the officer as well as the headman of the village. He invited Dr. Mackay and his friends to take dinner with him. Dr. Mackay accepted with pleased surprise. This was far better than he had expected. He was still more surprised to hear his name on every hand.

“It is the great Kai Bok-su,” could be heard in tones of deepest respect from fishermen at their nets and old women by the door and children playing with their kites in the wide street.

“How do they know me?” he asked, as he was greeted by a rice-seller, sitting at the open front of his shop.

“Ah, we have heard of you and your work in the north, Pastor Mackay,” said his host, smiling, “and our people want to hear of this new Jehovah-religion too.”

The cook-missionary had evidently spread wonderful reports of Kai Bok-su and his gospel and so prepared the way. He was preaching just then in a place called Ka-le-oan, farther inland. When the officer learned that Dr. Mackay wanted to visit him he turned to his servant with a most surprising order. It was to saddle his pony and bring him for Kai Bok-su to ride to Ka-le-oan.

The pony came, sleek