The Laurens advertiser. (Laurens, S.C.) 1885-1973, 1905-05-10
A Letter From China.

Homer Owings, who recently went to
China to engage in mission work:
MACAO, CHINA, March /, '05
DEAR SISTERS: l write you all this
week as Brother Todd is going to Hong
Kong Friday and mail leaves there Sat
urday for home, so | send all of you a
letter by this mail. / suppose that you
received the letters / sent from Shang-
hai, China, and other ports. Friday
nighc, March the Bird, one month ago, /
arrived in Macao. | have been we'll
since have been here and well con-
tented. feel very much at home here.
Have plenty to eat. We have plenty
OF rice and tea of course. Beef, NUT
ton, chickens, fresh fish in abundance;
butter, sweet milk. We get butter and
milk from Australia. We have oranges,
bananas and other fruits-no apples.
Sweet potatoes, Irish potatoes, cab
bage, etc.
We have some vegetables and some
fruits that you don't have in the States.
We have had cold, cloudy weather since
have been here. The sun has shone
part of three days in about seven
weeks. We had fire four or five DAYS.
we have no freezing weather-no
frost. But the moisture in the atmos-
phere makes the cold that we do have
hurt worse than the cold weather in the
States. The cold air seems to go right
throguh you.
like Macao better than | thought |
would. 1t is not so filthy as other
ports of China. The Portuguese have
spent a good deal of money on this
place. Some of the streets have side
walks. Part of this city is very pretty.
About two weeks ago we went to
Canton, about 90 miles from Macao 10
attend the Association of the Baptists
of Southern China. We were enter
tanned by the missionaries of the Board.
They treated us very kindly. | went
to the Association once. All the speak
ing was done in Chinese. | couldn't UNI
derstand, so | didn't go back. The As
ISOLATION raised $500 90 for the work in
Southern China. Most of this was
raised by the native Christians. Does
Missions pay? On Saturday after
noon we attended the dedication of the
new Presbyterian Church. There we
saw an audience of about /, 00Onatives-
all Christians or in sympathy. 1t was
a wonderful sight. praised God and
took courage.
On Monday after Association we Sc
cured the services of Il guide and four
Sedan chairs to ride in and we went
through Canton sightseeing. The Sc
dan chair is a chair attached to two
poles and carried by two or three men
on their shoulders. We had three men
to each chair. A stranger can't find his
way Though Canton alone the streets
are so very narrow and so very crooked.
They make the streets crooked so as to
fool the dcvil-make him lose his way.
| stood in the middle of some of the
principal streets and could almost
touch the walls of the stores on each
side. All the streets will average
about as wide, probably a little wider,
than the sidewalks in Honca Path
Man is the only beast of burden that
travels them.
We visited several temples, saw the
heather worshipping idols of brass. In
one temple We're 500 gods. In an
other were 60 gods n god for every
year old a person is, to 60 years. A 10
year old person will worship a 10 year
old god, etc.
We visited the City of the Dead.
Here they have rooms which they rent
to the wealthy Chinese for them to
place their deceased relatives in, instead
of burying them. When one of their
family dies, he or she, is put in a cof-
fin and brought to the City of the Dead
and placed in one of these rooms. They
pay from $3.50 to $40.0 90 rent for the
first month and $500 to $500 monthly
afterwards and hire a cooley to keep
tea and cakes in a room on a table,
%supposing to feed the spirit of the de-
ceased. The dead remain here for 10,
10 or more years. A cooley is a labor
ing person, man or woman.
We visited two pagodas. These are
high towers, built for the purpose of
bringing luck to the place. We rested
and had tea and cakes in the 5th or top
story of one of them. The other one
was nine stories high. Then we visited
the Temple of Horrors or the Bud
dhists hell. According to their idea of
hell, they have in this place figures cut
out of stone which represent different
kinds of punishment in hell lone person
in a tub of boiling oil, some turning in
to sheep and calves, some beheaded,
some being sawed open from head to
foot. On sides are seen people (all fig
ures of %course) descending into hell.
While just in front of these doors are
numbers of fortune tellcrs and gam
blers. No idea of sin in the true sense.
We went to see the old water clock.
This clock was on the Chinese wall 200
years before Christ. These are the
most important places.
saw quite a number of meat mark
cts. In one | saw a dog dressed ready
for sale. In another were some rats.
| did not see them. But they really
cat dogs, cats and rats. A Chinaman
on the street of Macao told Mrs. Todd