The Nenana daily news. (Nenana, Alaska) 1918-1921, 1919-03-01
WORKER
DISCOVERS NEW
FIELD IN CHINA

miles from broadway, III lne WHO'S
of Western China where the foot
of a white man never before has
trod, according to the Rev. DR..
Joseph Beech, a Methodist mission
airy, lives a polygot nation of more
than 100000 persons. "95 per
cent of whom do not know that
there has been a war"
DR.. Beech, who is president of
the Western China Union University
at Chentu in the province of SEE
chuan, maintained by five evangeli-
cal denominations of England, Can
ada and the United States, and who
recently arrived here to participate
in the Methodist Centenary, told of
a journey he took alone, with a
native guide, last summer far into
the depths of the habitat of the
'tu-ren or children of the soil, the
strangest people in the Orient.
The doctor passed three weeks
among the twenty or more tribes in
the land, which is as inaccessible as
Thibet, he said, and while there
found almost every type of man
kind, including pygmies, men and
women resembling negroes, Ameri-
can Indians, East Indians, Gurkhas.
South Sea Islanders, Europeans and
other races apparently from all four
quarters of the globe. These
people, of course, he said, had
never been anywhere else than in
the country he found them, namely
in a region about the size of New
York state, bounded on the north
by the province of kansu. :ne Saut'
by Burnnah, Yunan and kweechow.
the east by Szechuan and the west
ny IHiDSt
Il found a land of beautiful
valleys, covered with fine farms
and homesteads," said the explorer
missionary, while towering above
them were mountains from 5000
to $4,000 feet high. The frontier
of the country was protected by
queer looking stone fortified build
ings, manned by natives armed with
weapons resembling the old-fashion
ed blunderbuss. 1t is not impossible
that these people were the origin
ators of gunpowder, for the Chin
csc who for years have tried to rule
them admitted it is of better quality
than the powder they make them
selves
although suspicious and warlike,
and hostile to some kinds of Chin
ese, the 'tu-ren' proved to be most
hospitable and fed and sheltered
US. Huge smokestacks in their
communities gave them the appear
ance of thriving industrial cities.
When we arrived we found they
were employed solely for the pur-
pose of drying and curing vege-
tables, meat and fish. which were
suspended tier upon tier the entir>
height of the chimney. .:......
F.. The architecture of the country
was distinctly foreign to China, re-
sembling in many respects the
feudal castles of Normandy. In
other respects it was not unlike the
structures of Babylon and Palestine.
Grain. for instance, after being har-
vested was threshed upon the roofs
of the house, just as in the Holy
Land. The houses themselves are
nothing more than boxes, with per-
haps one window from which the
odors and smoke of cooking es-
capes.
''On top of practically all the
fortified castles a flag was flown.
was told these were prayer flags
and had no special tribal or pat
riotic significance. Every man in
the country, apparently is "a law
unto himself Each tribe has it's
chieftan, but there is no national
head and China exercises only NOM
inal sovereignty.
"Quarrels are settled on horse