Palisadian., 1925-12-11
Interesting Letter
From Rev. Hunter

Dear Mr.. Lane-This japanese pas
senger list is really a cross-section of
human nature as seen in the Orient.
There is the sophisticated mil
lionaire of Tokyo who, with an under.
graduate of Keio University, has been
touring the United States and picking
up impressions not entirely fiattering
to the Occident. On the other hand,
young Domoto, the Psi u. Junior from
Amherst and his three sisters, one of
whom has just been graduated from
Wellesley, will be able to tell his
friends in Japan that there are stand
ards and ideals in America which the
Orient needs. He says that in his cir
Gle in Tokyo there is still such ad-
herence to the old ways, that were he
to walk along the street with any girl
who was not his sister his photograph
would appear in the papers next morn
ing. Then there is the fellow on
crutches who is returning from three
years of college life in Iowa. While
he and several friends were about to
step on a street car in Iowa City a
drunken motorist crashed into the lit
tie group, sending him to the hospital
with twenty fractures in his leg. The
doctors bill has been paid by the
automobile insurance taken out of the
wild American Jehu. He feels no
grudge His college friends have
treated him wonderfully we'll. His
account will be one of appreciation and
genuine understanding. His father,
incidentally, is one of the leaders in
the temperance movement in the Jap
anese empire and is a thorough Chris
tian, as he is himself. He says that a
few years ago it was as difficult to be-
come a Christian in Japan as it would
be for one to become Mohammedan
in America, but now there are so
many influential thinkers who,
through the Christian spirit, are
changing the life of the whole country
that there is not such price to pay
All kinds of missionaries are on
board. Some are not what you would
call ultra-sophisticated Perhaps they
rely a bit too much on the "Christian"
General Feng, who invited a bandit to
victory banquet and then had him
murdered. Had not Joshua extermi-
mated the Canaanites?
Others of the missionaries are sur
prisingly up-to-date in their point of
view and in their methods. OF these
the most interesting is the farmer
missionary to Rhodesia. Mr. Alvord
had not yet heard of the Robert Nc
Clellans. He has no doubt that he
will see them. Maybe they will go on
lion hunting party some day at Mt.
Selinda He would like to see those
pythons Maxine writes Of that greet
one at ones front door on their hind
legs. The largest one he has killed
yet was only seventeen feet long; it
could glide, but it couldn't waltz. One
day while shooting buck near the mis-
sion farm he found himself without
any cartridges and lion twenty
yards ahead eyeing him with hun
CRY look and tail twitching. Now,
this farmer missionary had been cap
tain of his Washington State football
team and on Walter Camps honor
list. He had also been in the ring and
on the mat. There was only one
chance. He took it. Staring back at
the lion, he aimed his empty 30-30
straight into the old fellows face and
started to walk toward him. The
king of the jungle lost his nerve, but
not his dignity. Bluffed out of meal,
he marched off pompously, head and
tail at the honorable angle.
From his description of African buff
falo. booming ostriches, stampeding
elephants, lightning swift rhinos, wal
lowing hippopotami and antic balloons
the McClellans will have more than
tennis to amuse and absorb them.
There is no Dayton, Tenn, in Rho
desia. The Bantus, instead of abhor-
ring kinship with the apes, assume it.
The reason they are brothers of the
baboons is this: Long. long ago an
erratic Bantu man was driven off into
the veldt. A witch woman used to
slip off from the kraal of native huts
and give him food The tribe discov-
cred her and drove her out to the
wilderness too. The two of them
would make raids on the village and
steal what they could. All balloons
are descended from them. That is
why baboons are pilferers Even So
you mustn't kill them if you can help
it, for they are kinsmen OF course
when they run off from your field with
armfuls of corn you can shoot arrows
at them. But they know just how far
the arrows can go, and they keep
alertly out of range.
The natives grow about ten bushels
of corn. Often they die of famine.
Most of the children have distended
stomachs from eating famine food
roots, etc Mr.. Alvord grows on his
model missionary farm record crop
of 106 demonstration bushels of she'll
ed corn per acre. Result the Chris
tian natives now get from fifty to six
ty bushels an acre.
There has been talk about typhoons
on this Pacific sea. But Mrs. Hunter
and l have faithfully been at our