I am not going to describe Miyanoshita because it has been very well done by scores of writers, but I will say that the Fujiya Hotel, away up in the mountains, at the head of a glorious canyon, is one of the most splendidly situated, finely managed and wholly delightful places I ever saw.
And there are plenty of things to do. We were carried in chairs over a high mountain pass to Lake Hakone, which, still and bright as a plate-glass mirror, lies right at the base of Fujiyama and reflects that startlingly beautiful mountain in perfect colour and form.
Then there are temples and wayside shrines, and teahouses—teahouses everywhere. We were coming back from a tramp one day and stopped at a teahouse not far from our hotel where we encountered an Englishwoman who gave us our first conception of what the terrible Boxer Insurrection was like. She entered into talk with us at once and told us a most tragic story. She was a missionary from the interior of China and had been forced to flee before the Boxers and make her way out of the country in hourly peril and through scenes of the utmost horror. Her husband had elected to remain at his post and she didn’t then know but that he might already have died under the worst imaginable torture. She made our blood run cold and we were tremendously sorry for her, though she did tell her harrowing story calmly enough. It seems she had with her a young Chinese refugee who was a convert to Christianity and, because of that fact, in even more danger in China than she.
We expressed our sympathy and good wishes and continued on our way. But we hadn’t gone far when we heard a frantic shouting behind us:
“Have you seen my Chinaman! Have you seen my Chinaman anywhere on the way!”
It was the missionary, distracted and running violently after us; and, we had not seen her Chinaman. She rushed past and up into the woods faster than one would have thought she could run, and all the time she kept calling, “Joseph! Joseph!” at the top of her voice. We decided that Joseph was the Chinaman’s new Christian name since we had heard that they all get Biblical names at baptism. We hastened along, thinking she might have gone suddenly mad and we wondered what in the world we should do. But as we came around a bend in the road we saw her coming toward us with a grinning little queued heathen marching meekly before her. She was looking very much relieved and stopped to explain her rather extraordinary conduct.
“I was perfectly certain that boy had committed suicide,” she began.
“Why, what made you think that?” I asked.
“Well, he wrote that, and I found it!” And she thrust into my hand a piece of paper on which was scrawled in printed characters:
Just as I am, without one plea,
Save that Thy blood was shed for me,
And that Thou bid’st me come to Thee,
O Lamb of God, I come, I come.
She explained that Joseph had had a great deal of trouble; was away from his people; that Chinamen didn’t care anything about their lives anyhow; and that she had been afraid for some time that he would grow despondent and do something desperate.
But there stood Joseph, broadly smiling and looking for all the world like an oriental cherub who would have liked very much to know what all the commotion was about. Poor chap, he didn’t understand a word of English and had been merely trying to learn the words of an English hymn by copying them, in carefully imitated letters, on bits of paper.
In the meantime my husband had arrived in Manila and had already sent me several letters through which I came gradually to know something of the situation he was facing.
The principal impression I received was that between the Commission and the military government, in the person of General Arthur MacArthur, there did not exist that harmony and agreement which was considered to be essential to the amicable adjustment of Philippine affairs. In other words, General MacArthur seemed to resent the advent of the Commission and to be determined to place himself in opposition to every step which was taken by them or contemplated. It was not very easy for the Commissioners, but as far as I can see now, after a careful reading of all the records, they exercised the most rigid diplomacy at times when it would have been only human to have risen up and exercised whatever may be diplomacy’s antithesis.
The description of the arrival of the Commission made me rather wish I had accompanied them;—except for the heat. It was June and my husband said the sun beat down upon and came right through the heavy canvas awnings on the decks of the Hancock. The men had, by this time, become accustomed to their ill-fitting white linens, but they had not yet mastered the art of keeping them from looking messy, and they must have been a wilted company during their first few days in Manila.
They came up into the harbour on Sunday and during the course of the day received many interesting visitors. General MacArthur was not among them, but he sent a member of his staff, Colonel Crowder, to present his compliments and make arrangements for the going ashore ceremony the next day. Then came the
