Kiukiang, China,

May 25th, 1875

My Dear Sister Rose:

Your long and interesting letter of Feb. 23d reached me 3 weeks ago. The letter previous was not lost in the Japan, for the Shanghai mail brought over by the Pacific Mail Steamship Co. always changes steamers at Yokohama, which was the reason we received ours. The missionaries in Foochow, however, lost their mail by the burning of the steamer.

It has become quite hot here already -- as hot, perhaps, as you will have it when this letter reaches you. A fine breeze is blowing almost every day, which makes our rooms comfortable. Dr. Tarbell and his family arrived the other day, from Lynn, Mass. He is a droll, waggish kind of a man, reminding me in his ways very much of Dr. Tiffany. We think he will be very successful in his work, as he has had eight years' practice at home, and is a skillful surgeon. He has been trying to persuade Miss Mason to unite with him in building one hospital instead of two, in which she can have charge of her own department, just as if she were in a separate building. I think this will be the only practicable thing for Miss Mason to do, for she has not physical strength to manage a hospital herself. She has been sick in one way or other ever since she came to Kiukiang; and I doubt if she can stay more than three or four years before she has to go home for a change. This climate is enervating on the most robust constitutions. I have fallen away a good deal since I came here, and still my health is excellent. I think I am the healthiest person in the Mission, or at least was before Dr. Tarbell came.

Quite a calamity befell our Mission a few days after my last letter home. Our beautiful new chapel in the city was destroyed by a Chinese mob. They were incited by an ignorant stone cutter, who spread a report that his boy had been shut up in the school rooms behind the chapel, and was being horribly mutilated by the foreigners or their servants. An hour before, I attended preaching in the chapel, and the people were as civil as usual; but now the people became excited, broke in the doors and windows, smashed to pieces or carried off the furniture, pillaged the rooms of the helper and chapelkeeper and made them fly for their lives, and demolished the school buildings in the rear of the premises. The riot broke out about 6 P. M. and in five hours the place was all in ruins. The native authorities, however, took the matter in hand at once, and without waiting for the interposition of Consular authority, granted us full indemnity for our losses, and hired a carpenter to rebuild the chapel and put the entire place in the same state that it was before. Their conduct was highly honorable, as the losses, etc., amounted to 1000 dollars and upwards. The repairing of the chapel buildings has been begun, and is going on every day. Proclamations have been issued by the officials, refuting the slanderous charges made against us and our work, and warning the people to let us alone and attend to their own business. The event may ultimately be for our advantage, in granting us better security in the future in the possession of our rights; but at present it has thrown us back very * far, and we do not expect to see any outward signs of prosperity in our

Mission for months to come. The Chinese are naturally as harmless and good humored as any people in the world; but when they are aroused they are as unfeeling and unprincipled as so many brutes. The literary men are our chief enemies, and are generally at the bottom of every disturbance. Rumors are every now and then set afloat, to the effect that foreigners bring the native children to their schools for the purpose of taking out their eyes and heart, to use in making medicine. This diabolical slander, which seems to have sprung from the pit of hell, is a favorite topic among those who hate us and our work, and it gave rise to the horrible massacre of French Catholics in Tientsin a year or two before I came out. There is still a bitter opposition to foreigners in many parts of China, and the presence of foreign iron clad gunboats is the only thing that keeps it from breaking out.

I think I said something in my letter to father about the new boat Bro. Hart has recently purchased for the Mission. Since that time I have taken my first trip in it, in company with Bro. Hall and wife, Bro. Cook, and Miss Mason. We were gone nine days, penetrating to cities 120 miles in the interior, where but few foreigners had ever been, and no foreign lady. The tour was an exciting, interesting, delightful one, and we all enjoyed it very much. By this mail I send a full account of it to Bro. Gordon, Portsmouth, O. I had not patience to write it out a second time, to send to you. The people on the whole were very friendly and respectful, and treated us kindly. We sailed up the Poyang lake to Wu-chen, 60 miles; then across to the East Poyang lake, which in some places was fifty miles across, and looked like a sea. It was cut up into beautiful little islands, green with verdure, and sometimes with farmhouses or villages upon them. The most picturesque scenes were where three little conical hills would rise out of the water side by side, separated by only a few hundred yards, and none of them affording more room than would be enough for a picnic party. Almost every day we would come to anchor in some quiet place, and go on shore for a stroll. At one place we stopped by an old ruined pagoda, which stood on a steep bank; close by was a village of perhaps a hundred people, and in the rear a most lovely grove of trees, which we explored to our heart's content. There were some sassafras trees, which looked like old acquaintances but the others were mostly strange. The first night we were in the East Poyang lake was a beautiful moonlight one, and we anchored in a quiet little cove with green hills half enclosing it around. The shores were silent and deserted, but up from the still waters of our little harbor came the croak, croak, croak of about 3,000 frogs, reminding us sweetly and powerfully of many a scene in our home land. We sold a great many New Testaments on the tour, to people who had never heard the name of Jesus. May God help them to understand the words of eternal life.

Now I must close. We are separated by an almost incomprehensible distance, but daily my prayers go up for all the members of the loved home circle. May it one day be found complete in heaven.

Your aff. brother,

A. Stritmatter