Читать книгу A Half Century Among the Siamese and the Lāo: An Autobiography онлайн

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“Those were good words that came to our half-discouraged band—the tidings that we are to have helpers in our work.... In our loneliness we have sometimes been tempted to feel that our brethren at home had forgotten us. But we rejoice to know that there are hearts in the church which sympathize with us, and that you are willing to come and participate with us in our labours and trials, our joys and sorrows, for we have both.”

We were fortunate to secure very early passage for Bangkok. On Friday, June 18th, we reached the bar at the mouth of the Mênam River. The next day we engaged a small schooner to take us up to Bangkok. With a strong tide against us, we were not able that evening to get further than Mosquito Point—the most appropriately-named place in all that land—only to learn that we could not reach Bangkok until Monday afternoon. There was no place to sleep on board; and no sleeping would have been possible, had there been a place. By two o’clock in the morning we could endure it no longer;—the mosquito contest was too unequal. At last we found a man and his wife who would take us to the city in their two-oared skiff.