Chapter 2 1907-1911

Five Years in Unknown Jungle    

2.01

            One his return home from India in 1911, Reginald Lorrain published ‘Five Years in Unknown Jungle’. This was a substantial book size report of the Mission’s progress so far. This chapter is entirely gleaned from that book. It also appears to be almost the main source of much that has been written about the Mission so far.

2.02

To preparation for his great task Reginald spent a year 1905/6 at Livingston Missionary College in London. He and Maud set about assembling what resources they could muster for their new life. Without the backing of a Mission Society they were dependant on their modest circle of friends and supporters including members of their own Penge Congregational church. We can only guess how much of their own resources they ploughed into launching their project. They lived through the next five years on little more than £150 a year. This might be adequate at that time for a modest lifestyle in England but; oil, flour and other basics, when carried into the remote hills, could cost several times their market price. Maud and Reginald married at Penge Congregational Church on 12^th November 1906. On 18^th of January 1907 they bid farewell to friends and family at Euston Station and set out for Liverpool docks. They sailed of the Steam Ship Glasgow, arriving at Calcutta on 16^th of February having called at Port Said and Colombo. Reginald’s brother Herbert and his wife arranged to meet these ‘innocent aboard’ and induct them into the ways of India. Together they stay for several days at the Baptist Missionary Society’s house in Calcutta while further supplies were bought and pack for the hills. The next stage of the journey was by train to the river port of Goalundo on the Ganges. Here they boarded a steamer for a five-hour journey down stream to Chandpur. The steamer and the rail companies permitted missionary and their families to travel 1^st class whilst only paying for 2^nd. On this occasion that was a great relief as the boat was packed with over 1000 passengers. From Chandpur there followed an overnight rail journey to Chittagong. From here on the trappings of 20^th century life began to slip away. They consigned their baggage to dugout canoes travelling themselves by light river steamer. Although only sixty miles the journey became a three day ordeal after they ran aground more than once on sand bars and were obliged to wait for the tide to get off. To add to their discomfort there was a plaque of red ants on board that ruins the food they had taken along for this part of the journey. At Barkal they left the steamer and were obliged to join their baggage and travel by dugout canoe. Rapids now obstruct any further navigation except by these light craft. Each canoe was about 35 feet long by 4 feet wide and formed from the whole trunk of a tree with the centre literally ‘dug out’. 

The boats had bamboo matting hoods covering all but a few feet at the bow and stern with a 4-foot gap in the middle. Headroom under the covers was limited to about 4 feet. The Lorrains travelled, one couple in each boat. The boats provided a small living and sleeping area for the passengers and room for their boxes. The three-man crew ate and slept under the front 6 feet of the covered area. They travelled and slept in these basic boats for several days. From time to time rapids obstructed their progress, on each occasion the boats would be unloaded and hauled around on trolleys while the baggage was carried to the new launching. At Demagiri they left the water to finish their journey by pony and foot. Some of Herbert Lorrain’s Lushei Churchmen met them at the riverhead to escort the party the last four days to Lunglei. The new Missionaries were now in the jungle-covered hills that were to become their home for the rest of their lives. Reginald recounts his first impressions as they made their way to Lunglei, “Up hill, down hill, mile after mile, steadily we rode on, seated on our little mountain ponies, along paths that were only a few feet broad, where on the one side was a high wall of jungle and rock, on the other steep slope hillside which was also covered with jungle, consisting of bamboos, trees which are evergreens, palms of various species all intertwined with vines”.  By the time they reached Herbert’s station at Lunglei Maud and Reginald’s journey had already taken nearly three months. The hills are subject to heavy tropical monsoon rains from April into September, as the travellers arrived the weather was already beginning to break. Their final destination was still some eight days walk south but it would be impractical for them to attempt to settle in until the rains had cleared. Reginald did not waste his time; he immediately sets about getting a working knowledge of the Lushai language whilst shadowing his brother in his general mission work. The Lushai Church was already becoming well established after several years of dedicated work by the Baptist Mission under Herbert and his predecessors. The Church had been praying regularly for some time for the conversion of the Lakher tribe, consequently a great welcome was laid on for these new Missionaries. It took weeks for all their baggage to be brought up form the riverhead; Reginald going down himself to supervise the loads. Baggage for hill porters would be made up into packets of around 30kg which they would carry bearing the load with a headband across the forehead while the bundle rested on the porter’s back.

2.03

On the 19^th September 1907 Reginald and Herbert with their wives set off for their new Mission Field. 

Most of their march south was alone the tops or upper slop of one of the great ridges, their last obstacle being the mighty Kaladan River. On arrival at the crossing they found the Kaladan still in spate and treacherously littered with tree trunks and other debris wash down by the monsoon rains. The government provided a dugout ferry at the crossing. The ferrymen took each load slowly some way up stream before being swept hundreds of yards back as they battled to cross to the far bank. After getting people and goods across, the ponies had to be persuaded to swim through the torrent. At last the party was safely across and all that remained was to make the last days ascent to village of Serkawr. The village chief and elders were aware of the plans of the missionaries but were less than enthusiastic about their arrival and made little effort to disguise their feelings. When no one came out to enquire or welcome the travellers as they enter the village the party made their way to the largest house, which proves to be chief’s Thylai’s home. Their reception by the chief’s allowed for only the minimum of hospitality although the party was allotted a hut to use and asked to return that evening for a council. When they gathered later on Thylai’s veranda Reginald explained through a Lushai interpreter that they had come to live amongst the Lakher people. They wished to befriend and help them and to tell them of the wonderful love of Jesus. Reginald asked if he might have a piece of land somewhere near the village on which he would build his own house. This was granted. Herbert and Reginald ask the chief and his elders if they were pleased that these white people had come. The response was positive but it would take most of the ensuing five years before that response could be called enthusiastic. After two hours the council was over and the brothers returned to their wives to take a frugal supper and give thanks to God that at last their long and tedious journey was now over, and that they had finally arrived in the land to which the Lord had called them some two and half years before.

2.04

Reginald and Maud had three great tasks before them. First they must build a house to provide a secure base from which to operate, it would also be essential to get to grips with the Lakhers unique language and lastly they would need to gain the confidence of these people, only then could their Mission begin to flourish. They soon found that to compound the villager’s indifferent they had entered a cashless society. Initially they could find no means to tempt Lakher’s to work for them or any acceptable currency by which they could induce the locals to sell them rice or vegetables. Fortunately the Government Official at Lunglei took pity on them and direct some of his Lushai men to work with Reginald for several weeks, long enough to get the new bungalow built. Maud was delighted with her new home and although it had a plaited bamboo floor and a thatched roof it was clean and dry. It would have to do until they returned from England after their next furlough, then Reginald would build a substantial bungalow with jungle sawn hardwood and a corrugated iron roof. For some months they struggled desperately being totally dependant on unreliable and costly supplies carried into the hills. Maud was the first to make a breakthrough through. While summers can be unbearably the thermometer may drop to 15c in the winter months. As autumn drew on Maud saw many little ones shivering miserably, she set too with her sewing machine making up little jackets for them out of any old clothes or bit of material. The parents soon came asking for Maud to run up something for them from their own cotton cloth. The Lakher’s spun their own cotton and wove fine pieces of cloth. In no time she was swamped with requests so to control the demand she made a small charge of eggs vegetables or even cash. Eventually Reginald too discovered that he could import salt into the hills in bulk, the Lakher’s would readily barter with him for this scarce commodity. It took them towards a year to stabilize their position within the local economy, during those first months they were times when they could lay hands on little or nothing to eat, Reginald often going out into the jungle hoping to shoot something to put in the pot.

2.05

They laboured on the bungalow with the Lushai helpers for more than two months. Clearing the site was backbreaking work; quantities of rock needed breaking out and shifting and then the best that could be done to get a bit of level ground. They had to go in search of Bamboo from the jungle, some for structural posts and beams and some to be split and  flattened to be woven into wall, floor and roof panels. Bamboo ties were needed to fix the whole structure together; nails were not used in this type of structure, finally the roof panels must be covered with thatch to make all weatherproof. The bungalow was built to the Lakher pattern and though durable enough these buildings were subject to storm damage. It would do for their first foothold in community but was less than adequate for their permanent workplace and residence. Meanwhile Maud was attempting to create a domestic regime without many of the commodities and conveniences of post Victorian England. Yeast for bread making presented her with a great difficulty. She experimented with banana yeast but this proved susceptible to weather conditions and unreliable. Often finding herself without the means of making bread for weeks at a time she eventually acquired a packet of hop yeast that proved satisfactory. Life continued to be difficult for the next two and a half years. It took them time to learn how to anticipate their frugal needs weeks or month in advance to allow for supplies to be carried in from so far and still they were only very slowly discovering ways to recruit local labour. Reginald was obliged to start each day with hunting for wild meet in the jungle and then carry water up four hundred feet from a spring below. He must also forage for firewood before he could even begin his mission tasks. Once the bungalow was completed Reginald set about making furniture. Their packing cases provided the timber for a table, for the remainder he had to develop his jungle skills and use the ubiquitous bamboo. Over the following months he produced chairs and many other useful objects to furnish their home.

All this time Reginald was diligently taking every opportunity to comprehend and record the Lakher language, quickly making notes in his pocket book as each object that came to hand was named. Towards Christmas their loneliness was relieved when a substantial British lead military force passed through the village. The soldier’s mission was to exact penalties from the village of Zongling for their kidnapping raid. The primitive road that gave the missionaries access to the area had been cut the previous season to allow the military access to that place. It was from Zongling that raiders had crossed into the lowlands to recapture their runaway slaves. They would now be made to pay a fine of twenty guns and to give an undertaking to cease raiding. For Reginald and Maud it was a great boost to entertain the Indian Army officers, the first Europeans that they had seen since Reginald’s brother and his wife had headed off back to Lunglei.

2.06

Reginald visited in the village regularly, eagerly learning any new word or language construct. But he did not feel able to address an audience publicly for more than a year. One day in October 1908 Reginald was in the village when the wife of the Chief from Saiha, a village about two days walk distant, asked him to tell them something of God’s work. With great trepidation Reginald agreed to come back later and address them. A large crowd had gathered to hear him in the open space in the centre Serkawr. First he sang a hymn, which he had translated into Lakher, and then he preached his first sermon. To his amazement he seemed to be free to speak clearly in this strange tongue. He came away praising God for the gifts of Pentecost. From then on he held regular meeting each week in the village. Early in 1909 Reginald set off on a three day preaching tour. On his route he came to the village of Tisopi where a man named Saro volunteered to support him as he spoke. Saro repeated Reginald’s words to those who where not able to hear or make out what the visitor was saying. Reginald asked Saro to come to Serkawr and help him with the translation work. Saro’s wife became angry at this request and threatened to divorce him if he had any more to do with the Missionary. A few days later Saro arrived at the Mission Station and offered his service, his wife kept her promise and promptly divorced him. Saro was quick and intelligent, soon mastering his letters and learning to read and write his own language. Together they laboured on the primary task of creating a dictionary. By the end of their five-year stay Reginald was able to put to the printers an English-Lakher and Lakher-English dictionary containing between 7,000 and 8,000 words. It took Reginald well into 1910 to produce a workable Lakher grammar.  

2.07

During 1908 Reginald open a school. At first four Lushai’s and then several Chins came making eleven in all but within a couple of months they all left for various reasons. Some weeks later two Lakher men in their late twenties from Saiha came asking to be taught. It was necessary for Maud and Reginald to feed their students and with as yet no schoolroom the bungalow veranda had to do for classroom. It was the beginning of the rainy season and not very comfortable also being only two scholars they were not very happy. Presently they asked if they might go back to their village for a little holiday but promised to return. After three weeks they were back with a friend. Another short semester followed in which they learnt to spell out their words and pronounce them. Again a short break was requested. Reginald’s efforts came to the notice of the government officials who offered to provide local labour if Reginald would build a schoolhouse, in due course this structure took shape. The new schoolhouse was 25 feet long and 15 feet wide and had two little classrooms on either side at one end, making a ‘T’ shape and a small spire was placed on the ridge as it was to be used also as a church. On 24^th August 1908 the school reopened, the original three brought three more recruits, by mid September there were eleven scholars. Feeding these boys and men placed a huge burden on Reginald and Maud’s disposal finances but they resolved to continue as long as they were able. Their schoolboys ranged in age from eight to thirty-five years. Reginald made an appeal to the supporters in England for extra funds to for the new work but without any immediate response. By November they could no longer afford to go on. The school was closed and remained so for nearly a year. Although this seemed to be a disaster it gave Reginald much needed time to enlarge the dictionary and to produce written material for his next students to use. On the 13^th September 1909 the school reopened with the original three boys, by the end of the year when they closed for a six-week Christmas break, there were sixteen. Through 1910 attendance rose to twenty-two, one student named Riato having completed a whole year. Again Reginald and Maud closed the school for Christmas 1910, thereafter they resolved never to close the school, instead they would send home just four students at a time for a two month break. Reginald reckoned that it cost £3 to keep each man or boy in school for each year. During 1911 some friends in England began support the school and the Indian Government granted £12 a year for the support of four students, even so Reginald and Maud were left with a significant shortfall, which they made up form their own meagre resources.

2.08

            One can hardly imagine how Reginald struggled to produce enough translated material to service both his Gospel Evangelism and the work of the school. He had only one hymn translated when he held his first public meeting and preached his first sermon in Serkawr. By the end of their second year he had thirty-seven hymns. His great priority was to translate the Bible into Lakher; St John was in draft form soon after the school reopened in September 1909. Everyone who joined the school, as soon as they could recognize and pronounce letters, began coping the Gospel of John out into their own exercise books. Reginald went through five redrafts before he submitted the gospel to the British and Foreign Bible Society for printing. He wrote a school primer for students to worked their way through, exercise by exercise; the Indian government coming to his aid again by printed this first school textbook. By the end of 1910 Reginald had embarked on a catechism style work entitled, “The Plan of Salvation from Genesis to Revelation. Initially each student coped this into his own exercise book learning it by heart in question and answer form. A typical school day began at five minutes to seven with the head boy ringing a loud gong calling all the students to line up at the back of the Mission Bungalow. At seven o’clock sharp Reginald would go out and salute them in military fashion to which they would respond in the same way. The assembled company was then given a list of tasks to be completed nine am. Some were allotted weeding or digging in the garden. The mission garden was by then making a substantial contribution to the economy of the household and school, at the same time doubling as a horticultural class. The Mission garden plot soon became a considerable local attraction with Lakhers from neighbouring village coming to view Reginald new methods and the novel plants he introduced to the hills. Another group of students would spend the first two hours in the care of the mission ponies, cows pigs and goats, grooming and foraging for fodder; again learning important lessons in animal husbandry. At nine o’clock the gong would call the students, each would then be equipped with a cake of soap together they would descend the four hundred feet to the spring and wash from head to foot. At  9.30 the school assembled for worship, this consisted of a hymn and prayer. Quite soon the students took responsibility for this duty from Reginald. Lessons would get under way with the students sitting around on the floor or on the small boxes that served as schoolroom furniture. Some would be learning their letters with the aid a slate, others beginning to read and write words and sentences, all with the aid of Reginald’s primer. Mostly students would work in pairs with the more advanced leading the newer arrivals. There would be a continual hum as instruction continues two by two. Reginald observed that the strangest thing seem to be how well they learnt despite on boy reading out loud a quite difficult piece of text while his neighbour concentrated loudly on another. At noon there would a one-hour break during which the students could eat and took free time, the afternoon session followed in similar lines until three or four o’clock depending on the season. Students lived in a bunkhouse near the school. They cooked the food provided for them, fetched their own water, gathered wood from the jungle and cared for their own needs under the supervision of the missionaries. Each Wednesday evening there was a combined and service and singing practice, on Sunday mornings there was Sunday School, Sunday afternoon a meeting and in the evening, weather permitting, an open-air meeting in the village. The students would all attend the village meeting, gathering round to sing the hymns with great gusto. There would often be more than a hundred villagers present at these weekly events. After the short gospel message questions would often come from someone in the crowd, once started many more question would follow giving Reginald ample opportunity to teach by dialogue. Each evening the students gather around their own fire, often singing hymns and adding their own sincere prayers. By this stage the school has become the backbone of the mission, touching every village throughout the Lakher tribe. When Reginald and Maud come to review their first five years of pioneer mission work they could report that two students had asked for their names to be enrolled as Christians. Despite this poor numerical response they had put in place heroic groundwork that would give them the satisfaction of seeing great return for their labours in years to come.

2.09

            Before setting out on their mission adventure Reginald, oblivious to any need for further theological training, had undertaken a year’s medical study at Livingstone College in London. This was to serve them in good stead for their own needs and the Mission’s. Only brother Herbert at Lunglei stood between them and about a month’s journey to the nearest hospital. Reginald brought modern medicine, however basic to the Lakher community.  Lakher people had a clear faith in one great God but when illness or misfortune struck they put this down to the work of evil spirits. To turn around their misfortune they would sacrifice domestic animals. Very early in their stay Reginald became aware of a sick child in the village. He went to the village and hailed the child’s father, he could not enter the house because of the totems that had been arranged around it. The father told him that he had made many sacrifices but without any improvement in his son’s condition. Reginald offered to come down with his wife and pray for the boy and administer such medicines as he could, but first the man must remove the totems and throw them over the cliff. After some serious thought the man invited Reginald and Maud to come to his son. His family were horrified by his defiance of the evil spirits and pleaded with him not to take the risk but he resolved to grasp this last chance for his son. Reginald and Maud came and did as they had promised. They asked that the noisy beer drinkers would leave, a beer feast was part of the customary sacrifice regime. Next then they attended to the boy who apart for his sickness had become quite neglected. The drugs worked, the child was fed and properly cared for and in due course recovered! From then on Reginald and Maud conducted a growing medical practice amongst the community, Maud appearing to take the burden of the daily dispensary hour. Reginald made little of the medical work in his book, ‘five years in unknown jungle’ apart for exceptional cases and summary comments such as, eleven hundred people seen and dispensed to this year.

2.10

            On 18^th September 1909 Maud gave birth to a daughter. This event created a great stir in the local community. Every aspect of the new arrival’s life was the subject of the utmost curiosity throughout the whole Lakher people. The child’s white skin was an object of speculation; what was the Europeans secret food or device by which they procured this phenomena. Maud’s management and feeding of the child also created much curiosity.

To everyone’s surprise the child received no boiled rice, only milk. To even greater amazement the child thrived on this unusual diet. This child may well have been the cause of the first significant decline in infant mortality in the hills. Reginald describes the Lakher practice of feeding all newborn’s, from their first moments on boiled rice. The mother would take a little boiled rice and after chewing it well pass it to the baby’s mouth. Most children would come to a crisis quite soon on this diet; this was called the ten-day fever. If the child rallied after this they may well survive but many succumbed and quietly expired. When it was gossiped aboard how well the mission child progressed, mothers were encouraged to try imitating Maud’s style of childcare. Very soon Reginald and Maud were informed that the child was to be known as the ‘Tlosai Zuq No’, which means Lakher Princess and from then on Reginald’s common title became ‘Tlosai Paw’, Father to the Lakher Princess and Maud ‘Tlosai No’, Mother to the same. This child’s advent gave the Pioneer Missionary’s their first big breakthrough in their relations with the local inhabitants. Through her early years Tlosai’s birthdays would be honoured by a party quest list including the village chief and towards a hundred others. When it came time for the family to leave on their first furlough the village chief lead the plea that their Lakher Princess would be brought back to them soon. In due course the baby was given the names: Louise Margaret Tlosai Lorrain, but ever after to be know simply as Tlosai, weather in the Indian hills, or England. Reginald’s description of Tlosai’s birth gives a whole breath of meaning to the term ‘Delivery’. Herbert and his wife arranged to come down from Lunglei to support then at the birth. When the visitors arrived on the opposite bank of the Kaladan the great river was still in its monsoon spate choked with an unpredictable mess of trees and other jungle debris. For three days they were obliged to wait helplessly with their destination in sight high on the opposite ridge. During this time Reginald’s wife contracted Typhoid fever. On arrival she was immediately put to bed and nursed in the best isolation that they could manage. Within a day or two Maud’s labour began. After three full days struggle she had still not given birth and was becoming critically weak. The brothers were facing the harsh prospect of both losing their life partners within a very few hours. Herbert recalled that he had brought along a small consignment of drugs, which he had not yet fully explored. He and Reginald turned to their medical textbooks and concluded that one of the new medicines may just help Maud. The drug worked and quite soon Reginald was cradling his firstborn. Herbert’s wife’s fever passed its crisis about the same time and both ladies recovered form their dark vale experiences. One can only marvel at the mercy of God and the cool fortitude of these Gospel Pioneers.   

2.11

            Five Years in Unknown Jungle makes few references to the medical work of the Missionaries. In their first year Reginald recalls one notable event. He became aware that a family had a very sick child. The father had made, as was the custom, several costly sacrifices from his domestic animals, the tribal belief being that illness and other misfortunes were the work of malevolent demons, they would only relent if they were sufficiently appeased. Reginald was walking in the village when the man came out of his house, he called to him offering to bring his medicine and pray for the child, but the man must first throw over the cliff the magic totems and cordon that had been arranged around the house. The man said that he had little left to sacrifice and would accept Reginald’s help. Later that day Reginald and Maud when to the house, finding as promised that all the totems had gone. Inside there was as was, customary at illness, a beer fest in progress causing a great deal of noise and argument. They asked for the visitors to be removed, finding first that the child had been neglected; they gave what medicine they had and prayed for the boy also making sure that he received better attention. He recovered. Reginald only seemed to attend to serious medical needs while Maud held the daily dispensary.  

2.12           

As Reginald and Maud’s first five years of Pioneer work drew to its close he describes their daily routine, “we rise at five and are rarely to bed before midnight”. He had set himself goals to attain before they returned to England one of these was a working dictionary. Maud would toil well into the evening on her sewing machine while Reginald entered all the newly learnt words from the day into his dictionary. They returned to England with the manuscript for an English – Lakher, Lakher – English dictionary with between 7,000 and 8,000 words, ready for the printers. The little hymnbook of 37 items needed enlargement; Reginald’s next edition would contain 88 hymns. One can only be amazed at the industry of this pair; he also produced in the local tongue, a new primer for the school, a grammar for the Lakher language, St John’s Gospel, the book of Jonah and a Catechism style plan of Salvation through the Bible. Reginald recorded constant calls to dispense for people sick, through their medical work he claimed to have made contact with every village in the Lakher district. The Missionaries were not allowed to visit Lakhers over the Burma but through their medical work and the school they have many contacts with them. Beside his projects the school took up a large piece of Reginald’s day, he constantly visited and held meeting throughout the villages. As they set off for their home break there is much for which to praise God. A sound footing for future work had been laid and the little family had been preserved and had prospered far out from their roots by the mercies of God. Although Reginald could only claim two names yet entered on the role of believers the groundwork had been done. The Lakher people had already begun to take hold of their twin endowments of Gospel and Literacy.