Finally, he gave up and went below to write one last journal entry from the Dumfries. “What peculiar feelings arise at the prospect of soon landing in an unknown country, in the midst of strangers—a country now to be my home and sphere of labor,” he wrote.
He put down his pen and tried to imagine what he would do when he finally reached Shanghai. He glanced at the three neatly stacked letters lying on top of his Bible. Thank goodness he had them; they were his link to a new life in China. The top two were letters of introduction from good friends in England to missionaries they knew in Shanghai. On the strength of their friendship and the letters, Hudson knew either missionary would be happy to advise him as he began his new life. The third letter was from a casual acquaintance in London to the prestigious Dr. Walter Medhurst of the London Missionary Society. Dr. Medhurst had written the book on China that Hudson had borrowed from the Congregational minister in Barnsley—the book that had influenced him to pursue medical training.
He tried to keep writing in his journal, but his mind kept wandering. What was China like now? Had the Taiping Rebellion finally been victorious over the Qing dynasty? There had been so many wonderful reports about what was happening before he left England. Had inland China opened up during the time he’d been at sea? He could hardly wait to find out.
As he picked up his pen to write some more, he heard the first mate yell, “Boat to starboard, all hands on deck.”
Hudson quickly blotted the ink dry and shut his journal. Excitement pulsed through his veins as he raced up on deck. He followed the gaze of the crew. Coming towards them like a gliding bird was a Chinese junk. Hudson stood and stared. He felt like he was living inside a picture book. He strained to see the Chinese sailors, and as the junk moved closer they became distinct individuals. They were all wearing dark blue pajama-like suits. As they moved, he could see their pigtails, or queues, as the Chinese called them, swaying behind them. A feeling of thankfulness came over Hudson. The years of preparing and waiting were over; the voyage was behind him. Come what may, God had brought him faithfully to China, and for the first time, he was seeing Chinese people face to face.
The Dumfries’ crew scrambled to catch the bowline as it was thrown from the junk. Soon the ship was tied up safely alongside, and a single Englishman emerged from among the Chinese sailors. He climbed the rope ladder that had been lowered over the side of the ship. When he finally stepped on deck, a cheer went up from the Dumfries’ crew. Their pilot had arrived. They would soon be on their way up the river to Shanghai.
The junk soon faded into the fog as effortlessly as it had come. The crew waited anxiously while the pilot and Captain Morris spoke together in the captain’s cabin. When they came out, the pilot informed them that instead of lifting, the fog was getting thicker. They would not be going anywhere today and probably not tomorrow either; it was just too dangerous to try to navigate the river in this kind of weather. Hudson was disappointed. But he soon entered into the spirit of things and, with the rest of the crew, began pumping the pilot for news of home.
The pilot told them Turkey and Russia were readying their armies to fight each other on the Crimean Peninsula. England and France had sent their Navies, and they were also sending troops to back up the Russians.
Had Queen Victoria sent the troops as a warning, or did she mean for them to fight? the crew wanted to know. How many English soldiers had been sent? Would more be going? Had the French sent as many soldiers as the English? Behind the questions lay the anxiety of twenty-three men, wondering whether their brothers and sons might be already fighting in the Crimea.
The pilot told them all he knew of the situation in the Crimea and then went on to tell them some local news. The crew were not nearly as interested in it, but Hudson was. China was his new home, and he wanted to know what was going on. The pilot had news of the Taiping Rebellion. When Hudson had left England five-and-a-half months ago, it seemed the rebellion would open up the heart of China to foreigners. He hoped it had by now, because he intended to stay in Shanghai only a short time before heading inland to explore and evangelize. But the news the pilot was giving him was very different from the rosy picture that had been reported back in England. The Taiping Rebellion had turned very violent. In Shanghai, a group of Taiping rebels known as the “Red Turbans,” named after the red turbans they wore, had seized control of the city. The city was now surrounded by thousands of Imperial troops who intended to take it back from the Red Turbans by force. A bloody civil war was raging.
Shanghai was divided into two parts, the old Chinese walled city, which the Red Turbans had actually seized, and the International Settlement, set up after the Opium War as a place for foreigners to live and trade. Unfortunately, the International Settlement was located outside the old city wall to the north and was caught right between the two opposing forces.
The two sides were busy firing cannons back and forth over the wall at each other. And, as so often happens in war, civilians were the main casualties. Hundreds of homes had been destroyed and thousands of people displaced.
As Hudson listened to the pilot speak, his heart sank. This was not at all what he’d expected. It was not how he had imagined things would be during the long months at sea. But there was even more bad news for Hudson. Because Shanghai was under siege, transporting even common things like rice and vegetables into the city was so dangerous that the prices of everything had skyrocketed. In the past month alone, prices had doubled, and the rate of increase didn’t seem to be slowing. Rent, too, had gone up, that is, if you were lucky enough to find a place to rent. With so many buildings and homes destroyed, it was almost impossible to find a house or room for rent in the city. This was particularly bad news for Hudson, who had nothing but a few shillings left in his pocket with which to support himself until he got more money from the Chinese Evangelization Society. Still, he had come this far, and he felt sure God would not let him down now.
As dawn broke over the Yangtze River on their second day at anchor, thick fog still clung to everything. It stayed that way until late afternoon, when it began to dissipate. As the fog lifted, Hudson caught his first glimpse of China. They were anchored off a low-lying, grassy island surrounded by a shoreline that seemed to be made of muddy silt rather than sand. As darkness fell, the pilot decided the fog had thinned enough to begin the trip up the river. Hudson stood on deck and watched the moonlit land pass by as the Dumfries began the last leg of its journey. By the time they reached Woo-sung at the mouth of the Hwang-poo River, the fog had descended again, and they were forced to drop anchor once more.
Since Hudson was a passenger, the pilot arranged for him to be taken up the river to Shanghai on another pilot’s junk. The small junk, with Hudson aboard, rocked back and forth but had little difficulty maneuvering in the fog. After several hours, it edged alongside a dock in Shanghai, and Hudson Taylor took his first step onto mainland China. It was Wednesday, March 1, 1854, and he had finally arrived. His feet were planted in China at last. He prayed a silent prayer, thanking God for His faithfulness in bringing him safely so far across the world.
The wharf was a bustle of activity, and around Hudson scurried Chinese men with plaitted queues bobbing from side to side as they made their way along. Most were wearing wide, cone-shaped straw hats, and some had bamboo poles over their shoulders. From the ends of the poles hung all sorts of things, from chickens and ducks to pails of liquid and baskets with eggs or grain in them. Hudson noticed two women. Their bound feet formed triangles at the bottoms of their legs, making them look more like horse’s hooves than feet. The women seemed to fall forward, rather than walk, as they tottered slowly along the waterfront. All around him, Hudson could hear the lilting, singsong sound of Chinese being spoken.
As he looked at the sea of Chinese faces everywhere around him, Hudson felt terribly alone. More than two hundred thousand people lived in Shanghai, and not one of them was expecting him. All his belongings and every person he presently knew in China were still aboard the Dumfries, at anchor off Woo-sung. Unconsciously, he reached in and touched the letters of introduction in his vest pocket. Thank goodness he had friends who had friends in Shanghai.
He walked to the end of the dock, where he looked left. Sure enough, just as the pilot had told him, there was the British flag raised above a large, white building. It was the British Consulate, which, among other things, kept records of all the British subjects in and around the International Settlement. Hudson made his way to the building. He noticed as he did so that the ground seemed to rock back and forth beneath his feet. After five-and-a-half months on a ship at sea, it was going to take him a little while to get used to walking on land again.
He stopped in front of the building and looked up at Queen Victoria’s coat of arms etched into the stone above the door. He swung the door open and stepped inside. Hudson was once again in a world with which he was familiar. He was standing in a room much like the lobby in the bank at Barnsley, only much, much bigger. In front of him was a large chart labeled “Ship Arrival and Departure Dates.” He scanned the chart quickly; the Dumfries was penciled in under the column marked “Expected,” but there was not yet any arrival date entered beside it. Hudson smiled to himself; he supposed not many passengers arrived before their ship.
Along the wall to his right was a counter. Above it hung a sign that read, “Royal Mail Received and Collected Here.” On the counter was a smaller sign that said, “Closed until 9 a.m.” Hudson’s heart sank. He’d hoped to check for mail, especially letters from his family and from the Chinese Evangelization Society. The society had promised to have a letter of credit waiting for him. With the letter he would be able to go to the society’s banking agent in Shanghai and withdraw some money. But it would have to wait until tomorrow. He didn’t like the idea, though, of arriving at a stranger’s house with little money, hoping they would offer him a bed for the night. But there was nothing he could do about it. He needed to get directions to the homes of the people named in his letters of introduction and make his way to visit them as fast as he could before dark.
He looked to his left. There was another counter with a sign above it that read, “General Enquiries.” He introduced himself to the clerk behind the counter and took out the letters of introduction.
“Who is it you’re looking for?” the clerk asked.
Hudson read the name off the front of the first envelope. “Pickering, Nicholas M.”
The clerk pulled out a wooden file box and sorted through it. “No, that’s not going to do you any good,” he said, pulling a card from the box. He read from the card, “Departed Shanghai, January 28, aboard the Sirene. Destination, San Francisco…. Probably got the gold mining bug,” he offered with a smile. “Anyone else?”
Hudson read the name from the next envelope. “Armstrong, Alfred B.”
“Here he is, Alfred B.” The clerk pulled another card from the box. “Oh dear,” he said, pausing to take a deep breath. “You’re not having much luck.”
He flipped the card over so Hudson could read it. Across the top in large, red letters was stamped the single word “DECEASED,” followed by the date, February 1, 1854.
“I am sorry about that,” the clerk added with a sympathetic tone in his voice.
Hudson stared dumbly at the date. The man had died exactly one month ago. “What happened?” he asked.
“Typhus probably,” replied the clerk. “It has gotten a lot of people lately. I would remember if it had been something to do with the fighting. Only lost a couple of people that way, in the wrong place at the wrong time. Bad luck really. But if the Imperial Army ever gets tired of shooting at the Red Turbans and turns their cannons on the International Settlement, boom, we’re sitting ducks.” He laughed nervously.
