Under the mizzen mast: A voyage round the world

The city of Canton is only eight hours by steamer from Hong Kong. Arriving in the Canton river you find yourself in a floating population in boats, close together, as though ground rents were as dear as in Broadway. When you enter a boat for a passage up the river you marvel that the boat can extricate itself from the snarl; but you are in a few moments on your way, meeting a seemingly endless throng of people, among whom you involuntarily close your eyes as if in anticipation of a crash. We were the guests of the Rev. Dr. Happer of the American Presbyterian Mission, who on our arrival at Hong Kong had kindly sent and invited us. We were also entertained by the other members of the Mission, Messrs. Noyes, Marcellus, and McChesney. We visited Dr. Ker’s Hospital. Over a hundred Chinese were sitting in a commodious room listening to a native evangelist, and going out by tens to receive medical treatment. This hospital was formerly sustained by the American Board of Foreign Missions, with Dr. Peter Parker for surgeon and physician.

Being introduced to Archdeacon Gray, he very kindly went with us two afternoons among the temples and many remarkable places. We saw the temple in which are five hundred bronzed images of gods or deified men, each in a posture or holding an emblem representing some action or attribute. We saw the water-clock made by tubs of water placed one above another, each dripping into the one below it, and the lowest holding a graduated stick which rose through a hole in the lid, and as each hour-mark on the stick appears through the hole, a man goes up to the roof with a painted sign announcing to the people the time of day. This seems to be an heirloom from past ages when the “Clepsydra” was in use, of which this is a specimen. Adherence to this useless thing is one illustration of the Chinese attachment to antiquity. As you go about the city, you see things which carry you back two thousand years, oxen treading clay, men sifting wheat in sieves fastened on the ends of planks laid on rolling stones, and a man standing on each and keeping up a motion on the planks like “tilting,” or “seesaw,” a laborious process of doing a simple thing. Then you see works of art surpassing modern western skill; as, for example, an elephant’s tusk undergoing three years of carving; price, one hundred and fifty dollars. Then you visit an eating-house, which Archdeacon Gray begs you to endure, to know that some things related of the Chinese are not fictions. He goes to a man who is eating, and courteously taking up his plate, says, “What is this?” The man laughs and says, “Rat.” He goes to another, and, taking his plate, says, “What is this?” The man cheerfully replies, “Black cat.” Another man says, “Dog.” Around the room, on hooks, are evident signs that the men were truthful. You make swift retreat, but are constrained by your guide to look into an opium shop, where the customer, as he comes in, mounts a table, lies at full length, with his head on a wicker pillow hollowed in the middle to fit the neck, then is furnished with a pipe and lamp and box of opium, which he smokes till he is stupefied. Emerging from such scenes of degradation into the narrow street, ten feet wide, you may see a woman at a door with a child three years old, with whom she is playing “pease porridge hot,” going through the motions as we learned them in childhood; and you wonder whether Mother Goose derived her knowledge from the disciples of Confucius, or whether she did actually live and die, as is now asserted, in Rowe Street, Boston. This Chinese woman and her child playing at “pease porridge hot,” is one of those touches of nature which make “all the world akin.” You next reach a place where intellectual competition throws some of our university feats into the shade.

HALL OF COMPETITIVE EXAMINATION.

One is in each of the eighteen provincial cities of China. Though familiar by description, perhaps, to the reader, I venture to repeat that it is a large open ground,—the one in Canton measuring 689,250 square feet. On one hand, there are seventy-five lanes containing 4,767 cells; on the other, sixty-eight lanes with 3,886 cells, making a total of 8,653 cells. Once in three years men of every age, from the youth to the aged, assemble to write prize essays for a literary degree. A candidate is fastened into each cell for three days and nights, with rice and water, planks being fixed in grooves in the sides of the cell, serving for a sleeping place, and for a writing-table by day. The strictest search is made to see that no book or paper is secreted in any dress. The essays are received by three officers, who seal up the outside page of each essay on which is written the name, age, residence, ancestors, &c., of the writer. They are passed to another officer who sees that they are copied in red ink, the object of the copying being that the original handwriting may not be recognized by the judges. Nearly two thousand writers are employed in copying. They have rooms fitted up for them in the “Hall of Perfect Honesty.” The governor of the province is ex-officio chief superintendent. Imperial commissioners from Pekin assist in the examinations. They meet in the “Hall of Auspicious Stars.” This hall is looked upon with feelings of awe. Success in these examinations is followed by fame, wealth, and honor; and failure, by years of toil and possibly of repeated disappointment. Messengers wait to carry the names of the successful candidates to every part of the province. The governor gives them a feast; after which they go in state dress to worship the tablets of their ancestors. Odes as well as essays are presented. The following are specimens of the themes at the last examination previous to 1870:—

“If the will be set on virtue, there will be no practice of wickedness.”

“It is only the individual possessed of the most entire sincerity that can exist under heaven, who can adjust the great, invariable interests of mankind.”

“There are ministers who seek the tranquillity of the state, and find their pleasure in securing that tranquillity.”

What can be more abstruse? Few among us would attempt to be original on such themes.

This system of competitive literary examinations here described has been maintained more than a thousand years. There are records proving this. On the first day three essays and one piece of poetry are required; each essay must have seven hundred words, the poetry must consist of seven hundred and sixteen lines, with five words in each. The pieces required on the other two days vary from this. The successful competitors are immortalized in fame; their triumph goes down to posterity on the family tablets, is noted on their tombs, secures honor to their children.

Though I visited this “Hall” with Archdeacon Gray, and received minute information from him, I am since indebted for helps to my memory to a paper read before a literary society in Canton, by Dr. J. G. Ker.

CHINESE BRIDES AND WEDDINGS.

One morning some of my party were standing by the window of a friend’s house in Canton which overlooks the canal with its brown water and crowd of sampans. As they watched the different phases of domestic life in those habitations, one of the party, familiar with them, remarked that there was probably a wedding, or rather the festivities attendant upon a wedding, in one of the nearest sampans, as she had heard a young woman wailing the night before. She said it is a custom with Chinese brides to pass the night before their weddings in bewailing their future troubles; for as they seldom see their intended masters before the wedding, there is great uncertainty in connection with their new mode of life; generally it is going from one form of servitude into one to which they had not grown accustomed. There seems to be no real wedding ceremony, but a feast and a sort of reception for three days. During that time the young couple perform some acts of devotion before the ancestral tablets. After that the bridegroom takes his partner to his father’s boat, where she cooks the rice, scrubs, and helps row for the rest of her life.

The young ladies thought that they would go to the reception. Accordingly, eight of them crowded into the sampan (being told that no cards were used) and sat in Turkish fashion on the nice floor. The bride came before them in a red dress, saluted them, then brought in a tray of square cakes, which had been made with peanut oil. She then gave them tea in small cups such as children play with. They considered that as the tea was made with the foul water of the canal occupied by a crowd of sampans, it could not be in the highest degree tasteful. As they went out they were told that the adjoining boat was the home of the bridegroom’s father, where the bride would the next day find her home. A roasted pig with its garniture of herbs was exposed on deck, but it did not awaken any desire.

“GODS MANY.”

We were greatly favored, through the influence of Archdeacon Gray, in having the rare privilege of being admitted to the bedchamber of “the god of Walled Cities.” We climbed up antique, decayed stairs, into a forlorn room, not so inviting as apartments in some barns at home. There was the huge god, six feet in height; his slippers were at the side of his bed; his garments were on pegs; the wash-stand was there, with its furniture, and the water was poured into the bowl ready for use. His Majesty was of wood, fantastically painted. We were taken into his wife’s apartment, which was the next room. There women resort to make petitions with vows, promising the goddess a new dress, for example, if their prayer is heard.

In several temples we saw men consulting the gods in some affairs of interest to them. Kneeling and touching the ground with the forehead nine times, they would then take a long box of sticks, each with a number inscribed on it, shake it till a stick fell out, which was then handed to the priest, who consulted a book, and told the petitioner the answer to his prayer.

We came in one temple to the “Chamber of Horrors.” There in ten cells were depicted the torments awaiting the wicked in the next world. In the tenth the victims were coming out in the shape of hideous wild animals, the blessed dead on eminences around looking down with various expressions on their faces. We came also to the “Temple of the Five Genii,”—Fire, Earth, Water, Wood, and Metals. These Genii originally came to the city on five rams, which were turned to stone, for perpetuity, and remain there to this day, uncouth, almost shapeless blocks. A tower, said to be six hundred years old, stands in honor of them. The large bell covered with Chinese characters is doomed to silence; for there is a tradition that if struck, some great misfortune would fall upon the city. A visitor inadvertently striking it would excite consternation among the people. During a siege of Canton a piece of the bell was knocked out of it by a cannon-ball.

While we were detained in a temple by rain, the Buddhist priests showed us much kindness, setting a table in the courtyard overlooking a sheet of water, and giving us clear tea in little cups, on trays having each compartments filled with dried fruits. It seemed strange to be “sitting at meat in an idol’s temple.” While we were there, the priests descried the sunshades which some of the party had brought with them. Their amusement was not exceeded by any pleasure manifested by children at the sight of new things. They opened them, they shut them, turned them over and over, held them over one another, explaining to each other their use; and one man, pointing to one of our umbrellas, said, “That I can understand; but is this really an umbrella?”

As our party of four emerged from their chairs at each temple, crowds of a hundred or more would follow us to the gate, and wait there for us to re-appear. Mothers would lift little children to see the odd foreigners. Not one word, sign, or look of contempt or disrespect, however, did we witness during the four or five days that we spent in the city. The streets being, most of them, only eight or ten feet wide, the people were frequently stopped by our chairs, and had to stand sideways to let us pass, but never did they make us feel that we were intruders. About two months after this, the affair at Tientsin happened, and the people in many parts of the empire were excited to some degree against foreigners. Receiving an invitation to re-visit Canton, I was strongly advised not to go, on the ground that, while mercantile men, obviously on business, might visit the place in safety, the sight of a foreigner, led there by curiosity, might awaken suspicion and lead to violence.

THE BAMBOO.

I saw in Canton a large granite building erecting, already two-thirds of its intended height reached and covering a large space, the staging of which was composed wholly of bamboo. It is doubtful if there was a nail used in the whole of it, the parts being securely fastened with osiers of rattan. It brought to mind the provision so beneficently made for the use of man in these countries where timber is seldom found. Few things, if any, serve such a variety of purposes as the bamboo. Bridges are built of it; it is used for water pipes, masts, boxes, cups, baskets, mats, paper, fences, writing instruments; while the long green leaves afford shade. It grows from fifty to eighty feet in a year, and in a second year becomes as hard as ever. One who is curious in botanical formations cannot but have admired the provision made for strengthening the stalk of straw by the joints, which occur at a distance of a few inches; an arrangement which must puzzle an atheist. In the joints of the bamboo lie the hiding of its power. The joints being easily made water tight, the canes are adapted to use in many ways. One cannot live in an eastern country without soon forming an attachment to this product of nature so wonderfully supplying many of the necessities of life.

MIXTURE IN TEAS.

As we were passing along a street in Canton, a gentleman, long a resident there, suddenly stopped and pointed to a large quantity of an herb, spread in the sun. “That,” said he, “is jasmine, which is one of the principal ingredients used to give your teas a flavor.” But I will not venture further on this topic, only observing that one of our party who took tea with us in the idol’s temple, (tea without sugar and cream,) testified that there was an aroma about it to which exported teas were strangers.

ARCHDEACON GRAY.

Archdeacon Gray is well known to all who have visited Canton. He is in the prime of life, an accomplished gentleman, making you love him at once by his beautifully courteous manners, his fine intelligence. He gave me a cordial invitation to occupy his pulpit on Sabbath morning; but there was to be a communion service at the Presbyterian Mission, with some additions to the church, and I declined. But he came in the intermission and insisted on my preaching in the afternoon, which I did. His house and church are on a bend of the Canton River; and perhaps even our Hudson River does not anywhere present a finer view. His house is full of rare Chinese curiosities, which he is happy to show to visitors. I preached in the evening to the Presbyterian Mission, at the house of one of their number. This Mission is exerting a decided influence; its supporters may well be encouraged. I found a strong feeling among them in favor of sending out single ladies, in companies, to live together and to labor in conjunction with the Mission. There is a decided approbation in the Canton Mission of ladies thus living together, and working under the direction of a mission.

SHANGHAI.

I spent four or five days at Shanghai, on another excursion from Hong Kong. This I described in a letter to Bishop Eastburn, as several things which I saw there in connection with Episcopal friends made it agreeable to acquaint him with them. The letter was kindly published in “The Christian Witness” of this city, and copied by “the Boston Transcript.” I take this opportunity to insert the most of that letter, from one of the papers above mentioned.

MACAO.

One of the most charming places in China, is Macao, three hours distant by steamer from Hong Kong, the people of which place resort to Macao in the hot season, as the fine sea-breezes there greatly mitigate the heat. The drives about the place, commanding in every direction an open sea-view, are beautiful. The old church of St. Paul, the most of which remains, though ruined by fire, is a fine specimen of architecture. The most notable thing in Macao is the grotto where Camoens, the Portuguese poet, died in banishment for publishing a satire on the viceroy. The wild botany of the place, and the geological upheavals which give clear signs of glacial action, are remarkable. Bowlders are piled up here in ways which show a hydrodynamic force beyond human skill. Near the grotto is a cemetery for foreigners; and, among the many sainted dead from missionary circles there entombed, the christian traveller lingers with deep interest around the burial-place of Morrison.

One Sabbath morning I went with a christian friend through a wild district, in the neighborhood of a large city in China, to a mission station. The people were everywhere at work; nothing suggested the Sabbath, till we heard the little church-bell, whose notes were in pleasing contrast to the hum of business. We came to the mission compound, where two missionaries and their wives had their abode. The joy with which they welcomed us made us feel most deeply their isolation from christian society. The sight of friends from America seemed to intensify their loneliness. Here were four beloved christian people who were living in these wilds, to teach these heathen tribes the knowledge of God and of his Son. On inquiring what encouragement they found in their work, we were told that two or three women had lately shown a disposition to hear religious conversation, and listen to the Scriptures. Immediately we thought of four hundred millions in China and its dependencies, who were ignorant of the true God. Here were three native women who were persuaded to listen to religious reading. As we were preparing to leave, our missionary friends seemed to cling to us with strong affection. We were going back to America, leaving them in the solitudes of heathenism. They were far from unhappy, and their few tears were only the natural expression of awakened memories. One of the missionary brethren, showing us the way to the gate, passed with us through a room where we saw, among gardening tools, some sheets of paper, lying loose. There were so many of them, looking alike, that they attracted our notice. We found that the specks on them were the eggs of silkworms. They were mere dots, as the reader familiar with the sight in books or nature, is aware. It occurred to me what a display of silk fabrics, with their rainbow colors, we had been looking upon! how many ships are freighted with them! how many millions of wealth they represent! what a world of thought and feeling is associated with them! On those pieces of paper were the beginnings of silk,—a word, taken in all its connections and associations, of mighty power. In those little specks one might fancy himself reading, “By whom shall Jacob arise? for he is small.” We told our missionary brother that, while he raised silkworms and saw their cocoons, he surely would never despise the day of small things,—a lesson, he assured us, which was often repeated to him, and gave him encouragement.

It is well for one who believes in the ultimate prevalence of Christianity to come into China by the way of the Sandwich Islands. He will receive confirmation to his faith, he will be defended against temptations to unbelief when surrounded as he will be in China with one-half the population of the earth ignorant of the true God, by having seen in the Sandwich Islands what the gospel has done among a race who were as unlikely to be converted as any portion of the human family. If he comes from his ship and steps ashore on the Sabbath in China, and sees coopers and blockmakers and boatbuilders busily at work, the tailors’ shops filled with men plying their needles, the stationers ruling paper, the coolies instead of horses and mules carrying everything which ever lades a ship, from the quay to the storehouses, the thought will come over him, What progress is the knowledge of the gospel likely to make among this people? Perhaps he spends a Sabbath in the country. Here he may look to see the people withdrawn from the requirements which the business of a seaport makes of the inhabitants; but in the country he will find the people as busy with their handicraft or trade as the people of the city, giving no sign that the idea of the Sabbath and of the God of the Sabbath has visited their minds. He will be overwhelmed with the contemplation of four hundred millions of human beings utterly destitute of the knowledge of God. He remembers how at home his heart used to glow on hearing accounts of additions to native churches, and the rehearsal was followed by joyful missionary hymns sung impromptu,—

and he asks himself whether he is losing his confidence in the ultimate triumph of christianity, and in the sufficiency of divine power to turn the hearts of nations as the rivers of waters are turned. If he be a firm believer in the Bible, he will say that while he remembers the conquest of Canaan, especially its first great achievement, the capture of Jericho, his faith never can falter. Were not the aborigines of Canaan devoted to destruction by the Almighty, and their land apportioned to the tribes, with minute directions how to take possession of it, the very line of march prescribed, the great tribe of Judah in the forefront? And did not our Lord spring out of Judah? Has he not “upon his vesture and upon his thigh a name written,—King of kings and Lord of lords?” While, on returning to his christian ordinances at home a christian traveller in China may be less excited than he used to be there at the report of a few conversions among the heathen, because he will have an enlarged idea of the gross darkness which covers the people, he will only have exchanged his former confidence in man for a more entire confidence in God. The accumulation of difficulties in the way of the gospel he will regard only as those barrels of water which were poured on Elijah’s altar, serving to make the fire from heaven more triumphant.

SHANGHAI PORCELAIN.

I was sitting on the steamer at Shanghai conversing with a friend about the productions, natural and artificial, of that region, and I expressed the desire to find something peculiar to the place which I might take to America. In about an hour, happening to look at the people on the wharf my friend clapped his hands and said, “Here is something peculiar to Shanghai; now you can have your wish gratified.” He called a man on board who laid down before us a large basket filled with small teapots. I thought of course that he was indulging in humor at my expense, but he said that people from all parts would buy baskets and barrels of this ware; that they declared that nothing was more popular at home, at fairs, and for presents. He selected twenty-five small teapots and packed them for me in a basket, saying that if I did not appreciate them my venerable lady friends would. They were made of a material found in that region, a fine clay, brown, of different shades, some of them highly ornamented with an intermixture of green, all of them furnished with strainers and other conveniences. I brought them to America and when I say that in a few weeks only one of them remained in my possession, nothing need be added to confirm the Rev. Mr. Syle’s judgment in his selection of a representative present from Shanghai. When I add that the twenty-five articles cost a dollar and twenty-five cents, no further inducement will be necessary to persuade visitors to provide themselves with one means of furnishing friends with acceptable presents.

WORK OF THE LAW IN THE HEART.

Going into a monastery in China with a clergyman who could converse in Chinese, we saw among the inmates a woman who seemed to be ever praying, as she sat a little retired from the rest. The superior told us that she was praying all the time, being overheard frequently in the night upon her bed in supplication. He said that there was some great burden upon her mind, which she would not disclose. She was evidently not insane; and, from all that I could learn about her, I came to the conclusion that she was under conviction of sin; sinfulness, rather than any particular transgression, was the burden upon her heart. That there are many throughout the heathen world thus exercised, we cannot question; the second chapter of Romans speaks of them, among others, “with the work of the law written in their hearts.” They may be few compared with the whole heathen world; yet how interesting to think that such may be in a state of mind fitting them to accept the gospel, should it be made known to them, and that they will not perish merely for not being acquainted with it. Thus, where sin abounds, grace may much more abound, choosing its subjects independently of human instructors. ‘Thou canst not tell whither it goeth,’—this superhuman agency. This thought is some little relief to one, as he wanders about in those regions of the shadow of death, impressed by much that he sees with the reflection how true to the letter is the apostle’s description, in the first chapter of Romans, of the heathen world.

AN ARISTOCRATIC CHINESE FAMILY.

The party of young friends who called on the bride, called also at the house of an aristocratic Chinese family, with whom one of their number was acquainted. There were several young daughters and sons in the family, who all spoke some words of English. A missionary’s daughter acted as interpreter. The Chinese young ladies brought out their state dresses, which were heavily embroidered with silver and gold. They put them on their visitors, made them walk about the courtyard, following them with shouts of laughter. They then gave them cake and cups of clear tea. One lady belonging to the family smoked a long pipe, and offered another pipe, with opium, to her guests. The Chinese young ladies showed their little feet, apparently with much pride, to the visitors; three inches and a half each was the measure of nearly all the feet.

POSTURE OF CHINESE PUPILS.

In a school for girls taught by a missionary lady, the visitors saw pupils from five to fifteen years. The feet of these children were generally swathed, and the girls showed, by their faces, great pain. Mothers came in to listen while the teacher was talking to the children. The girls, when reciting, stood with their backs to the teacher, a mark of respect. They sang several of our familiar Sabbath-school hymns.

AMOY.

The Steamer from Shanghai to Hong Kong put in at Amoy to bring the cargo of a disabled bark to Hong Kong. This gave some of my family who had been making a visit to Shanghai an opportunity to see Amoy. It is situated on a barren, hilly island; its streets are as narrow as lanes. Going through them in chairs, you come out upon a hilly district, with few trees, covered with remarkable rocks, many of them bowlders, not settled so far in the ground as most rocks, but lifted from it, some of them on their smallest ends, and some leaning towards each other, making natural rooms, with mossy floors, and an opening at the top. Some of them are used as temples on a small scale; idols, discolored by age and damp, are perched in them. Some real temples are built of the largest bowlders. In one of them, as one of the party was sitting on the stool in front of the idol, looking at the hideous images with which the temple was filled, expressing her wonder that human beings prayed to such things, one of the missionaries present asked an old priest if they really did believe in them. He said he could not tell whether the people did believe in them or not. The images might, or they might not, be gods; but “it was the custom to worship them; and, after all, whether they heard or not, it amounted to about the same thing as the worship by christians of their God.”

The foreigners, merchants, missionaries, and others, do not, as a general thing, live in the city, but on a small island across the harbor, rocky, like the larger island where the city is built, but not quite so dreary and barren. Attempts have been made to fertilize it, not wholly without success. Many of the houses are attractive, commanding a good sea-view.

From a great cave called the “Tiger’s Mouth,” formed by two rocks projecting from the side of a hill, a flat one forming the lower jaw, or the floor of the cave, and the upper stone curving over it, making a good resemblance to an animal’s mouth, you look down upon a wild, barren tract of country, where the rocks, my informant said, reminded her of almonds stuck into the top of a Christmas pudding, or as if giants had been having a battle, and their missiles had been left on the field in the reckless position where they fell. One rock, about eighty tons in weight, was balanced on another larger rock so evenly that one man, putting forth all his strength, could make it tilt slightly. They say that a typhoon makes it rock perceptibly. Just below it is a small Chinese cottage. The woman who occupied it was asked if she was not afraid to live there, for if the bowlder should tilt a little too much, one end of it would go through her roof. But she said, “No, it is good ‘Fung Shuy,’ and will bring good luck to my dwelling,”

FUNG SHUY.

This leads me to speak of “Fung Shuy.” Though the literal meaning of “Fung Shuy” is “wind and water,” this does not give any idea of the thing.

The Chinese regard the south as the source of good influence, inasmuch as vegetable life, with all the genial influences of spring and summer, are from that region. The north, they perceive, is the source of death to the vegetable kingdom. As animals partake of the diverse influences proceeding from these two opposite regions, they infer that men are susceptible to the same. They suppose, therefore, that there is a vital influence moving all the time from south to north. This may be obstructed. To secure its full effect, they prefer to have their dwellings front south; for they hold that from the north evil influences are constantly proceeding. Even the dead, they believe, are susceptible to these adverse influences. If graves are placed so as to meet good influences, it is called good Fung Shuy. It is a subject of great study to ascertain the influences which promote good Fung Shuy and hinder the bad. Anything, as a hill, rock, trees, standing due north and not very remote, especially if the region toward the south is unobstructed, and particularly if water is in that direction, is good Fung Shuy. There are men who may be called professors of Fung Shuy, who are experts in the science. The woman in Amoy thought that the bowlder near her house was good Fung Shuy. The term may be defined, the science of positions favoring good, and shielding from bad, influences. This is related to the extensive subject of ancestral worship, which would lead me too far from my narrative.

PIDGIN ENGLISH.

“Pidgin-English” is a singular form of speech which the Chinese language assumes when the natives are first attempting to use English. Pidgin means business. You are made by it to think of the dialect which we fall into in talking to infants. If any one can explain why infants are supposed to understand us better when we make our words terminate in ee or y, he may proceed and explain the natural philosophy of Pidgin-English. In talking to a Chinaman you find yourself, as it were, addressing an infantile capacity, imitating his own Pidgin way of speaking, even in talking to an adult. I will give one or two specimens of pidgin-English, which I found in print. The first is Norval’s Narrative, taken, as the reader hardly needs to be informed, from the Rev. Dr. Home’s tragedy of “Douglass.”

NORVAL’S NARRATIVE.

PIDGIN-ENGLISH OF NORVAL’S NARRATIVE.