CAPTURED BY BANDITS.

Press, Volume LXV, Issue 19528, 26 January 1929, Page 2

CAPTURED BY BANDITS.

MISS TOBIN'S TERRIBLE EXPERIENCES. FORTY-SIX DAYS A PRISONER. "It is a horrible experience to be driven up-hill on a hot afternoon by fierce-looking men armed with rifles. Such was the lot of Miss Watkins and myself on September 18th, when, after making havoc of our boxes, the brigands, who had been watching some time I for us, insisted on taking us off our houseboat,'' writes Miss Blanche Tobin, the New Zealand lady, who, as a missionary in China, underwent some terrifying experiences when she and a fel-low-worker were . captured by bandits last year! Miss Tobin goes on to describe how her companion was soon sent back, the bandits deciding that the additional reward they might get in the shape of ransom would not be worth the additional trouble in looking after another captive. Accordingly, Miss Tobin was hurried on into the mountains, without the solace of a companion in misfortune. "As we made our way slowly up-hill, the men began to talk," Miss Tobin continues, "and I learned that the bandit chief had had word from Wuchow of the coming of foreigners; hence our capture. The men were surprised to learn that I was a woman; some had been puzzling all night over my sex. They kept on asserting that I was an American; and it was not until some wekes later that I told them that the Americans (about whom they had evidently been informed, and for whom they wertf lying in wait, by the river) had come along a day or so behind us. "As we neared the top of the hill, the chief's house down in the valley below was pointed out to us—a goodsized farmhouse standing among the rice-fields. It seemed a long way off to people as tired as we were. Still, we struggled on, and finally it. What joy to be given a bowl of ricegruel, after having had nothing to eat sin<;e lunch the day before. I felt I would rathi.ir be with the women of the house than with the men, but the women were afraid of me; they felt sure I was a man. "Finally ensconced in the house of the chief, I found a bystander casting envious eyes on my rubber-soled shoes. He said politely, 'Your shoes are very wet and dirty, your feet must be most uncomfortable. Do take your shoes and stockings off.' I objected that I could not sit barefooted, and the answer was, 'That is not necessary; we can supply your need.' Thereupon I was handed a pair of my own shoes and stockings, part of the loot from the boat. They could not wear the shoes on account of the high heels. When next I saw the footwear I had taken off, it was on the feet of one of my captors. "The day dragged on, and at least the chief arrived and immediately began to discuss with me the question of ransom. It was quite clear to me that it was a" case of 'Your money or your life,' and the manner of my end in the case of failure to comply with their demands was too gruesome to recite. At last it was decided that the next day I should write to tell my friends of their requirements, but those letter# never reached their destination." Miss Tobin goes on to describe the remainder of the 46 days she spent in the clutches of the bandits; forced to sleep on a floor in a roomful of men, the myriad discomforts occasioned by her lack of a change of clothing, the irksomeness of captivity and the continual changes of camp, occasioned by the nearness of the militia. Only three of those 46 nights were spent in a house. More than once she experienced

the pangs of hunger and thirst, and she always drank hot water whoxi possible, lest it should hare been taken from a contaminated source. Miss Tobin concludes with ft description of her deliverauce to her friends at Chaoping. "Before we left there," she writes, "I had to make before an official, a full statement of all that had happened to me. There, too, I heard much more about the bandits than I had known whilst with them. I had seen only a part of the full band; I had seen and known nothing of the atrocities they are known to have committed; I myself had been treated as one on a different footing from tho rest. And as I thought of these things, I realised afresh the wonderful goodness of our Father, Who, though He had allowed me to be so many weeks in the hands of evil men, yet delivered «« from so much that I might otherwise have had to endure."