CAMP LIFE IN EGYPT

Taranaki Daily News, 14 November 1917, Page 7

CAMP LIFE IN EGYPT

ENTERTAINING CHINESE COOLIES. CHARLIE CIIAPLIN AND A . FOOTBALL. 'Some days ago I went to one of the large Indian hospitals to get my mail at their post office," says a writer in the last number of 'Association Men.' "Seeing ilie largo number of patients, J thought they might enjoy an evening with my movies. The hospital consists of buildings used by the armies which occupied Egypt fifty years ago. All over the court yard the patients squatted in Indian fashion, very intent on what was to take place. Near the machine are seated tho doctors with fflieir sergeantmajor, who interpreted the pictures. The audience is completely absorbed and the only noise that breaks the quiet of the Egyptian moonlight is tho rattle of the cinema as it grinds out the picture like a machine gun, and the occasional call of the clear voice of the interpreter to the 5(!0 men, as in his Hindustani tongue he explains the strange happenings before them. In the background, on the hospital verandah, are some of the staff who have stepped out to see the pictures before preparing the bed patients for the night. As the show gets under way I have the opportunity of looking about and observing my brothers from the other side of tho world. We give three reels and, concluding that more would weary these convalescents, we stop. Sunday I was aroused by the strange voices of many men outside my hut. To my surprise, I saw 2000 Chinese coolies disembarking from the train just outside the Y.M.C.A. They scrambled over one another, falling out of the trucks like lumps of sugar out of an open sack. They soon fell in line and stood at attention with their little brown kit bags over their shoulders. Monday I saw them standing about with nothing to do and so an idea struck me. With an old football under one arm I wandered over to their camp. When I got in the centre of it, I gave the football a mighty kick. Maybe they thought it a new kind of aeroplane. It"fell right' on tho head of a sleeping Chink. The Chinaman nearest the ball pieked it up and also gave it a mighty boot. By this time there was a scramble for the ball, and all began to enjoy its inspiring presence. Imagine 1000 Chinamen alter a football. For hours they amused themselves kicking it about, upsetting each other in an effort to get it. Some of thein, failing to connect with the ball, went sprawling on the ground while their slippers flew high in the air. I sought one of their officers that I might explain. As luck would have it, I met a chap who had been connected for years with the China Inland Mission, and who had been over to see me while I was out the day before. He had been in China at the outbreak of the war, and, not wanting to join a fighting unit, being a missionary, found his chance to come abroad in the service with the Chinese labor corps. He was enabled to carry on his missionary work with the coolies and had thirty conversions on the boat coming over. This insured the sympathetic care ot the men while abroad and enabled the missionary to be of service to his country. The men appeared clean, good natured, bright and willing. They all seemed to love him in their way and knew he was their friend. One of their interpreters, a Chinese lad from a Presbyterian college in Hangchow, put me to shame, for he asked: "Are all the soldiers Christians?" It then dawned on me that he thought himself surrounded by a Christian nation, and of course all its members must be Christians. I had to explain that one of the aims of the Association was to help men to see the need of a personal Saviour, and all the other things such as the canteen, the games, the library, the entertainments were means to that end. The questions he asked so impressed me and startled me that I am going to make it the subject of a talk to the chaps and try to impress an them our responsibility as a Christian nation to all the others among whom we live. How our every act is looked upon by them -ae consistent with our profession as Chris-, tians. I was to show my own chaps a show, so the missionary asked me if I would give the show outside so his coolies could see it. At first the Chinks did not know what was going to happen. They saw the screen and they saw the machine, but did not know the connection between the two. I had lvard work to keep them off the, scats reserved for the Tommies, but last one of their servants came te the rescue and told them to sit down on the ground. Some of them sat facing the screen and some sat facing the lantern; others sat half and half, so no matter what happened they would get in on it! After many "ching-chows" and "wingwongs" they all discovered the artful dodger—Charlie—and were more than delighted. If it were a sight to see a thousand coolies after a football you may know that this latter form of amusement was not dull to the operator of the machine. At times they crowded so closely about the machine that I did not have room to turn the handle, but had to stop and biff the nearest one on the "dome"—gently, very gently, of course—and smile. They would smite back, get my meaning, and act accordingly. They were as much interested in the rewinding process and could not understand why the films rewound so much faster than it took to show them.