insufficient diet from the time that Chowbok left me, but was also well
provided for the morrow.

I thought of Chowbok, and felt how useful he had been to me, and in how
many ways I was the loser by his absence, having now to do all sorts of
things for myself which he had hitherto done for me, and could do
infinitely better than I could. Moreover, I had set my heart upon making
him a real convert to the Christian religion, which he had already
embraced outwardly, though I cannot think that it had taken deep root in
his impenetrably stupid nature. I used to catechise him by our camp
fire, and explain to him the mysteries of the Trinity and of original
sin, with which I was myself familiar, having been the grandson of an
archdeacon by my mother's side, to say nothing of the fact that my father
was a clergyman of the English Church. I was therefore sufficiently
qualified for the task, and was the more inclined to it, over and above
my real desire to save the unhappy creature from an eternity of torture,
by recollecting the promise of St. James, that if any one converted a
sinner (which Chowbok surely was) he should hide a multitude of sins. I
reflected, therefore, that the conversion of Chowbok might in some degree
compensate for irregularities and short-comings in my own previous life,
the remembrance of which had been more than once unpleasant to me during
my recent experiences.

Indeed, on one occasion I had even gone so far as to baptize him, as well
as I could, having ascertained that he had certainly not been both
christened and baptized, and gathering (from his telling me that he had
received the name William from the missionary) that it was probably the
first-mentioned rite to which he had been subjected. I thought it great
carelessness on the part of the missionary to have omitted the second,
and certainly more important, ceremony which I have always understood
precedes christening both in the case of infants and of adult converts;
and when I thought of the risks we were both incurring I determined that
there should be no further delay. Fortunately it was not yet twelve
o'clock, so I baptized him at once from one of the pannikins (the only
vessels I had) reverently, and, I trust, efficiently. I then set myself
to work to instruct him in the deeper mysteries of our belief, and to
make him, not only in name, but in heart a Christian.

It is true that I might not have succeeded, for Chowbok was very hard to