"

Landing in India was a strange experience, as he tells Sir Thomas
Maclear. "To walk among the teeming thousands of all classes of
population, and see so many things that reading and pictures had made
familiar to the mind, was very interesting. The herds of the buffaloes,
kept I believe for their milk, invariably made the question glance
across the mind, 'Where's your rifle?' Nor could I look at the elephants
either without something of the same feeling. Hundreds of bales of
cotton were lying on the wharves.".

"20_th June_, 1864--Went with Captain Leith to Poona to visit the Free
Church Mission Schools there, under the Rev. Mr. Mitchell, Gardner, etc.
A very fine school of 500 boys and young men answered questions very
well.... All collected together, and a few ladies and gentlemen for whom
I answered questions about Africa. We then went to a girls' school; the
girls sang very nicely, then acted a little play. There were different
castes in all the schools, and quite mixed. After this we went to
College, where young men are preparing for degrees of the University
under Dr. Haug and Mr. Wordsworth; then to the Roman Catholic Orphanage,
where 200 girls are assembled, clothed, and fed under a French Lady
Superior--dormitory clean and well aired, but many had
scrofulous-looking sore eyes; then home to see some friends whom Lady
Frere had invited, to save me the trouble of calling on them. Saw Mr.
Cowan's daughter."

"21_st June_, 1864.--... Had a conversation with the Governor after
breakfast about the slaving going on toward the Persian Gulf. His idea
is that they are now only beginning to put a stop to slavery--they did
not know of it previously.... The merchants of Bombay have got the whole
of the trade of East Africa thrown on their hands, and would, it is
thought, engage in an effort to establish commerce on the coast. The
present Sultan is, for an Arab, likely to do a good deal. He asked if I
would undertake to be consul at a settlement, but I think I have not
experience enough for a position of that kind among Europeans."

On returning to Bombay, he saw the missionary institutions of the Scotch
Established and Free Churches, and arranged with Dr. Wilson of the
latter mission to take his two boys, Chuma and Wikatani. He arranged
also that the "Lady Nyassa," which he had not yet sold, should be taken
care of, and borrowing L133, 10s. for the passage-money of himself and
John Reid, one of his men, embarked for ol