ave
been detained in the desert, with little prospect of speedy admission
into the city, which is firing against the camp, and the camp firing
against the city, and they would have been exposed to the full power
of a sun, which no one can tell how to estimate, but by actual
exposure to it.

I have also received a letter from Bussorah, stating that on the
drying up of the inundations there, a fever has been spreading, and
carrying off numbers. Major T.'s family had most of them been ill, but
they were recovering. Mr. Bathie was very weak, and his wife dead. Dr.
Beagry, the new surgeon of this station, also died, and immense
numbers of those who had fled from the plague. Bussorah is still
besieged, but expected soon to fall into the hands of the Motezellim.

A letter has also reached me to-day by the same conveyance, from the
Bible Society, dated 27th July last year, mentioning the sending of
three cases of Arabic and Persian Scriptures to my dear brother
Pfander. When I consider how God, in his infinite and unsearchable
providence, has seen it fit to bring to nought all our plans by the
disorganization of this at all times lawless land, I cannot but feel
it a strong call to form very few plans for the future, and just to
work by the day. Our hope was, when we came to Bagdad, to have been
able to travel pretty extensively both in the mountains of Kourdistan
and in Persia; but the state of the country, and other considerations,
brought all these plans to nothing, so my dear friend and kind
brother left me for Shushee, having been able to obtain much of the
information he desired, without the journey. And I, instead of having
a large present field of useful employment, and one prospectively
increasing, am now without employment or prospect, and if it were not
that I feel getting on a little in the colloquial language of the
country, I should be almost without hope of remaining with advantage
here; but while I feel this, my heart does not sink. The Lord will yet
let his light shine out of the darkness, and will one day enable me to
speak of his promises; for I daily feel more assured this is the great
gift after which an evangelist is to press--it is the very instrument
of his labour. And let such a missionary feel infinitely happier
to hear it said he speaks very low Arabic, but that every body
understands him; than very pure, but which is unintelligible, except
to the Mollahs. If he speaks not in a very mixed dialect of