every library
of missionary labour and Christian work abroad.

W. MUIR.
16th September, 1884.

CHAPTER I.

VOYAGE TO INDIA.

In 1837 I was accepted by the London Missionary Society as one of its
agents. On September 15, 1838, I embarked at Portsmouth with thirty
other passengers on the _Duke of Buccleugh_, a vessel of 650 tons
burthen, and landed in Calcutta on January 19, 1839, _en route_ to
Benares, to which I had been appointed. The only land we sighted from
Portsmouth to Saugar Island was a rock in the Indian Ocean. The time we
thus spent at sea was four months and five days. Every now and then
speedier voyages were made, but a few years previously this voyage would
have been deemed rapid. The _Duke of Buccleugh_, on her next voyage to
India, went to pieces on a sandbank at the mouth of the Hoogly, but
happily the weather was moderate, and passengers and crew were saved.

The route by the Cape of Good Hope has been abandoned for passengers for
many years, and now Bombay is reached by the Straits of Gibraltar and
the Suez Canal in a month, sometimes in less, while another week is
required for the voyage to Calcutta. Those who travel with the Indian
mails across the Continent of Europe can reach their port in less than
three weeks, and distant parts of India by rail in four weeks or less.

All on board--officials returning to their posts, and persons going out
for the first time--were delighted to find the voyage coming to an end;
but new-comers like myself were under the spell of novelty, which gave
new interest to everything we saw. At Kedgeree, near the mouth of the
Hoogly, the Post Office boat came to our ship with welcome letters from
friends, who were looking out for our arrival. The level land on each
side of the river, with its rich tropical vegetation; the numerous
villages on the banks, with their beehive-like huts; the craft on the
river, large and small, many of them so heavily laden as to bring them
down almost to the water's edge; the little boats, with plantains and
other fruits, which tried to attach themselves to our ship in the hope
of getting purchasers; the strange appearance of the people, with their
only covering of cloth round the middle--all gave us a thrill of
excitement which can be known only in similar circumstances. Then, we
were about to set foot on the great land, of which we had read much, to
which we had lo