Preface

These reminiscences first appeared in the pages of "Good Words," and are now republished with several additions and alterations. In determining to write them at all, my desire was to increase the interest of people at home in that great country placed by Providence under the British Crown, and in the noble and trying labours there of so many of our countrymen; and also to quicken a sense of our individual duty to aid to the utmost of our power — if by intelligent sympathy only — in advancing the true civilisation of two hundred millions of the humrm race.

The object of my journey with Dr. Watson was to report to the Church of Scotland regarding her missions in India. That comparatively little is said here upon this subject, is due to the fact that it has been fully dealt with by both of us in other forms for the information of those who sent us. In these pages I confine myself to such topics as could not well find a place in an official Missionary Report.

I must here express my obligations to Messrs. Shepherd and Bourne, of Calcutta, for the right kindly accorded to me to copy from their large and splendid series of photographs — the best that exists of Bengal; and also to Mr. Grant for the privilege of making use of the fine pictures in his two interesting volumes, "Anglo-Indian Domestic Life," and "Rural Life in Bengal."

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