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which I started. My swag was wet upon the outside, and I was myself dripping; but I had gained my point, and knew that my difficulties were for a time over. I then lit my fire and dried myself; also, I caught several ducks and young sea-gulls, which were abundant on the river-bed, so that I had a really good meal, of which I was in great want, having had an insufficient diet from the time that Chowbok left me.

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 any 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 shortcomings in my own previous life, the remembrance of which