ished the correction of the first chapter of Genesis, which moonshi
says is rendered into very good Bengali. Just as we had finished it, a
pundit and another man from Nuddea came to see me. I showed it to
them; and the pundit seemed much pleased with the account of the
creation; only they have an imaginary place somewhere beneath the
earth, and he thought that should have been mentioned likewise...

"Was very weary, having walked in the sun about fifteen or sixteen
miles, yet had the satisfaction of discoursing with some money-changers
at Calcutta, who could speak English, about the importance and absolute
necessity of faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. One of them was a very
crafty man, and tried much to entangle me with hard questions; but at
last, finding himself entangled, he desisted, and went to his old
occupation of money-changing again. If once God would by his Spirit
convince them of sin, a Saviour would be a blessing indeed to them: but
human nature is the same all the world over, and all conviction fails
except it is produced by the effectual working of the Holy Spirit."

Ram Basu was himself in debt, was indeed all along a self-interested
inquirer. But the next gleam of hope came from him, that the Carey
family should move to the waste jungles of the Soondarbans, the
tiger-haunted swamps south-east of Calcutta, and there cultivate a
grant of land. With a sum of L16 borrowed from a native at twelve per
cent. by Mr. Thomas, a boat was hired, and on the fourth day, when only
one more meal remained, the miserable family and their stout-hearted
father saw an English-built house. As they walked up to it the owner
met them, and with Anglo-Indian hospitality invited them all to become
his guests. He proved to be Mr. Charles Short, in charge of the
Company's salt manufacture there. As a deist he had no sympathy with
Carey's enterprise, but he helped the missionary none the less, and the
reward came to him in due time in the opening of his heart to the love
of Christ. He afterwards married Mrs. Carey's sister, and in England
the two survived the great missionary, to tell this and much more
regarding him. Here, at the place appropriately named Hasnabad, or the
"smiling spot," Carey took a few acres on the Jamoona arm of the united
Ganges and Brahmapootra, and built him a bamboo house, forty miles east
of Calcutta. Knowing that the sahib's gun would keep off the tigers,
natives squatted around to the number of th