Page:Life in India or Madras, the Neilgherries, and Calcutta.djvu/14

4 as seen in those parts of India which have come under his own observation. He has sought to show how the missionary reaches the shores of Southern India; what sights and sounds greet him on landing; how Hindus live, act, and worship; in what ways they are approached by the missionary; and what are the effects of his labours among them.

Though indebted for many facts to those who have preceded him, the writer has thought that reality and definiteness of conception would be most promoted by giving mainly the results of personal experience and the incidents of personal travel. In themselves of slight importance, they yet serve to illustrate the subject, and so to answer the end he has in view.

Though a residence of scarce four years hardly suffices for such an acquaintance with a foreign nation—and that, too, one so unlike our own—as would justify the present authorship, yet he trusts that a