Page:Life in India or Madras, the Neilgherries, and Calcutta.djvu/23



hour for embarkation came. Having received our instructions from the officers of the society which sent us forth, and a farewell from the churches, with hearts filled with mingled emotions of sorrow and joy, we repaired to the vessel that was to bear us to our home among the heathen of far-distant India.

Here all was activity and confusion: officers and crew were busy with preparations for casting off from the wharf, the owners of the ship were exchanging last words with the captain, fresh provisions were arriving for the voyage, while a thronging crowd of friends clustered around those with whom they were so soon to part, it might be, forever.

At length all was ready, and missionaries and friends gathered around an aged minister who had laboured thirty-three years in the land to which we were bound, listened to a last ad- Rh