Page:Life in India or Madras, the Neilgherries, and Calcutta.djvu/444

388 sometimes brought us to a dead halt; one of the latter for some time was utterly unmoved by blows or persuasions, even resisting the hint of a rope tied to his leg to pull it forward; but at last he started under special inducements, and to our great satisfaction did not stop until he reached the stable of the next relay.

We were glad enough, at two o'clock, to reach Wallaja-pettah and to exchange our close bandy for the comfortable shelter of a roof, and to receive a warm welcome from our associates in the missionary work stationed at this place. Two months earlier they had left Madras to commence a new station in this populous district. How sorely preachers of the gospel are here needed, (and of all the presidencies of India, Madras is best supplied,) will be seen from the fact that from Madras to Arcot, and from Arcot on to Bangalore, a distance of two hundred miles upon the great highway from the sea to the interior, there was not, at that time, one missionary of any society, English or American. And, in almost any direction, you might go one or two hundred miles north or south of this line without finding anywhere a Christian missionary. All is darkness, unillu-