Page:The Nestorians and their rituals, volume 1.djvu/420

360 regard to myself, an Indian chaplaincy having been placed at the disposal of our late lamented Primate, I was recommended by him to W. H. C. Plowden, Esq., the generous donor, to whose kindness I shall ever feel deeply indebted, and by whom, under the sanction of the Board of Directors, I was appointed to the Presidency of Bombay, where I arrived in May, 1845.

Were it not out of place here, I would most gladly bear my humble testimony more at large to the muoificence of the Honourable East India Company towards the Church establishment in India, and to the kindly disposition of the local authorities generally to forward the interests of religion among the civil and military services under their control. The Bishops are left unfettered in the exercise of their episcopal jurisdiction, and whatever is likely to add to the efficiency of the Church meets with the cordial approval and ready co-operation of the Company's government. A clergyman could not desire more freedom in the discharge of his ministerial functions than he enjoys in India, nor could he wish to be under a more excellent superior than the Lord Bishop of Bombay, [Dr. Carr], who is a father to his clergy, and deservedly revered by them and by the community at large, both for his private virtues and for his zealous though quiet efforts to extend the empire of the over the length and breadth of his diocese.

After doing duty for eighteen months in the Southern Mahratta country, I was appointed chaplain to Aden, where a severe illness, which brought me to the borders of the grave and left behind it an inveterate nervous affection, induced the physicians to recommend a change of climate. I accordingly left Aden in March 1849, accompanied by Mrs. Badger, the untiring partner of my wanderings, spent a short time in Egypt, and passed a summer in one of the villages on mount Lebanon. A return of my old complaint, joined with a strong desire to visit the scenes of my former labours, led me to travel farther eastward, and we accordingly proceeded to Mosul, which we reached in safety on the 9th of December. The reader must excuse this biographical episode which has been introduced solely for the sake of connecting the order of my narrative.

As a great portion of the information acquired during this second trip has been embodied in the foregoing pages, little need