PREPARATIONS AND EQUIPMENTS. 3 



taking him according to description in an advertisement, 

 and he seems likely to justify fully the account given of 

 him. 



In addition to these attendants, I agreed, after consult- 

 ation with my excellent friends, the missionaries of 

 Amritsir, to attach to my party a native Catechist, who 

 hy birth claims to he a Cashmiri. He has been, however, 

 brought up and educated in the Punjab ; where, when 

 serving as a khitmudgur or sirdar, he became a convert 

 to Christianity, and has for some years been in the employ- 

 ment of the Amritsir Mission. He has been in Cashmere 

 and Ladak, and understands the language of the former 

 country. The object of his accompanying me is to circu- 

 late the Gospel in Bibles, Testaments, and tracts, which 

 I received for that purpose from the missionaries, having 

 myself first suggested the possibility of my being able 

 to promote the spread and knowledge of the Christian 

 Faith and Hope, by means of these books, in the heathen 

 lands to which I was going, intending to distribute 

 them personally should opportunities offer. But the co- 

 operation of the Catechist was a sudden after-thought of 

 one of my good friends, the missionaries ; which, as it 

 only had birth two days before I started, was rather em- 

 barrassing to mature and act upon. But after the project 

 had almost lapsed, owing to some misunderstanding re- 

 sulting from the excited and unsettled state of mind of 

 Suleiman, the Catechist, consequent on so sudden a sum- 

 mons to start, with little or no preparation, on such an 

 arduous journey, leaving, too, a wife and family she in a 

 delicate state it was finally arranged that Suleiman 

 should accompany me at my charges. 



My retinue was again unexpectedly increased by en- 

 gaging a Cashmiri who presented himself to me as I was 

 returning home from breakfast at mess. He shewed me 



B 2 



