A LITTLE KNOWN PROVINCE OF THE INDIAN EMPIRE. 121 



missionaries connected with this Society have done more than 

 all the rest of the community, European and Indian, to produce 

 and put in circulation books in the Uriya language. Up to the 

 year 1822, when the missionaries first came to Cut tack, only 

 some fifteen or sixteen Uriya books had been printed ; these 

 were produced at Calcutta or Serampore, and included the Bible 

 in live volumes. Since 1837, numerous books, amongst them a 

 complete Uriya -English and English-Uriya dictionary and many 

 scholastic and religious works, have been published by the 

 missionaries, and there have been other printing presses 

 established since 1860. In 1904 there were 3,267 native 

 Christians in Cuttack and Puri ; I have not the figures for 

 Balasore, the missionaries at which place belong to another 

 (American) society. The native Christians are in all walks of 

 life. When I was last in Cuttack one of them was a leading 

 member of the local bar, and I am glad to say that they are 

 not divorced from the land, there being several Christian 

 villages, the inhabitants of which subsist by agriculture. The 

 standard work on Orissa, from which later commentators have 

 drawn much material, is a history of Orissa by Andrew StirHng, 

 a Bengal civilian, to which an account of the Orissa Baptist 

 Mission, by James Pegg, is appended ; this book was published 

 in 18-i6. To mv mind, the most striking fact mentioned in the 

 latter work is the heavy mortality amongst the earlier 

 missionaries and their families — their children seem to have 

 nearly all died before they were one year old, ^Mr. Pegg 

 himself lost three children under that age ; happily, things 

 have improved, and when I was in Orissa there were several 

 missionaries who had reached an advanced age. It is only 

 right to add that the indirect influence of the missionaries 

 and their power for good has been and is very great, and that, 

 as educators and fearless critics of whatever they believe to be 

 wrong, they are respected, and I may say liked, by the people 

 generally. 



The Sanskrit name of Orissa is Utlcala-desa, the Glorious 

 Country, and it is described by ancient Hindu writers as " the 

 realm established by the gods, the land that takes away sin.'* 

 " Of all the regions of the earth," said one of their sages, " India 

 is the noblest, and of all the countries of India, Utkala bears 

 the highest renown. Its fortunate inhabitants live secure of a 

 reception into the world of spirits, and even those who visit it, 

 and bathe in its sacred rivers, obtain remission of their sins, 

 though they may weigh like mountains. "Who shall estimate 

 the soul's gain from a soiourn in such a land ? But what need 



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