 insufficient diet from the
time that Chowbok left me, but was also well provided for the morrow.
    I thought of Chowbok, and felt how useful he had been to me, and in how many
ways I was the loser by his absence, having now to do all sorts of things for
myself which he had hitherto done for me, and could do infinitely better than I
could. Moreover, I had set my heart upon making him a real convert to the
Christian religion, which he had already embraced outwardly, though I cannot
think that it had taken deep root in his impenetrably stupid nature. I used to
catechize him by our camp fire, and explain to him the mysteries of the Trinity
and of original sin, with which I was myself familiar, having been the grandson
of an archdeacon by my mother's side, to say nothing of the fact that my father
was a clergyman of the English Church. I was therefore sufficiently qualified
for the task, and was the more inclined to it, over and above my real desire to
save the unhappy creature from an eternity of torture, by recollecting the
promise of St. James, that if anyone converted a sinner (which Chowbok surely
was) he should hide a multitude of sins. I reflected, therefore, that the
conversion of Chowbok might in some degree compensate for irregularities and
shortcomings in my own previous life, the remembrance of which had been more
than once unpleasant to me during my recent experiences.
    Indeed, on one occasion I had even gone so far as to baptize him, as well as
I could, having ascertained that he had certainly not been both christened and
baptized, and gathering (from his telling me that he had received the name
William from the missionary) that it was probably the first-mentioned rite to
which he had been subjected. I thought it great carelessness on the part of the
missionary to have omitted the second, and certainly more important, ceremony
which I have always understood precedes christening both in the case of infants
and of adult converts; and when I thought of the risks we were both incurring I
determined that there should be no further delay. Fortunately it was not yet
twelve o'clock, so I baptized him at once from one of the pannikins (the only
vessels I had) reverently, and, I trust, efficiently. I then set myself to work
to instruct him in the deeper mysteries of our belief, and to make him, not only
in name, but in heart a Christian.
    It is true that I might not have succeeded, for Chowbok was very hard to
teach
