CHAPTER VI - THE FIRST EXPLOSION AND THE FOUR CONVERTS

Summary

“Throughout the whole progress of these preparatory arrangements,” Mr. Duff afterwards wrote, “the excitement among the natives continued unabated. They pursued us along the streets. They threw open the very doors of our palankeen, and poured in their supplications with a pitiful earnestness of countenance that might have softened a heart of stone. In the most plaintive and pathetic strains they deplored their ignorance. They craved for ‘English reading’ —‘English knowledge.’ They constantly appealed to the compassion of an ‘Ingraji’ or Englishman, addressing us in the style of Oriental hyperbole, as ‘the great and fathomless ocean of all imaginable excellences,’ for having come so far to teach poor ignorant Bengalees. And then, in broken English, some would say, ‘Me good boy, oh take me;’ others, ‘Me poor boy, oh take me;’—some, ‘Me want read your good books, oh take me;’ others, ‘Me know your commandments, Thou shalt have no other gods before Me,—oh take me;’—and many, by way of final appeal, ‘Oh take me, and I pray for you.’ And even after the final choice was made, such was the continued press of new candidates that it was found absolutely necessary to issue small written tickets for those who had succeeded; and to station two men at the outer door to admit only those who were of the selected number.”