Life of William Carey by George Smith - The Jesus Army

lunted the natural shrewdness of the cultivator. A foul mythology, a saddening demon-worship, and an exacting
social system, covered the land as with a pall. What even Christendom was fast becoming in the tenth
century, India had been all through the eighteen Christian centuries.
The boy who from eight to fourteen “chose to read books of science, history, voyages, etc., more than others”;
the youth whose gardener uncle would have had him follow that calling, but whose sensitive skin kept him
within doors, where he fitted up a room with his botanical and zoological museum; the shoemaker-preacher
who made a garden around every cottage-manse in which he lived, and was familiar with every beast, bird, insect,
and tree in the Midlands of England, became a scientific observer from the day he landed at Calcutta, an
agricultural reformer from the year he first built a wooden farmhouse in the jungle, as the Manitoba emigrant
now does under very different skies, and then began to grow and make indigo amid the peasantry at Dinapoor.
He thus unconsciously reveals himself and his method of working in a letter to Morris of Clipstone:
“MUDNABATI, 5th December 1797.--To talk of continuance of friendship and warm affection to
you would be folly. I love you; and next to seeing your face, a letter from you is one of my
greatest gratifications. I see the handwriting, and read the heart of my friend; nor can the distance
of one-fourth of the globe prevent a union of hearts.
“Hitherto I have refrained from writing accounts of the country, because I concluded that those
whose souls were panting after the conversion of the heathen would feel but little gratified in
having an account of the natural productions of the country. But as intelligence of this kind has
been frequently solicited by several of my friends, I have accordingly opened books of observation,
which I hope to communicate when they are sufficiently authenticated and matured. I also
intend to assign a peculiar share to each of my stated correspondents. To you I shall write some
accounts of the arts, utensils, and manufactures of the country; to Brother Sutcliff their mythology
and religion; to Brother Ryland the manners and customs of the inhabitants; to Brother
Fuller the productions of the country; to Brother Pearce the language, etc.; and to the Society a
joint account of the mission.”
He had “separate books for every distinct class, as birds, beasts, fishes, reptiles, etc.” Long before this, on 13th
March 1795, he had written to the learned Ryland, his special correspondent on subjects of science and on
Hebrew, his first impressions of the physiography of Bengal, adding: “The natural history of Bengal would
furnish innumerable novelties to a curious inquirer. I am making collections and minute descriptions of
whatever I can obtain; and intend at some future time to transmit them to Europe.”
“MUDNABATI, 26th November 1796.--I observed in a former letter that the beasts have been in
general described, but that the undescribed birds were surprisingly numerous; and, in fact, new
species are still frequently coming under my notice. We have sparrows and water-wagtails, one
species of crow, ducks, geese, and common fowls; pigeons, teal, ortolans, plovers, snipes like
those in Europe; but others, entirely unlike European birds, would fill a volume. Insects are very
numerous. I have seen about twelve sorts of grylli, or grasshoppers and crickets. Ants are the
most omnivorous of all insects; we have eight or ten sorts very numerous. The termes, or white
ants, destroy everything on which they fasten; they will eat through an oak chest in a day or two
and devour all its contents. Butterflies are not so numerous as in England, but I think all different.
Common flies and mosquitoes (or gnats) are abundant, and the latter so tormenting as to
make one conclude that if the flies in Egypt were mosquitoes, the plague must be almost insupportable.
Here are beetles of many species; scorpions of two sorts, the sting of the smallest not
mortal; land crabs in abundance, and an amazing number of other kinds of insects. Fish is very
plentiful, and the principal animal food of the inhabitants. I find fewer varieties of vegetables
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