travel every year over Northern India, going from one shrine to another, and pouring on certain images the water of the sacred river. In our journeyings we had a singular immunity from thieves, a greater immunity than we had in our house at Benares, which was several times visited by these unwelcome intruders, though we always kept a watchman. All over the North-West, I suppose all over India, thieves abound. Whole tribes have for generations followed theft as a profession, and have betaken themselves to honest work only when compelled by finding their occupation perilous. They have had as their associates the idle and dissolute of other castes. Tents, as I have observed, are commonly pitched in shady groves, and in consequence admit of being approached unobserved, and a sharp knife in a skilful hand can easily secure an entrance on any side. Travellers have piquant stories to tell of the cleverness and impudence with which their property has been taken away. A missionary friend of ours awoke one morning to find that during the night everything in his tent had disappeared on which thieves could lay their hand. We had a large experience of tent life, but we have happily no story to tell about any similar loss. I do not remember our having had even a night alarm, though I well remember the difficulty we often had in preventing our guardians from sending forth unearthly cries, which made sleep impossible. My habit was, wherever we halted, to make my way to the headman of the adjoining village or town, and to place our encampment under his care. We were generally told there were thieves in the neighbourhood; we were sometimes told they were numerous and daring. We always stated our readiness to pay for watchmen, and we told the headman that if he did not send trustworthy men we should hold him responsible. We thus paid a sort of black-mail, but we thought the small sum paid well expended as insurance for the safety of our property. Some travellers take watchmen with them. This we never did, as we thought ourselves safer in the hands of men on the spot. Many a time as we lay down in our tent did we think how strange it was that, far away from our European brethren, in a strange land among a strange people, we could compose ourselves to sleep with as little fear, and with as strong a feeling of security, as if within locks and bars in our own country. We thought, with thankfulness, that we were under the aegis of our own government, even when we were in places where Englishmen were seldom seen, but where, notwithstanding, our prestige was fully recognized. At all the places through which we passed on our first long tour, Allahabad, Cawnpore, Futtygurh, Mynpoorie, and Agra, we were treated with the utmost kindness by the American and English missionaries, and by other Christian brethren, some of whom have been life-long friends ever since. [Sidenote: THE BUILDINGS OF AGRA.]