Previous to taking up our abode at Ranee Khet I paid several visits to it, with a view to making myself acquainted with the neighbourhood and to holding intercourse with the people, many of whom I met in their villages. They looked on me with fear, as if I had come to lay a new tax on them, and seemed utterly unable to comprehend me when I told them I was no Government official, but a servant of God, who came to them with good tidings from Him. The only school of which I heard was twelve miles distant, and I came to the conclusion that the establishment of primary schools would be very beneficial to the people, and highly favourable to my object. Though so illiterate that in well-sized villages I did not hear of a person who could read, a number expressed approval of my object. Some were forward with the promise to erect school-sheds, and to send their children, but the performance did not come up to the promise. When we went to Ranee Khet there was not a single house at the place. The only Europeans were two Engineers and a sergeant, and they were living in their cook-houses, preparatory to building houses for themselves. I had arranged with a friend to have a wooden house erected, but when we went the work had only been commenced, and the first six weeks we lived in a tent. It was midsummer, and the tent was in the daytime intolerably hot. The trees around gave little shelter, they were chiefly pine; but we soon succeeded in putting up booths, and in them, except when storms came on, we were very comfortable during the heat of the day. We were thankful when we exchanged our tent and booths for our rough wooden house. In it we remained two years and a half in tolerable comfort. There were two serious drawbacks. In the heavy rains the house leaked in such a degree that there was scarcely a dry spot in it; and, what was worse, the rats got into the open roof, and by their active movements, especially at night, were a great annoyance. Latterly the leakage was stopped, but the rats were too strong for us, and could not be dislodged. Notwithstanding these inconveniences, when we remembered the heat of the plains, during six months of the year, which we had endured, and our brethren were continuing to endure, and contrasted the climate there with the climate we were enjoying, we were never tempted to murmur. We felt deeply thankful for the Providence which had given us an abode in a country where summer heat was only a little greater than in our own, where there were no hot winds, where with windows open we could be always comfortable in the hottest weather, and where all around us was magnificent scenery.