an address, signed by the captain, the officers, and the whole of the passengers, ‘expressing their grateful sense of the peculiar privilege they had enjoyed in his society and his ministrations.’ At the first sight of India, a land so full of romantic and mysterious interest, Macleod as a Briton, and still more as a Christian, was strangely moved. The working plan of the deputies may be stated in a dozen words: Bombay, Madras, Calcutta, with a loop of travel at each. In one city as in another Macleod had much the same round of triumphs and of toils. He conferred with missionaries of different Churches; inspected colleges and schools; and, accompanied by the highest aristocracy, both native and English, delivered sermons and addresses to enormous crowds. The Brahman worship he took pains to study, and made a point of quizzing the most cultured Hindoos. Socially he was treated as if he had been the special commissioner, not of the General Assembly, but of the Crown. Governors, military commanders, and bishops gave dinners and receptions in his honour. He was never well, but the killing fatigue at the centres was relieved by the trips to inland stations. From Bombay the deputies went to Poonah and Colgaum, whence returning they visited the caves of Karli. Sir Alexander Grant--afterwards Principal of Edinburgh University--at whose house Macleod met a select party of educated natives, has left this testimony: ‘He talks to them in a large, conciliatory, manly way, which is a perfect model of missionary style. I had the most charming talks with him, lasting always till 2 A.M., and his mixture of poetry, thought, tenderness, manly sense, and humour was to me perfectly delightful. I had no idea his soul was so great.’ At a bungalow on the road to Colgaum he had what he calls a dangerous encounter with a snake. He had wished to see a real cobra, and Dr. Watson reported that there was one outside basking in the moonshine. So off went Norman with his Lochaber crook. ‘Slowly and cautiously I approached, with uplifted staff and beating heart, the spot where the dragon lay, and saw him, a long grey monster! As the chivalrous St. George flashed upon my mind, I administered a fearful stroke to the brute; but from a sense of duty to my wife and children rushed back to the bungalow in case of any putting forth of venom, which might cause a vacancy in the Barony, and resolved to delay approaching the worm till next morning. Now, whatever the cause was, no one, strange to say, could discover the dead body when morning dawned. A few decayed branches of a tree were alone discovered near his foul den, and these had unquestionably been broken by some mighty stroke; but the cobra was never seen afterwards, dead or alive.... Why my friend laughed so heartily at my adventure I never could comprehend, and have always avoided asking him the question.’ Their route to Madras was by sea to Calicut, and across country by rail from Beypore. In their excursions