"I examined the book with great interest. It was not printed in the
Persian character, but the common Pushtoo language of Afghanistan;
and was the only specimen I had ever seen of Pushtoo reduced to
writing. The accomplishment of such a translation was a highly
honourable proof of the zeal and industry of the Serampore mission;
and should these pages ever meet the eye of Mr. John Marshman, of
Serampore,21 whose own pen is consistently guided by a love of civil
order and religious truth, he may probably be able to identify 'the
English gentleman' who, thirty-two years ago on the banks of the
Ganges, at the then frontier of British India, gave to a young
Afghan chief, from beyond the distant Indus, a Bible in his own
barbarous tongue, and foresaw the day when the followers of the 'Son
of David' should extend their dominion to the 'Throne of Solomon.'"

Hurdwâr, as the spot at which the Ganges debouches into the plains,
is the scene of the greatest pilgrim gathering in India, especially
every twelfth year. Then three millions of people used to assemble,
and too often carried, all over Asia, cholera which extended to
Europe. The missionaries made this, like most pilgrim resorts, a
centre of preaching and Bible circulation, and doubtless it was from
Thompson, Carey's Missionary at Delhi, that this copy of the Pushtoo
Bible was received. It was begun by Dr. Leyden, and continued for
seven years by the same Afghan maulavee under Carey, in the Arabic
character. The Punjabi Bible, nearly complete, issued first in
1815, had become so popular by 1820 as to lead Carey to report of
the Sikhs that no one of the nations of India had discovered a
stronger desire for the Scriptures than this hardy race. At
Amritsar and Lahore "the book of Jesus is spoken of, is read, and
has caused a considerable stir in the minds of the people." A Thug,