in the conversion of the heathen, I may some time dishonour the
cause in which I am engaged. I have hitherto had much experience of
the daily supports of a gracious God; but I am conscious that if
those supports were intermitted but for a little time, my sinful
dispositions would infallibly predominate. At present I am kept,
but am not one of those who are strong and do exploits.

"I have often thought that a spirit of observation is necessary in
order to our doing or communicating much good; and were it not for a
very phlegmatic habit, I think my soul would be richer. I, however,
appear to myself to have lost much of my capacity for making
observations, improvements, etc., or of retaining what I attend to
closely. For instance, I have been near three years learning the
Sanskrit language, yet know very little of it. This is only a
specimen of what I feel myself to be in every respect. I try to
observe, to imprint what I see and hear on my memory, and to feel my
heart properly affected with the circumstances; yet my soul is
impoverished, and I have something of a lethargic disease cleaving
to my body...

"I would communicate something on the natural history of the country
in addition to what I have before written, but no part of that
pleasing study is so familiar to me as the vegetable world."

His letters of this period to Fuller on the fruits of India, and to
Morris on the husbandry of the natives, might be quoted still as
accurate and yet popular descriptions of the mango, guava, and
custard apple; plantain, jack, and tamarind; pomegranate,
pine-apple, and rose-apple; papaya, date, and cocoa-nut; citron,
lime, and shaddock. Of many of these, and of foreign fruits which