F. CUNNINGHAM.


The recommendation was well-timed, for the Bible Society at that
particular moment required such a man as Borrow for a Manchu-Tartar
project it had in view. In 1821 the Bible Society had commissioned
Stepan Vasilievitch Lipovzoff, {94a} of St Petersburg, to translate
the New Testament into Manchu, the court and diplomatic language of
China. A year later, an edition of 550 copies of the First Gospel
was printed from type specially cast for the undertaking. A hundred
copies were despatched to headquarters in London, and the remainder,
together with the type, placed with the Society's bankers at St
Petersburg, {94b} until the time should arrive for the distribution
of the books.

Three years after (1824), the overflowing Neva flooded the cellars in
which the books were stored, causing their irretrievable ruin, and
doing serious damage to the type. This misfortune appeared
temporarily to discourage the authorities at home, although Mr
Lipovzoff was permitted to proceed with the work of translation,
which he completed in two years from the date of the inundation.

In 1832 the Rev. Wm. Swann, of the London Missionary Society,
discovered in the famous library of Baron Schilling de Canstadt at St
Petersburg the manuscript of a Manchu translation of "the principal
part of the Old Testament," and two books of the New. The discovery
was considered to be so important that Mr Swann decided to delay his
departure for his post in Siberia and make a transcription, which he
did. The Manchu translation was the work of Father Puerot,
"originally a Jesuit emissary at Pekin [who] passed the latter years