hundreds of thousands of tracts printed in
Hindoostanee and Bengalee languages."

"Well, that is something, Nobinkissen."

"And of what class of people are your
converts?"

"Respectable men of all classes, I
suppose."

"The dregs of both Hindoos and Mussulmans.
The most debased and degraded of
Indians — men who only assume Christianity
in the hope of temporal advantage and
preferment — and who fling aside their newly
put-on faith, and laugh and scoff at your
credulity the moment they find their hope
frustrated. I could give you at least one
hundred instances; but one will suffice,
Not long ago a Mussulman, named Ally
Khan, was converted by Mr. Jones a
missionary in Calcutta, and, shortly after his
conversion, obtained an appointment with a
salary of one hundred rupees a month, in the
Baptist Mission Society. Here he contrived
to embezzle sixteen hundred rupees, for
which offence he was indicted in the Supreme
Court, found guilty, and sentenced to a year's
imprisonment in the Calcutta jail. On hearing
the sentence he exclaimed: 'In the name
of the devil, is this the reward of renouncing
my religion ? Farewell Christianity! From
this hour I am a Moslem again!'

"Another very flagrant case occurred in this
very station. A civilian took into his service
a recently converted Hindoo, as a sirdar-bearer.
The fellow had charge of a money-bag, and
ran off with it. And where and how do you
suppose he was apprehended ? At Hurdwar,
taking an active part in the Hoolee Festival!
The Roman Catholic priests have long since
left off asking the natives of India to
become Christians. Those who voluntarily
present themselves, are, after a strict examination,
and a due warning that they must
hope for no temporal advantage, admitted
into the Church."

"And do they have any applications ?"

"Very very few, indeed; but those whom
they admit do, really and truly, become
Christians."

These last words of Nobinkissen were
scarcely pronounced, when a palkee was
brought up to my door, and out of it stepped
a Roman Catholic priest — an Italian gentleman,
a Jesuit — whom I had met a few evenings
previously at the house of a mutual
friend. Nobinkissen, who appeared to know
the reverend father intimately, related to him
the substance of the conversation we had
just held, or rather the latter part thereof,
and the priest corroborated every allegation,
that Noliinkissen had made.

"Yea," he added, "we now devote our
attention, exclusively, to the spiritual wants
of the white man who requires our aid —
convinced, as we are, of the hopelessness of the
task of converting the Hindoo and the
Mussulman to Christianity." And, in addition
to the instances of false converts, afforded by
Nobinkissen, he did not scruple to detail
several others of an equally atrocious character
and complexion.

DOWN AMONG THE DUTCHMEN.
IV.

THERE is a certain picture of prodigious
proportions hanging in the Rijks Museum—
a picture of many figures, wherein may be
studied advantageously the old Dutch type
of face and expression. Some twenty or
thirty figures supping desperately, with stern
Dutch purpose—some twenty or thirty living,
speaking faces, fitted with flesh, and blood,
and veins, and unshaven stubble, full of
startling, outspeaking life. Such a miracle
of portrait-painting can hardly be conceived,
most perfect memorial, therefore, of how the
Dutchmen of old, looked and bore
themselves. How they gathered round their long
tables in huge parties, how they ate of those
quaint pies dressed in the likeness of birds,
how they held aloft those queer cups and
beakers (mounted Nautilus shells they would
seem to have been), which, of themselves,
together with the eternal lemon rind, are
such popular studies with the old Dutch
Masters; how they drank the red wine, not
through the helmet barred, but from blue
antique flasks, letting it come in a great arch
—all this, and much more, may be gathered
profitably from that picture chronicle. With
that prevailing type of physiognomy before
spoken of, the full radiant faces suffused with
an unctuous glow, the twinkling eyes, the
purple flesh, fattened on the juices of many
rich meats, the open throats, all in thick rolls
like so much corded brawn, so looked the
burgher and the fighting element in the fine
old days of Dutch glory. Out of such stuff
came De Ruyters and Van Tromps, and
their disciples, it may have been, of the same
sturdy build — walking their quarter-decks
with heavy stride, and holding good cheer in
the admiral's cabin. There is another
pattern of physiognomy, the direct opposite, and
these two would seem to exhaust the species.
This is the lean lantern-jawed order, to be
also found abundantly on the walls of the
Rijks Museum. Morne, melancholy, and
yellow men, counsellors chiefly, that do the
thinking work, with small ragged moustaches,
and subject eternally to bilious derangement.
These were the spirits that could weave triple
alliances, and dictate haughty answers to the
great Louis. They may be seen in many
galleries, standing out yellow with strange
effect — work of Rembrandt, Van Ryn, and
other light and shadow masters — side by side
with their sturdier and robustious brethren.
They may be seen, too, in the old plates of
the Hogen Mogen sitting in council, their
tri-cornered hats on, and periwigs flowing
down their backs: which two patterns, as has
been said, the sanguineous and bilious, the
thinkers and the doers, may be held to
exhaust that ancient company.