Director himself discerned next day. The presses were stopped, not however, before eight reams had been printed. The whole of the paper was bundled back to the manufacturer and the erring Beneze ordered to recompose three sheets, which had been printed and distributed, at his own expense. The foregoing particulars give an idea of the "trouble, anxiety, and misery which have until lately harassed me, alone in a situation of great responsibility," and which "have almost reduced me to a skeleton."

Borrow's letters of this period give a glimpse of what he went through. Fever attacked him, followed by the "Horrors,' which necessitated the drinking of port wine-"a bottle a day" to drive them from him. This under medical advice. "I have been so much occupied," he writes to his mother, "that I have scarcely time to eat or sleep. I have to correct the manuscript and the press, to superintend the printers and the binder, in a word, all the weight of this immense undertaking hangs upon my shoulders." Absorbed in his work and eager for the prompt accomplishment of his mission, Borrow appears to have left the Society without news of his progress. In October, Mr. Jowett wrote beseeching him to remember the "very lively interest" which "our Committee have taken" in the printing of the Manchu version; that people were asking "What is Mr. Borrow doing?"; that the Committee stands between its agents and an eager public, desirous of knowing the trials and tribulations, the hopes and fears of those actively engaged in printing or disseminating the Scripturcs. "You can have no difficulty," writes the Literary Superintendent, "in furnishing me with such monthly information as may satisfy the Committee that they are not expending a large sum of money in vain." There was also a request for information as to how "some critical difficulty has been surmounted . . . not to mention the advance already made in actual printing."

Borrow evidently saw the reasonableness of this request, for he wrote a lengthy account of his labours, which has been quoted from above. This letter, together with others already drawn upon, was not accessible when Dr. Knapp wrote his Life Writings and Correspondence of Borrow, but was discovered in the vaults of the Society at a later date. The following justification of his protracted silence throws a vivid sidelight upon Borrow's character.

My dearest Sir, do me the favour to ask our excellent Committee, Would it have answered any useful purpose if, instead of continuing to struggle with difficulties and using my utmost [endeavours] to overcome them, I had written in the following strain-and what else could I have written if I had written at all?_"I was sent out to St. Petersburg to assist Mr. Lipofzoff in the editing of the Mandchou Testament. That gentleman, who holds three important situations under the Russian Government, and who is far advanced in years, has neither time, inclination, nor eyesight for the task, and I am apprehensive that my strength and powers unassisted are incompetent to it (praised be the Lord, they are not!) therefore I should be glad to return home. Moreover, the compositors say they are unaccustomed to compose in an unknown tongue from such scribble and illegible copy, and they will scarcely assist me to compose. Moreover, the working printers say (several went away in disgust) that the paper on which they have to print is too thin to be wetted, and that to print on dry requires a two-fold exertion of strength, and that they will not do such work for double wages, for it ruptures them." Would that have been a welcome communication to the Committee? I was resolved "to do or die," and, instead of distressing and perplexing the Committee with complaints, to write nothing until I could write something perfectly satisfactory, as I now can (my letters to my private friends have always been written during gleams of sunshine, and traced in the characters of hope); and to bring about that result I have spared neither myself nor my own money. I have toiled in a close printing-office the whole day, during ninety degrees of heat, for the purpose of setting an example, and have bribed people to work when nothing but bribes would induce them to do so.

I am obliged to say all this in self-justification. No member of the Bible Society would ever have heard a syllable respecting what I have undergone but for the question, "What has Mr. Borrow been about?

The simple manliness and restrained dignity of this justification produced a marked impression upon the authorities at home. If the rebuke administered by Mr. Jowett had been mild, his acknowledgment of the reply it had called forth was most cordial and friendly. After assuring him of the Committee's high satisfaction with the way in which Borrow had looked after its interests, he proceeds sincerely to deprecate anything in his last letter which may have caused pain to the recipient;

yet I scarcely know how to be sorry [continues Mr. Jowett] for what has been the occasion of drawing from you what you might otherwise have kept locked up in your own breast-the very interesting story of your labours, vexations, disappointments, vigilance, address, perseverance and successes. How you were able in your solitude to keep up your spirits in the face of so many impediments, apparently insurmountable, I know not. . . . Do not fear that we should in any way interrupt your proceedings. We know our interests too well to interfere with an agent who has shown so much address in planning, and so much diligence in effecting, the execution of our wishes.

VOL. LIV

6

These encouraging words showed the lonely pioneer that, at least, he had the loyal support of those whom he represented. He was further requested to keep a careful account of all extraordinary expenses, that they might duly be discharged by the Society. "I allude to your journies," the letter goes on to explain, “in quest of a better market [for paper], and to the occasional bribes to disheartened workmen. In all matters of this kind the Society is clearly your debtor." There is something almost Gilbertian in the acquiescence of a Bible Society in bribes which were clearly understood by all to mean trink-geld, but necessity knows no law, and the authorities are to be congratulated upon a logical appreciation of the situation and its requirements by choosing, of two evils, the lesser. Thus ended, with the utmost cordiality on both sides, what might well have developed into a regrettable incident.

Another subject for correspondence between Society and agent now arose: should the Manchu version be literal or idiomatic? The verbal ornament of the East was considered by the Committee as ill-fitting a translation of the words of Christ. Simplicity of diction must be preserved at all costs, whatever may be the rule in translations of secular books, and the editor was warned against arbitrary renderings. On the other hand Borrow's philological mind naturally leant towards a rendering that would appear simple and flowing to the native reader. A grave obstacle in the way of simplicity lay in the lack of certain conjunctions which made paraphrasing, or interpreting, indispensable. This, Borrow pointed out. However, the Committee evidently considered the finished work as somewhat marred by these necessary elegancies.

The difficulty was by no means a new one, it had cropped up over and over again in connection with various Eastern tongues into which the Society had caused the Scriptures to be translated. The difficulties encountered by Borrow in the fulfilment of his undertaking must be viewed in the light of the peculiar character of the Russian. A Europeanised Eastern, or an Easternised European, his commercial character is dominated by the desire to make the best possible bargain. His impudence and extortionate demands are almost inconceivable to the British mind, accustomed as it is to comparative morality in business. For binding each volume the price demanded was a rouble and a half,

about one shilling and threepence, yet the price finally agreed upon was forty-five kopecks, fourpence halfpenny, less than a third. The Society had unconsciously selected more than a scholar for its agent, and was agreeably surprised to find such astuteness. At length, in August 1835, the work was completed. A thousand copies of the Manchu-version of the New Testament, in eight volumes quarto, were despatched to London. A triumph for both Society and agent. The cost of the production had been considerable, amounting in all to some £2600, but the object had been accomplished and 8000 books lay at Earl Street ready and waiting for transmission to the heathen hordes of the Russian Steppes and Manchuria.

The Society was not backward in giving public acknowledgment to Borrow's work. In its Thirty-first Report there appears a paragraph which runs:

Mr. George Borrow, who has had to superintend the work [the production of the Manchu New Testament] has in every way afforded satisfaction to the Committee. They have reason to believe that his acquirements in the language are of the most respectable order; while the devoted diligence with which he has laboured, and the skill he has shown in surmounting difficulties, and in conducting his negotiations for the advantage of the Society, justly entitle him to this public acknowledgment of his services.

During his sojourn at St. Petersburg, Borrow, ever simple in his wants, was enabled to save money. His lodging cost only nine shillings a week, and dinner was to be had for fivepence. Thus he was able to assist his mother with handsome remittances. In one half-year he sent her no less than £40, and that out of a salary of £200 per annum. His letters home during the period of his absence in Russia were models of filial love and duty. He was ever solicitous of his mother's welfare, finding time to advise her to engage a servant and such-like attentions, which must have made the old lady proud of her "Dear George." In spite of the claims upon his time whilst in St. Petersburg, Borrow had found opportunities to translate into Russian some of the Homilies of the Church of England, in addition to publishing his Targum or Metrical Translations from Thirty Languages and Dialects and The Talisman from the Russian of Alexander Pushkin, both of which appeared in 1835 with a St. Petersburg imprint.

Borrow's zeal was not limited to editing and printing the

Manchu version entrusted to his care. Whilst still occupied with this work he had made a formal proposition to the General Committee that he should be entrusted with the distribution of the volumes he was preparing, among the Tartars of the Steppes, planning to start from Kiachta, 5000 miles distant from St. Petersburg, Pekin lying some 800 miles further on. The scheme was a daring one, but by no means the result of a moment's enthusiasm. He first broached the subject in February 1834, when he suggested that he should "wander, Testament in hand, overland to Peking. If it were my fortune to have the opportunity." Eight months later he returned to the subject in the following words: "I am a man of few words. I am willing to become that agent. I speak Russ, Manchu, the Tartar or broken Turkish of the Steppes, and I have some knowledge of Chinese, which I might easily improve in Kiachta.” Again at a later date he wrote saying he was "ready to attempt anything which the Society might wish him to execute, and at a moment's warning to direct his course towards Canton, Pekin, or the Court of the Grand Lama." He even applied to the Russian Government for the necessary passport to Kiachta. This, he was informed, would be granted on one condition, a condition which would have rendered his journey nugatory. He must not carry with him a single copy of the Scriptures. Thus the whole scheme came to nothing, much to the relief of his friends, and perhaps to that of the General Committee itself; for to send a man upon such an errand was tantamount to condemning him to death.

September 9,

On August 28, 1835, Borrow bade farewell to Russia and started for England, later to undertake the famous distribution of The Bible in Spain. During the return journey he had ample leisure in which to review the events of the past two years. He had earned the respect and regard of those who stood to him in the light of employers; the yearning for employment had been creditably realised; he could look back with pride and forward with hope; but above all he could say,

One shall be nobler for the work of one.

HERBERT IVES.