TIMBUCTOO. They chartered a vessel from the Canary Islands, in October, the distance thence to Cape Juby being about eighty miles. They stayed three or four weeks on the coast; the natives came down to them in large numbers, bringing wool, goats, &c., for sale. They all seemed delighted when told of the project of building a station at Cape Juby. They dress in blue and white cloth, are pretty fully armed, but wear no head-dress. They are a fine race of men, not negroes, but Moors and Berbers, who live by keeping flocks and hunting. They have immense stores of wool, which they would be glad to trade away. A sheep or a gazelle could be bought for a couple of shillings. The people are like the Arabs in their love of war and plunder, and they are polygamists. The Mohammedan priests are the only schoolmasters. Much disease exists, and a knowledge of medicine would secure free access even to the heart of the country. The people seemed never to have heard of Christ or the Gospel, though some of them had a vague impression about the law of Moses. We trust a permanent mission-station will soon be established at this point.

On their return to the Canaries, our friends found the ports closed against all vessels from the African coast, from fear of cholera. They had to go to Vigo in Spain to perform quarantine, in a vessel quite unfit in point of size, for so long a voyage. Encountering very rough weather, their lives were for several days in great danger, but they cried unto the Lord, and He heard them, and delivered them out of their distresses. They got safely into Lisbon, and reached London at the end of the year.

SAHARUNPORE.

Our dear brother, MR. JOHN NELSON of Saharunpore was, we are sorry to say, very ill when he last wrote. He returned from the hills in September, having had a bad attack of fever there, and been ordered home by his medical man.

Mrs. Nelson, with whom we sympathize much in this serious anxiety, writes, "My dear husband has been very ill since his return, not expected to live. He took what we expected to be a last kiss of our dear child, but the Lord has graciously spared and partially restored him. He is now able to sit up daily for a short time in his chair. We have been transferred to Buxas, on the E. I. Railway, and shall move as soon as Mr. Nelson is fit for the journey."

Dear Nelson himself adds, "I can't hold my pen long, but wish to ask you to have a special prayer meeting for me at Harley House, to ask our Heavenly Father to restore me, if it be His will. I am so weak still, I can neither walk nor stand alone. If I am not spared to

write again, we will talk together above. I am suffering now mostly from my heart, it has prevented my lying down.

"Your faithful singing, happy student,

"Who once more shouts-Hallelujah!"

"J. NELSON,

CAMEROONS.

Our African brother, Mr. James R. Newby, has joined the Baptist Mission at Cameroons, having suffered very severely from fever while at Bonny, and found less opportunity for preaching the Gospel there than he had hoped. He writes that the Baptists have a large field of work at Cameroons, and also at Victoria, so that they are sadly in need of helpers. For want of workers one station had to be given up.

Mr. Fuller, the Missionary with whom he is now stopping, has a large congregation and school, and services to conduct daily. Until our brother joined him he was alone in his station, as even his wife is at present in Europe. He has been thirty-four years in the country, and is fifty years of age, but Mr. Newby says he does not look more than thirty-five, and still labours with all the vigour of a young man.

The station at Old Calabar he describes as thriving, with its out-stations; all the churches crowded on Sunday. Many of the chiefs have given up their idols, put away their numerous wives, and come out strongly on the Lord's side.

The persecution at Bonny has subsided. Bishop Crowther has gone up the Niger, in the steamer " Henry Venn," with nine new agents to settle on its banks.

ITEMS OF INTELLIGENCE OF OTHER MISSIONS. LAST summer we paid a brief visit to the Pilgrim Mission House, of St. Crischona near Basle, Switzerland, an Institution somewhat of the same nature as our own, save that it contemplates home mission work more than foreign. Very beautiful, but rather lonely and inaccessible is this interesting mission training college; an old church and several large houses, crowning the summit of a high hill, and overlooking a vast extent of country, and a variety of Alpine chains and peaks. The students are chiefly Swiss and German, but many foreigners are from time to time received. We saw there four

Bosnian young men, who could speak no language but their own, but whom M. Rappart, the valued and able Director of the Institution, hopes to train as agents for their own unhappy country. Sixteen young men went out last year from St. Crischona, one to Abyssinia, and the rest to French and German speaking districts in Europe and America. The students work each at his own trade for the benefit of the Institution, and those who have no trade, work on the farm. They gave us a cordial welcome, and Mr. Guinness addressed them at their evening worship in the interesting old church, the gift of which was the commencement of the Institution. We felt much sympathy with M. Rappart and his admirable wife, (a daughter of Bishop Gobat of Jerusalem), who devote themselves entirely to the guidance and instruction of this large family, and who seem eminently adapted to their posts. We commend this simple primitive evangelical school of the prophets to the warm sympathies of our readers.

A FAREWELL MEETING was held at the Mission House, Bloomfield Street (London Miss. Soc.), in November to take leave of twelve volunteers leaving England to undertake various branches of mission service in India. They were Mr. and Mrs. Sherring, returning to Benares, Mr. and Mrs. Walton to Bangalore, Mr. and Mrs. Bumford to Calcutta, and Mrs. Mather, widow of the late Dr. Mather. The rest were new missionaries, and four of them were ladies. Dr. Allon delivered the valedictory address, and the Rev. Dr. Clarke, Secretary to the American Board, also addressed the missionary party. He reminded them that a decade meant more progress in missionary matters now-a-days, than a century formerly. The work for women he regarded as the finishing work of missionary enterprise, for when the home was won for Christ what remained?

AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE a farewell' meeting, at which Mr. Spurgeon presided, was also lately held, when Mr. T. L. Johnson, and Mr. C. H. Richardson, with their wives, took leave of their friends in England before starting for Africa. With one exception the party had all been slaves, and owe their liberty to President Lincoln's abolition proclamation. Dr. Moffat was present and spoke.

THE KOHLS OF BENGAL.

It will be remembered that Pastor Gossner was a Roman Catholic priest in Bavaria, who, at the close of last century, embraced evangelical principles and afterwards joined the Protestant Church of Germany, and during the last thirty years of his life (1828

1858) was one of the pastors of the Prussian Church, in Berlin. There, among other Christian works, he in 1836 began to send missionaries to the heathen. One of the most prosperous branches of his work is the mission, commenced in 1850, among THE KHOLS IN BENGAL, which continues to this day. There are now, in seven different stations, of which Manchi, in Chota Nagpore, is the centre, thirteen German missionaries, taking charge of 25,000 baptized people, who have been gathered by the mission, and of 5000 natives who are receiving instruction preparatory to their reception into the church. The annual increase of the whole church in the district is about 3000 souls. The few German missionaries are, of course, not able to undertake the spiritual superintendence of this large number of souls, and they have, therefore, chosen helpers from among the converts. Six native pastors are now labouring among their countrymen; more than eighty catechists instruct inquirers, and take charge of the young in the chapels and schools; about an equal number of teachers give elementary education in the villages. This is a far larger measure of success than is generally obtained among the Hindoos.

THE BAPTIST MISSIONARY SOCIETY'S EXPEDITION TO SAN SALVADOR.

MR. COMBER, of the Baptist Missionary Society, has returned to England after his preliminary expedition to SAN SALVADOR, with a view to the establishment of a mission in Congoland. His report is, on the whole, encouraging. He and his party (including a good donkey) walked 200 miles from Massucca on the river Congo, where they organized the expedition, to San Salvador. The march occupied

eight days, and was over a rough mountainous country; they had to cross several unbridged rivers, some of which were deep and others fordable. They were well received by Dom Pedro, the King of Congo, who fired a salute of sixty guns in their honour, and sent them a pig, carried alive by two men on a pole. They spent three weeks in San Salvador, but finding Roman Catholic influence already exerted there, requested carriers of the king, and struck off North-East, in the direction of Stanley Pool, the first navigable point of the upper river.

Another eight days' walk brought them to MAKUTA, where the natives received them kindly, but would not permit them to stay more than four days. They could not get guides to the river or carriers, so were obliged to return. One place called TUNGWA, which they passed through, is described by Mr. Comber as quite attractive, and with a population of 2000 souls. The country seemed healthy, food plentiful, and the road a well-beaten trade route. The

climate, at the season of the expedition, seemed delightful over the whole district, the early morning air being "cool and bracing, like a refreshing cold bath." Mr. Comber felt strong and vigorous throughout the journey, and suffered only from the horrible little jigga insect, of which the missionaries of the Livingstone Inland Mission also complain.

On their return to San Salvador the king urged them to begin to build in his town, promising them his own support, and that he would pass a "compulsory education act," obliging all the children to attend their school, and saying that it was most unlikely that the Roman Catholic priest would stay, or any other come there. Mr. Comber's desire is to return in the spring, accompanied by two able and earnest fellow-labourers, and to form the first station of the Baptist Missionary Society at San Salvador.

MILITARY MISSIONARIES.

WE feel that the precept "have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them" demands that we should not pass by in silence the very painful incident which has recently occurred in connexion with the Wesleyan Australasian Mission (Sydney). Our readers are aware that a mournful tragedy took place recently in the Duke of York Island, South Pacific. Four native Christian teachers were cruelly murdered, cooked, and eaten by the cannibals of the island. The names of these modern martyrs were Sailasa, Peni Luva, Livai Noboro, and Timote, and the instigator of the murder threatened to kill the widows and children of the slaughtered teachers. He also demanded that the natives of New Britain should kill their teachers, and he sent a message to the European missionary threatening to kill him.

All this was of course extremely sad, though the whole incident is in harmony with former incidents in the initiatory work of similar missions, and only what may be expected by all Christians labouring in similar spheres. The Lord Jesus forewarned His disciples, "If they have persecuted Me, they will also persecute you," and He sent them forth as sheep in the midst of wolves. The Apostles could say, "For Thy sake we are killed all the day long, we are counted as sheep for the slaughter;" and we must remember that "the servant is not greater than his Lord."

But this incident, deplorable enough in itself, has been rendered ten times more so by the subsequent proceedings of Mr. Brown, the