Life of William Carey by George Smith - The Jesus Army

than I could have conceived in so large a country. Edible vegetables are scarce, and fruit far
from plentiful. You will perhaps wonder at our eating many things here which no one eats in
England: as arum, three or four sorts, and poppy leaves (Papaver somniferum). We also cut up
mallows by the bushes for our food (Job xxx. 4). Amaranths, of three sorts, we also eat, besides
capsicums, pumpkins, gourds, calabashes, and the egg-plant fruit; yet we have no hardships in
these respects. Rice is the staple article of food...
“My love to the students. God raise them up for great blessings. Great things are certainly at
hand.”
But he was also an erudite botanist. Had he arrived in Calcutta a few days earlier than he did, he would have
been appointed to the place for which sheer poverty led him to apply, in the Company’s Botanical Garden, established
on the right bank of the Hoogli a few miles below Calcutta, by Colonel Alexander Kyd, for the collection
of indigenous and acclimatisation of foreign plants. There he at once made the acquaintance, and till
1815 retained the loving friendship, of its superintendent, Dr. Roxburgh, the leader of a series of eminent
men, Buchanan and Wallich, Griffith, Falconer, T. Thomson, and Thomas Anderson, the last two cut off in
the ripe promise of their manhood. One of Carey’s first requests was for seeds and instruments, not merely
from scientific reasons, but that he might carry out his early plan of working with his hands as a farmer while
he evangelised the people. On 5th August 1794 he wrote to the Society: “I wish you also to send me a few instruments
of husbandry, viz., scythes, sickles, plough-wheels, and such things; and a yearly assortment of all
garden and flowering seeds, and seeds of fruit trees, that you can possibly procure; and let them be packed in
papers, or bottles well stopped, which is the best method. All these things, at whatever price you can procure
them, and the seeds of all sorts of field and forest trees, etc., I will regularly remit you the money for every
year; and I hope that I may depend upon the exertions of my numerous friends to procure them. Apply to
London seedsmen and others, as it will be a lasting advantage to this country; and I shall have it in my power
to do this for what I now call my own country. Only take care that they are new and dry.” Again he addressed
Fuller on 22nd June 1797:
“MY VERY DEAR BROTHER--I have yours of August 9, 16, which informs me that the seeds,
etc., were shipped. I have received those seeds and other articles in tolerable preservation, and
shall find them a very useful article. An acquaintance which I have formed with Dr. Roxburgh,
Superintendent of the Company’s Botanic Garden, and whose wife is daughter of a missionary
on the coast, may be of future use to the mission, and make that investment of vegetables more
valuable.”
Thus towards the close of his six years’ sacrifice for the people of Dinapoor does he estimate himself and his
scientific pursuits in the light of the great conflict to which the Captain of Salvation had called him. He is
opening his heart to Fuller again, most trusted of all:
“MUDNABATI, 17th July 1799.--Respecting myself I have nothing interesting to say; and if I
had, it appears foreign to the design of a mission for the missionaries to be always speaking of
their own experiences. I keep several journals, it is true, relating to things private and public, respecting
the mission, articles of curiosity and science; but they are sometimes continued and
sometimes discontinued: besides, most things contained in them are of too general or trivial a
nature to send to England, and I imagine could have no effect, except to mock the expectations
of our numerous friends, who are waiting to hear of the conversion of the heathen and overthrow
of Satan’s kingdom.
137