The details of travelling I have now given, and the previous details about the country and people may perhaps enable the reader the better to understand and realize missionary work in the Province.
CHAPTER XXI.
THE ALMORA MISSION.
Stated mission work was commenced in Kumaon in 1850. Previous to that time a few of its people had heard the Gospel from missionaries travelling through it, or residing for a few months in it. In that year the Rev. J. H. Budden, of the London Missionary Society, after labouring for a time in Benares and Mirzapore, was obliged by the failure of health to abandon all hope of continuing in the plains, and took up his abode at Almora, the capital of the Province. The society declined to enter on mission work in Kumaon; but Captain Ramsay, Senior Assistant to the Commissioner, with other friends, came forward with most liberal offers of support, and consent was given to Mr. Budden's entering into an engagement to carry on the Mission as the agent of its local supporters. For some time his entire salary and all expenses were met by these friends. Afterwards a part of the salary was paid by the Society, and for years the whole, but the friends who founded the Mission have on to the present time supported it with princely munificence. At the head of these is Sir Henry Ramsay, the Captain Ramsay of 1850, who has been for many years the Commissioner of the Province, and who continues the warm and liberal supporter of everything by which the spiritual as well as the temporal good of the people may be promoted.
WORK OF THE ALMORA MISSION.
As the Mission at Almora was the first, so it continues to be the most important in the Province. Organized and administered by Mr. Budden, and heartily supported by friends on the spot, it has done a work which has told powerfully and happily on the entire country. From the beginning much attention has been paid to the education of the young. For a long time the school of the Mission was the only one in the Province where a superior education, at once native and European, was imparted; and still, both in the number of its pupils and in the extent of its course of study, it stands highest. From it have gone out for many years bands of young men who now fill varied positions under Government, and it is believed they are discharging their duties with greater intelligence and a higher character than those they have succeeded. In remote parts of the Province I have met persons who have spoken in strong terms of gratitude of the benefit they had received from attending the Almora Mission School. A few years ago a large, handsome structure was erected for its accommodation at great expense, towards which the natives contributed very liberally. In addition to this school-house, the Mission has valuable property in mission-houses for native Christians, an orphanage, and a book-room.
