But Borrow had here to suffer one of the many disappointments of his life.

If not actually a gypsy he had all a gypsy's love of wandering.

No impartial reader of the innumerable letters of this period can possibly claim that there was in Borrow any of the proselytising zeal or evangelical fervour which wins for the names of Henry Martyn and of David Livingstone so much honour and sympathy even among the least zealous.

At the best Borrow's zeal for religion was of the order of Dr.Keate, the famous headmaster of Eton--'Blessed are the pure in heart ...

if you are not pure in heart, by God, I'll flog you!' Borrow had got his New Testaments printed, and he wanted to distribute them because he wished to see still more of the world, and had no lack of courage to carry out any well defined scheme of the organisation which was employing him.