The Report for 1853, informs us that the new missionaries had reached Africa, early in February; and that all of them had suffered more or less from sickness during the acclimating season. The older missionaries, too, continued to suffer from the debilitating influence of the climate. In June the eldest son of Mr. Thompson died, and soon afterwards Mrs. Thompson’s health so far failed that she had to be removed by her husband to the United States. Mr. Arnold and his wife have also been compelled to ask for a dismission from the service, on account of the state of his health. During the whole of the year reported, the country has been suffering under one of the most wide-spread and desolating wars that has been known there since the establishment of the mission. It has so far hindered the progress of the work, as to allow of the opening of but one of the stations contemplated, that of Tissana, up the Big Boom river. The latest advices from the mission, says the Report, encourage the hope that the war will soon be brought to a close; and the opinion is expressed that the infamous slave-trade was at the bottom of it.[47] The school at Kaw-Mendi has received several additions to its numbers during the year, and the new one at Tissana has been commenced with encouraging prospects. The chiefs, with but a single exception, have consented to the establishment of missions and schools among their people. The Report closes by remarking, “that the published observations of other laborers on that continent serve to show, that white men can live and labor there; and that there are in the interior, towards which they are pressing, more civilized, intelligent, and powerful nations and regions of country, not only less inimical than those they now occupy, to the health of the white man, but even more healthy than many parts of the United States. The Spirit and providence of God thus beckon us onward, and woe will be upon us if we falter in our course.” The Report is dated September, 1853, and Mr. Thompson, in company with Mr. Condit, sailed again for Africa, in November. Letters have been received from him at Sierra Leone, where he landed in January, on his way to Kaw-Mendi. Thus has this devoted missionary, for the third time, braved the dangers of the African climate.