Here was another unfortunate problem. We had learned from the Mityoche case that it was dangerous to go to negotiate with a chief that had anything upon his conscience, and no native messengers would go alone. This attack had been premeditated, and moreover some of our natives had been forewarned. For several nights before, one of our large villages had kept awake all night. Long afterwards I went to visit a pupil who lived about six miles off. While I was in his father’s village, a man entered it carrying a large basket of fowls. He seemed much astonished to find me, but I began to talk with him, and after he became acquainted, he asked me several times whether he might come to Blantyre to sell his fowls, and he seemed anxious to get a very definite answer. I told him that I should be very glad to have his company all the way back. Then he gave over his fowls to two men that were with him, whom he took aside and instructed to proceed, and he told me that he and his daughter would wait till the white man was ready to go with them. After a little we started for Blantyre. The day was exceedingly hot and there was not a breath of wind. All the trees and bushes were as still as if they had been pictures. My companion was a very fat man, and at one point we agreed that we must sit down to rest. After we had rested a while, I glanced at my watch to know the time. A native has such an eye for the objective world that a European cannot move a single muscle without attracting his attention. Perceiving that the man wanted me to explain myself, I took out the watch and told him what I used it for, and then I handed it to his little daughter telling her to catch the seconds hand. While she was amusing herself by trying to do this, her father asked to see the time-piece, and tried the same experiment. The man at once became greatly agitated! His fright was unmistakeable—his limbs actually trembled. He “wanted to go on—we might rest at a village farther along!” So we proceeded and came up with one of the men that had gone before us with the fowls. A little farther on two negroes with guns came rapidly out of the jungle and appeared on the path before us. In a short time they disappeared as rapidly. Soon after, I happened to look behind me and found another stranger following noiselessly with a gun. I thought that the whole appearance and conduct of these men were rather suspicious. No Missionary in this land goes unarmed, and I had a small revolver by my side. But on a narrow path in the middle of a dense jungle a person might easily be assassinated by an unseen hand. I saluted all these mysterious strangers, and kept up a spirited conversation with my companion. When at last we came to the end of Kapeni’s territory, he said he would not go any farther himself, but that his little girl and his slave would go on to Blantyre and sell the fowls. When near the station I told them where the storekeeper lived, and then said good-bye. In less than half-an-hour