Since the custom of the country requires that men should sew, the husband of many wives has a great demand made upon his skill as a tailor. This induced us to ask some of the boys to make dresses for themselves. For a while our verandah was filled with a lively band of stitchers. After cutting their cloth, Mrs. Macdonald superintended them as far as her other duties permitted, and one of the Magololo lads, who was dull at reading, displayed much genius here, and was able both to teach his juniors and to make the “story” go round. Day pupils, who usually declined to work, entered into shirt-making so zealously that they denied themselves the usual hours of play; not only so, but they did not go home at night. Hence mothers came to the station to see what was wrong; but they were quite satisfied with the explanation. In this land there is much to make mothers anxious—a child might easily be kidnapped on the way to school. Saturday was a holiday except an hour in the forenoon, which was set apart for sweeping the dormitories. There were three edifices of this kind at Blantyre, one was for the women and the girls, the other two for the boys: and one of the boys’ houses was divided into two sections, one of which was occupied by advanced pupils, who acted as monitors. The first time we saw these houses they were quite new, but a “foolish woman pulleth down her house with her hands,” and foolish boys did the same. The lads never slept without a fire, and they found the grass of the walls very useful in making it blaze. Consequently the walls of these houses gradually disappeared. Then just as our boarders were beginning to increase, a poor herd-boy was hurt in some quarrel, and died in one of these dormitories. After this, no native would sleep in that house (40). It was vain to remonstrate with the little fellows, the superstition terrified them. It was even questionable whether they would enter a new dormitory built on the old site. The natives, it will be seen, have reasons against expensive architecture, besides laziness and incapacity. At night the sleepers liked to be near each other, and though there was plenty of room, they lay in half-dozens, packed together like tinned sardines. They had raised beds after the English method and as the ordinary natives merely spread mats on the ground this was a great novelty. But some boys more cautious than the rest, spread their mats under the bedstead and barricaded themselves, “so that no kidnapper could see them”! After a time blankets were procured, but there was never a sufficiency, and those that had them were fond of using them as a dress all day.