Pioneer work is slow, and many people grumble at this. Some imagine that pioneers are immediately to enter into houses built of stone and lime, having grapes hanging in clusters from the walls, and surrounded by lovely bowers amidst orange groves. These houses, they further expect, will be accessible by the easiest roads, while at every stage there will be an inn erected for the refreshment of travellers. If the pioneer do not find all these things ready-made, he would need a magic wand to call them into existence in the short time that such people allow him for the accomplishment of his work. In reality, the first settler is beset with difficulties at every step. Place a European in the centre of a tropical forest extending twenty miles each way, where no road has ever been made, tell him that within two years he must there erect a model station, and though he have several artisans to help him, his first idea will be that it would take the whole of that time to clear away the timber: at all events he will feel that his fruit harvest will not fill his bosom very soon. This is no fanciful supposition, for the pioneer may be placed in a much larger forest, and he soon realises that work at home and work in his new circumstances are quite different. After erecting some miserable shed for himself, he may wish to begin his task by making—say a wheel-barrow. This duty he assigns to the joiner, who sets to work, and for days upon days is occupied with that wheel-barrow. The superior thinks that he is trifling and begins to grumble. “Why, I have known a carpenter at home make a barrow in a third of the time. What can you be about?” “True, sir, but the carpenter at home gets all the wood properly cut up for him and well seasoned, and for wheels he has nothing to do, but——.” “Still, if you reckon your time, that barrow has cost more than £20 already.” “Yes, sir, but I had to go and cut down the trees and convey them up here. Then I had to saw them up and begin to cut out—” As the practical man proceeds thus to enumerate the stages of his work, his missionary friend begins to fear that the victory over the forest will not be gained even so soon as he at first expected. Perhaps the saddest part of the experiment is to come. After the “barrow” is made it is of no use! Many early experiments end in this way. The learned critic at home exclaims, “Why should the blockhead want a barrow? If I were there, I would use the cattle and horses of the natives for beasts of burden!” But the critic has a great advantage over the hapless pioneer—it is so much easier to create cattle and horses in the imagination than in the African jungle.