During this period there occurred an episode that was invested with all “the pomp and circumstance of glorious war”. Chelomoni, a Blantyre headman, was attacked when on a journey by another headman, and had his wife taken from him. He was himself wounded by an arrow, and came to the Station bleeding very profusely. The outrage called for some remonstrance, and Chelomoni’s villagers at once prepared to march upon the offender, and some of the white men thought it best to accompany. As the party approached the village, the inhabitants came out to meet them, and to ask what was to be done in view of the action of their headman. They explained at the same time that the guilty man had run away. After some consultation it was agreed to set fire to his huts, and the men belonging to the village, some of whom had been patients of Dr. Macklin, shewed which huts were owned by the aggressor, and after the valuables were all carried out, fire was applied. In such a case Chelomoni being the injured party was the proper person to punish. But if the Directors at home assumed that the Mission was a colony with Chelomoni for a subject then it would become the duty of the Mission to punish, and the native punishment for such offences is to make war on the offending village, and obtain damages by capturing slaves. As it was, the presence of the white men that happened to be there, did much to calm the opposing parties. The Directors hoped that the Mission would become self-supporting, but although the territory that belonged to the settlement was about 600 square miles, this result was far from being attained. They advised extended cultivation, but it was gradually discovered that this meant extended loss. Dr. Macklin, however, made an arrangement that promised to be remunerative. He gave some of the villagers an allowance of powder with which they went out in search of elephants. When they killed an elephant, the Mission was presented with one of the tusks and bought the other at a fixed rate. This plan was afterwards largely adopted by various traders. But soon the natives began to take advantage of the white men. They would beg a large supply of powder, representing that they had seen a herd of elephants, and after hunting for several weeks and even trading with the powder, they would come back to report that they had shot an elephant which had no tusks! CHAPTER X. SECOND HALF—CONTINUED.