Among the station employees on Corisco in 1864 was an ex-slave, a recent convert, whose freedom had been purchased by one of the missionaries. The native non-Christian freemen begrudged him his position as a mission employee; for his wages were now his own, and could no longer be claimed by his former master. Some of his fellow-servants, freemen, put off on him, as much as they could, the more menial tasks. It was incumbent, therefore, on the missionaries to see that he was not oppressed by his fellows. Clearing of the graveyard was a task no one liked to have assigned to him; and it was often thrown on poor Evosa. One day a newly arrived missionary, the Rev. George Paull, the noblest of my associates these forty years, who just then knew little of the language or of native thought or custom, ordered Evosa to take his hoe and clean the cemetery path. Evosa bluntly said, "Mba haye!" (I won't). "You won't! You refuse to obey me?" "Mba haye!" "Then I dismiss you." Evosa went away, much cast down. Some of his fellow-Christians came to me saying they were sorry for him, and asked me to interfere. "But," I said, "he should obey; the work is not hard." "Oh! but he can't do it!" "Why not?" "Because his wife is pregnant." Immediately I understood. Evosa may not have believed in the superstition, but for all that, if he did the work and subsequently there should be anything untoward in his wife's confinement, her relatives would exact a heavy fine of him. We had not required our converts to disregard these prohibitions, if only they did not actually engage in any act of fetich worship. I was careful to say nothing to the natives that would undermine my missionary brother's authority; but privately I intimated to Mr. Paull that I thought that if he had been fully aware of the state of the case, he would not have dismissed the man. He was just, and reversed the dismissal. Evosa was pardoned also for the bluntness of his refusal; it was a part of his slavish ignorance. In conclusion, I warned him that he should have explained to Mr. Paull the ground of his refusal, and should have asked for other work. He had not supposed that the white man did not know; and the asking of excuse is a part of politeness that has to be taught. Almost every new missionary makes unwise or unjust orders and decisions before he learns on what superstitious grounds he is treading. Not all are willing to be rectified as was my noble brother Paull. In the burial of a first-born infant the lid of the coffin is not only not allowed to be nailed down, but it must not entirely cover the corpse; a space must be left open (generally above the child's head); the superstition being that if the coffin be closed, the mother will bear no more children. OMENS ON JOURNEYS.