In a few seconds Yakin entered; and if Nelwang’s bearing and appearance were rather inconsistent with the feeling of worship,—what on earth was I to do when the figure and costume of Yakin began to reveal itself marching in? The first visible difference betwixt a Heathen and a Christian is,—that the Christian wears some clothing, the Heathen wears none. Yakin determined to show the extent of her Christianity by the amount of clothing she could carry upon her person. Being a Chiefs widow before she became Nelwang’s bride, she had some idea of state occasions, and appeared dressed in every article of European apparel, mostly portions of male attire, that she could beg or borrow from about the premises! Her bridal gown was a man’s drab-coloured great-coat, put on above her Native grass skirts, and sweeping down to her heels, buttoned tight. Over this she had hung on a vest, and above that again, most amazing of all, she had superinduced a pair of men’s trousers, drawing the body over her head, and leaving a leg dangling gracefully over each of her shoulders and streaming down her back. Fastened to the one shoulder also there was a red shirt, and to the other a striped shirt, waving about her like wings as she sailed along. Around her head a red shirt had been twisted like a turban, and her notions of art demanded that a sleeve thereof should hang aloft over each of her ears! She seemed to be a moving monster loaded with a mass of rags. The day was excessively hot, and the perspiration poured over her face in streams. She, too, sat as near to me as she could get on the women’s side of the Church. Nelwang looked at me and then at her, smiling quietly, as if to say,— “You never saw, in all your white world, a bride so grandly dressed!” I little thought what I was bringing on myself, when I urged them to come to Church. The sight of that poor creature sweltering before me constrained me for once to make the service very short—perhaps the shortest I ever conducted in all my life! The day ended in peace. The two souls were extremely happy; and I praised God that what might have been a scene of bloodshed had closed thus, even though it were in a kind of wild grotesquerie!