The story of one of these knitting palavers must suffice. Shortly after she returned she wished to settle an important dispute that had been going on for a time between two sections of the Okoyong people. Three years before, a gathering such as she summoned would have been impossible--they would have laid down "medicine" and fought. She trembled to go, and longed for some of the Calabar missionaries to come up and accompany her. But God gave her peace. After a sleepless night she started with her knitting material, and reaching the clearing in the forest passed alone through the guards of armed men. Every chief was there, dressed in all the colours of the rainbow,--thanks chiefly to Mission boxes,--each sitting under a huge umbrella of blue and red and yellow silk, with from twenty to fifty of his men forming a cordon about him, all with guns loaded and swords hanging from their sides. The sky was sober and grey, and the magnificent foliage overhead made the atmosphere cool and sweet. A chair was placed for her beside the oldest chief, in the centre, with the one party on the right and the other on the left. But first she moved from one group to the other, drawing laughter as she went with her jokes and by-play, and trying to lessen the tension that all experienced. Then she took her seat, started her knitting, and the business began. A word from her was sufficient to check any outburst of feeling, but she only spoke now and then, in order to elicit information or to make clear a bit of evidence. Time was nothing to these men, and, accustomed to one square meal a day, they did not mind a long sitting; but Mary knew what backache and chill and hunger were and she was often tempted to tell them to keep to the point, but it would have been of no avail.