This experience made a great impression upon the chiefs: they left with a profound reverence for the King and a determination to abide by his decisions in the future, whilst Mary had added much to her dignity and position. This was proved the morning after they returned to Ekenge. She was awakened by a confused noise, and on looking out was astonished to find several chiefs directing slaves, who were working with building material. "What is the matter?" she asked in wonder. Instead of answering her one of the chiefs who had accompanied her to Calabar turned to the crowd and, in a burst of eloquence, described all he had seen at Creek Town, how the Europeans lived, and how King Eyo and every chief and gentleman had treated their Mother as a person superior to them, and given her all honour. They in Okoyong must now treat her as befitted her rank and station, and must build her a proper house to live in, Mary was hard put to it to preserve her gravity. Soon afterwards a young slave, for whom she had often pled, began to wash his hands in some dirty water in a dish outside: his master ran at him with a whip, and it was all she could do to prevent him being lashed. Opening out again and again he called the lad a fool for daring to touch a dish used by their Great White Mother. But what was more important than all was the fact that the way had at last been opened up for trade relations with Calabar. The people began to make oil and buy and sell kernels, and to send the produce down the river direct to the factories. As she had foreseen, they had now less time for palavers, and less inclination for useless drinking, and still more useless quarrelling and fighting. XII. THE SCOTTISH CARPENTER The story of the settlement in Okoyong and of the building of the hut and hall was related by Miss Slessor in the _Missionary Record_ of the Church for March 1889. The hall she described as "a beautiful building, though neither doors nor windows are yet put in, as we are waiting for a carpenter. And," she added, "if there were only a house built, any other agent could come and take up the work if I fail." In the same number of the _Record_ there appeared an appeal by the Foreign Mission Committee for "a practical carpenter, with an interest in Christian work," for Calabar.