One of these events took place after we had been in the country only a few months, when we were decidedly new to the way things were managed out here, and still retained a fair amount of the provincialism of home training; so when a teachers’ conference was announced we conjured up in our minds a kind of forthcoming Mildmay or Keswick Convention on a small scale, but the arrangements took a slightly different form. The first day opened with a big feast to all the workers. The dispensary was converted for the day into the banquetting hall; the entrance was draped in gaudy native cloths, and the floors of the two rooms were carpeted with banana leaves. The men were allocated to one room and the women to the other. Long before the hour of the feast the guests had arrived and packed themselves as closely together as was possible in circles of seven or eight, the King and his chiefs forming one of the groups. An ox had been killed for the feast; it was boiled in banana leaves and served up with quantities of unsweetened, cooked bananas. Prodigious piles were placed in the centre of each circle of guests, and then business began! Off came their top draperies or coats, and with bare arms all eagerly outstretched towards the food they dived into their food with astonishing rapidity and energy. The banana mash was rolled round the fingers into balls and stuffed down their throats without any regard being given to mastication. The King and chiefs seemed to momentarily forget their dignity, and ate till the perspiration rolled down their faces. Tea was served round in kettles; every available cup, mug, basin and jug on the station had been collected together for the use of the guests—and the two-quarts jugs were far more popular than afternoon tea cups. With no small compunction I submitted myself to the native custom and joined in the feast. After a series of hand ablutions I sat on the floor next to the King’s mother, who picked some of the choicest bits of meat off a bone and set them before me. It was such an effort for 3.0 p.m. in the tropics, and visions of Mildmay’s shilling tea tent, with its ices and strawberries, made at least the first stage of the Conference appear very different. The King’s band, with its medley of instruments, round drums, cylindrical drums, squat drums, horns, and reed pipes decorated with monkey tails, performed boisterous symphonies outside. But when, after the feast, the people were for the first time introduced to the phonograph, the Toro band stood still in astonishment, and as an English orchestral band roared out “Soldiers of the Queen” it felt quite eclipsed and could only exclaim “Ekyamahano, ekyamahano” (marvellous, truly marvellous).