A few days of hard work with hoe and shovel cleared a breathing space all round the house, the ceilings and walls were swept down and repaired, new beaten mud floors laid in all the three rooms, shelves and boxes fixed up as fittings, a rough table, chair, enamel wash-hand basin brought in as furniture, and there was a splendid dispensary quite formidable in appearance and decidedly pretentious for one who possessed no qualifications beyond a few months hospital training. In Africa a little knowledge is not dangerous so much as useful. The most appalling forms of suffering are met with on every hand, and nothing but inhuman, superstitious, and absolutely ineffectual means are employed to alleviate it. Even if one can only cleanse and bind up the wounds and pour in oil, the look of gratitude and contentment that reward the soothing of the pain reminds one that it has not been wasted labour. This first dispensary consisted of three apartments, the “consulting room,” drug store, and waiting room, where patients assembled every morning at 8.30 for instruction in reading and a short bright gospel service. This primitive medical work was a distinctly effectual means of reaching the bakopi (peasants), who had not hitherto been touched in any large numbers. The King having been the first in the country to adopt Christianity, the work in its initial stage had extended almost exclusively to the upper classes, while the “foreign” language had been an obstacle to the peasants who could not understand it. It was frequently found that the curiosity and interest of patients in the letters and syllables were so awakened that when there was no longer need to attend the dispensary several passed on to the school to be further instructed. One of the first patients was an old man who had been receiving ulcer medicine from the missionary then in charge. Although his hair was sprinkled with grey, and he suffered from an impediment in his speech, nothing would daunt him in his assiduous struggles to master the alphabet. Day after day he came, and even when cured of his ulcer continued coming, as he was afraid to go to the big school to learn. Actually he did in time master words of three letters, and then, as he was so anxious to be baptized, he was put into an old men’s daily Bible Class for instruction. His joy was beyond description when with tears streaming down from his eyes he came to me one day saying, “My mistress, I have finished being questioned, and now I am going to be baptized.” I asked him, “Mpisi, will baptism save us?” And he answered, “Oh no, only Jesus who died for us on the Cross.” “Then what is the use of baptism?” “Well,” said he, “Christ told us to believe and be baptized, and it shows that we want to leave our bad habits and follow the habits of Christ.” From that day he has rarely missed coming to the dispensary, not always for medicine, but that he might teach the patients what he has learned.