Having left England just after Christmas, with its memories of busy thoroughfares streaming with lights from the gaily decorated shops, and teeming with folks big and small all chattering and preparing for the festive season, I had scarcely had time to forget all this noise and rattle before arriving at the antipodes of existence. Step out of the house one evening with me at about 8.0. Miles and miles of country lie faintly outlined by the phantom light of the moon—that orb of death. No other spark or ray breaks the long, wide expanse of darkness, and all the land and nature lie in profound sleep: no song of mirth or infant’s cry reaches us, everything is mute and everywhere is sleeping. Suddenly a shrill shriek from the hyena or a leopard’s low growl drives us indoors. Oh for the rumble of a London ’bus or the rush of the Irish express as it passes the old home in a mad hurry night after night. There is the faithful companionship of a scratchy pen, so that is how one generally turns out a voluminous correspondent in these parts of silent Africa. Now let that same pen tell something of our home and various domestic odds and ends. Our house was built of wood and mud daub with a roof of thatch. The rooms, five in number, were lofty and fairly large, with walls which could be called neither straight nor smooth—in fact they rather reminded me of “Uncle Podger’s” wall that looked as if it had been smoothed down with a garden rake after he had been hanging a picture. But ours were white-washed, and this, at least, gave them a clean and cheerful appearance. The fact was that a violent storm had slightly blown the walls out of gear before the ground had sufficiently hardened round the framework poles. The windows were ingeniously made of wood with calico nailed across as a substitute for glass. We had only one door to start with—the front door—made of the unpolished and unplaned material of two packing cases, ornamented with the names and destinations of the owners of the boxes. There was a verandah all round the house which kept it cool from the mid-day sun. Really, it was a marvellous building when you consider that the workmen had never built anything different from the round beehive grass and reed huts in which the people live. The poles had all to be brought in from a forest seven miles away, and were carried in on men’s heads. The mud was beaten by their bare feet. They had to be overlooked at every point and turn as they have no idea of work, or even a straight line, unless the European is actually on the spot to show them. And when that European was absolutely alone and endeavouring to act as pastor, teacher, and schoolmaster to hundreds of eager and teachable people, the question is how he ever squeezed in time to build this and his own house. Our tent furniture was far too diminutive and scanty to fill our five rooms, so we turned cabinet-makers, and produced some highly creditable articles, all things considered.