At 8 a.m. on Christmas morning the church drum is beaten, calling the people together, and by 9.0 the church is completely crowded out, many being obliged to sit outside. In the schoolroom over four hundred of the peasant folk and children have gathered, and in the dispensary the sick have come together for morning service. The church is beautifully decorated with palm leaves and flowers that have been brought in by the people, and the building echoes with voice as the audience unites, as one man, in the service. On Afric’s sunny shore, glad voices Wake up the morn of Jubilee The negro, once a slave, rejoices; Who’s freed by Christ, is doubly free. After that we all go to our homes, the natives to make merry over their beef and bananas, and we to prepare as near an approach to an English Christmas dinner as is possible, and although there are no grocers’ shops or fruiterers’ to supply the usual details, and our cook for the twelve years of his existence has been reared in African ignorance, still one can fare very excellently, for the guinea fowl and sausages are really turkey in all but name. The baron of beef, although far removed from the prize oxen of the English markets, is very good, and the home-made plum pudding, with its few suspicious native ingredients, brings up the menu to almost English standard. Boxing Day is generally a grand field day, when sports are arranged on an extensive scale, including running, pick-a-back, hurdle, three-legged, and obstacle races. This latter involves scaling a bamboo scaffolding, crawling through packing cases with the ends kicked out, climbing a tree, and wriggling through a stack of reeds. Then there is a greasy pole placed in an oblique position, at the end of which is hung a leg of goat. Big and small, old and young attempt this, quite regardless of the undignified tumbles each experiences. Loud was the shout of applause on one occasion, when the Katikiro, who is of clumsy proportions, after many falls landed safely at the top and secured the joint. A banana peeling competition for the women comes next. The competitors, some twenty at a time, sit in a row with their knives and twenty green bananas on a leaf before them. When the whistle sounds they attack their task with great excitement. Some women, in place of knives, use sharpened pieces of wood. Those who finish first and peel the best receive prizes of calico. Scrambles for cowrie shells generally bring the sports day to a close.