Frequently, however, they must build in the dry season, for one of their huts in this ant-ridden country lasts only a short time--perhaps two or three years--and then another must be built. This is no small task, but it is usually postponed until near the rainy season. In order to build, the native is obliged to make frequent trips to the forest to procure suitable poles and bark strings, all of which he must carry on his shoulders. His wife too is inclined to postpone cutting the thatch grass until it is nearly all burnt, and then it requires much more labor to find enough thatch than if she had done the work at the proper time. The rain usually is threatening, or even the first has fallen before the man begins the actual building, and then he and his neighbors hurry and put up the huts after a fashion. When asked why he does not build earlier in the season he naively exclaims, "Oh! I leave it until the rains come, so I must hurry and build it." In other words, he puts it off until he is forced to do it, willy-nilly. As a rule the native is never in a hurry; he always performs his work deliberately. That is characteristic of the country, or climate, rather than of the individual, because no one in Africa seems to be in a hurry. We had our first lesson in this on the threshold of the continent. Just after we had reached Cape Town and had rented rooms, some groceries were bought and ordered to be sent to the house. They were very slow in coming, and we mentioned the fact to an American lady who had resided at Cape Town five years. She replied, "We are all slow in Africa, and in a few years you will become slow too." I cannot say that this has become true of all our missionaries, but this is the general effect of the country. The atmosphere, the heat, and the diseases, all have much influence on a person. To hurry and violently exert the body in order to complete a piece of work often brings on an attack of fever. Horses, mules, oxen, and donkeys are not as hardy as in temperate climates, and it requires several times the number to do the same amount of work, so that it need not surprise one that the natives, who, as far back as they know, have lived amid such surroundings, should be slow and indolent.