It is a good many days since papa left you and mamma, and he has been sailing on the water most all of the time. I was in the boat that you and mamma left me on twelve days, as many as you have fingers on both hands and two more. Then I was on land three nights. Then I came on this ship, and have slept on it as many nights as you and mamma both have fingers on your two hands. The little beds on this boat are just like those you saw. The boat stopped a little while at some places, and I saw people without much clothes, like the pictures you saw in the book, and little boys and girls, as big as you, who had not any clothes at all. They did not seem to care; but I think they would feel very fine if they had nice little sailor suits like yours. These black people eat real funny. On the little boats that came out to get things from this big boat they had little stoves with one pot. A boy about as big as Johnnie C——, with no clothes but one piece tied around him—no hat, no shirt, no coat, no pants, no socks, no shoes—made the fire and cooked the food. He took some fishes that he had caught in the water and cut them into small pieces, and then took some rice, and put the pieces of fish and the rice into the pot over the fire with some water in it. Then he put something into a hole in a big log and pounded it with the end of a shovel-handle, and when he had pounded it enough he poured it on the fish and rice in the pot. By and by he poured what was in the pot into a large tray and all the men began to eat. But they did not eat as we do. They did not have any plates, nor any knives, nor any forks. They just had one spoon. One took this spoon and ate a little, and then handed it to another and he ate a little. The others put their hands into the tray and took out a handful of the fish and rice and made it up into a ball, as boys where you are make snow-balls, and then ate it as people eat apples. I don’t think you would like to have your papa and mamma eat in that way, and I don’t think you would like to eat just fish and rice, no meat, no potatoes, no bread, no butter, no pie, no cake. But the rich people here in Africa have _some_ nice things to eat. Mr. Smith bought a lot of nice oranges for about a cent apiece. They were real sweet and juicy and do not make my teeth sore, and we have some real nice bananas—I wish you and mother had some of them—and where we are to stop next, pine-apples grow. It is not cold here as it is where you are. The sun is real hot and the trees are all covered with leaves and oranges, and bananas and pine-apples are growing on the trees and just getting ripe. I expect to leave this ship to-morrow. The next day will be Sunday, and we shall spend that day in Sierra Leone. Then we are to ride in a small boat that black men will make go with their oars, like that boat the boy took us to see the soldiers in last summer, when you were just a little afraid it would tip over and spill us out into the water. Don’t you remember?