Towards the close of a tour of this kind the nights were uncomfortable because of the many that had to be accommodated in the launch. I have never laid claim to genius except on the ground that I could put more boys into one bed than any man of my generation. The launch was supposed to provide sleeping room for six persons. But more than once I made it accommodate as many as thirty, ten of them being adults. The retiring of such a company at bedtime was a strategic performance that required strict and skilful oversight and called for some very precise manœuvres. It was much more difficult to get boys from the towns of the upper river. The people were more ignorant and savage. One day on one of these trips, after several successive failures, I called at a certain town, _Ikala_, where I held a service and asked for boys and after much talking procured one boy. Then I went further up the river to a town named _Mfu_, where I anchored for the night. It was the hot season of the year. I had left Angom at daylight that morning, had done some hard work on the engine, had called at several towns and had held a service in each, preaching in undershirt, overalls and grease. Besides there was the responsible work of navigating in these rapid waters of the upper river—in short I was dead tired. After a hasty supper, I went ashore and held a long service at Mfu. The attendance was very large and was followed by endless conversation; for a white face was a rare sight and the message of the Gospel quite strange. When I asked for boys one boy said he wanted to come; but he had overlooked the consideration of his mother’s consent. A little later she burst upon the scene in a tropical rage. She was fairly crazed with anger. I tried to persuade her that I had no intention of eating her boy, nor of turning him into a monkey or a hobgoblin. On the matter of the monkey she was not easily convinced, for she had heard of white men doing such things and selling the monkeys on passing steamers. “Moreover (observing my eye-glasses), what was that thing that I wore on my eyes,” she would like to know, “but the very diabolical fetish by which I changed people into monkeys? and I had best take care how I looked at her through that fetish, for she was not a person to be trifled with, but very dangerous when roused, though naturally good.” She was so ugly with anger, and so ferocious that if my glasses had really been endowed with power to change her into an average monkey I might have been tempted to use them for the improvement of her looks and her manners. There was no use in talking that night; she scarcely heard me; and about ten o’clock I returned to the launch, without the boy, and dreadfully tired.