At last a number of local chiefs addressed a complaint to the administrator at Bata, who was superior to the _chef de poste_. Bojedi, at the request of the chiefs, composed and wrote the letter, which I believe they signed. The administrator sent the letter to the _chef de poste_ who upon reading it did not think for a moment that any native could have written it. There was only one white man in the region of Benito to whom it could possibly be attributed; and that was Mr. Presset of our mission at Benito. To make sure of the matter he compared the writing with that of Mr. Presset, from whom he had received letters, and found that it was the same. The result was that our mission at Benito suffered considerable ill-treatment at his hands. At length, one day, he referred to the letter in speaking to Mr. Presset, and was surprised and almost affronted when the latter denied all knowledge of it. Mr. Presset asked to see it, and upon looking at it immediately recognized Bojedi’s writing. Bojedi was arrested and sent to jail, although he was only a boy who had done what the chiefs had required of him; the letter was theirs, not his. For months (or perhaps only one—I have forgotten the length of time) he remained in jail and worked at hard labour carrying stone. When at last one morning he was released he had scarcely a stitch of clothing on him and he hid in a bush all day, and walked home to Benito, twenty miles, during the night. This latter story also has a sequel. While Bojedi was teaching school in Gaboon, this same _chef de poste_ who had put him in jail, was there in Gaboon a few days before sailing for France. Bojedi went to see him, and did him several kindly services. The day he sailed (it happened to be Saturday); Bojedi took charge of all his baggage and saw it safely placed on the steamer, which took the whole afternoon. Thus easily does the native forgive and forget. Bojedi was very simple in manners and direct in speech. It never occurred to him that the purpose of language was “to conceal thought.” One day shortly before I left Gaboon he remarked that the schoolboys would miss me greatly. I expressed a doubt on that subject. “O yes, Mr. Milligan,” said he, “they will feel badly; for I remember that when I was a schoolboy and Mr. X. left us, we all felt sorry and some of us cried, although we had called him a beast every day.” I have said that to commiserate the African for his colour is a waste of sympathy. One day when I was talking to Bojedi something in the course of the conversation prompted me to ask him whether he would like to be a white man. He replied respectfully but emphatically in the negative. I wished to know his reason; for he acknowledged and fully appreciated the white man’s superiority. He hesitated to tell me; but I was insistent, and at length he replied: “Well, we think that we are better-looking.”