This magnificent house was regarded by the Bulu, not as a private house, but as a public place, equivalent to their palaver-houses. They sometimes showed resentment when we insisted upon the personal view of it and required them to ask admission before coming in, which they were disposed to do in crowds and at all times, even when we were eating. We were always willing to show them through it in groups, though it took considerable time. Some of them expressed their astonishment in vociferous yells, but others, deeply impressed, looked around them with a reverential air, like people in church. They came up the steps of the porch on their hands and knees, as Africans always do at first. The women and children seemed afraid of the height of it and it would not have been possible to get them to stand near the edge and look down from the dizzy height of nearly six feet. This timidity which at first I could not understand and which later disappeared, I imagine was not due so much to the height of the house above the ground but to their doubt regarding the safety of the floor. They had never walked on any floor but the solid ground, and they stepped upon ours as if they fully expected that it would break and let them through. We had hoped that the climate of Efulen would be more healthful than that of the coast; but the health record since the station was established in 1893, has not been better than that of some other stations. Personally I believe that without doubt Efulen is more healthful than the immediate coast at Batanga; but I do not regard it as more healthful than Gaboon. It is certainly cooler and owing to its elevation of two thousand feet the air is not so humid and is more exhilarating. But the changes of temperature are very sudden and one becomes sensitive even to slight changes after being in the tropics a few years. In the light of similar experiments made elsewhere in West Africa it seems likely that less fever but more dysentery will prevail in those localities that have the higher altitudes, and less dysentery and more fever at the coast. To some persons fever is more dangerous; to others, dysentery; one may take his choice. At Efulen the sand-flies are very bad, morning and evening; but they cease their activity in the bright sunshine and also in the darkness of night.