A native servant is heard filling two tin baths in the adjoining roomlet. They then proceed to take their baths in what—to Lucy—is disgusting promiscuity. The rest of the toilet is summarily proceeded with. (As John is fully hirsute there is no shaving to be done.) Then to avoid remonstrance from her husband Lucy kneels with him in prayers on a dusty mat, in fear all the time some scorpion may sting her ankles. One did, once. At half-past six another bell goes—how the converts love bell-ringing!—and they hurry out to the Chapel where the other members of the Mission staff and a posse of native boys and girls meet them. More prayers, a psalm, and a hymn sung lustily but disharmoniously. Then the whites adjourn to the house or large hut where the meals of the community are served. The dining-table is of rough-hewn planks of native timber, and on either side of it there are similarly rough forms to sit on, with a native stool at either end of the table. The breakfast consists of porridge and milk, the porridge being made of native cereals and often a little bitter. There is coarse brown bread with a sour taste as it is made with fermented palm wine. There are butter from a tin—rather rancid—potted salmon, and bantams’ eggs from the native poultry, so under-boiled that they run out over the plate when opened. John asks a blessing on the meal. They then proceed to eat it, while the males drink with some noisiness the tea that Ann pours out. "You don’t seem to have much appetite this morning, Lucy," says Ann of malice prepense: "Porridge burnt again? What is it?" "Thank you. There is nothing wrong with the porridge, so far as I know. I am simply not hungry." "Ah! Been at those bananas again. They’re very sustaining. But you’ll never be well if you eat between meals." "_I_ eat _at_ meals and _between_ ’em," says Brother Anderson, "and I’m glad to say loss of appetite don’t never trouble _me_. This is a rare climate to make and keep you hungry." Anderson is voracious and somewhat lacking in table manners, defects atoned for by his being an unremitting worker and well contented with his lot—Eupeptic, as we learnt to say at a later date. But he keeps his spoon in his cup and holds it steady with a black-rimmed thumb when he drinks. He also helps himself to butter with his own knife, talks with his mouth full, and never masticates behind closed lips but displays the process without self-consciousness. Lucy, who is squeamish about such things, glances at him occasionally with scarcely concealed disgust. Brother Bayley eats more sparingly and divides his attention between his food and a printed vocabulary of Kisagara. He has a strong predilection for reading at meals, which ever and again comes under the lash of Ann’s tongue. She does not consider it good manners.