When the eye got used to this brilliancy of sunlight on a surface polished by the pattering of naked feet, it could distinguish rows of Eucalyptus saplings, and here and there the rich green of a native shade-tree, together with part of a red brick chapel roofed with corrugated iron and several thatched houses of white-washed clay. On the walls of the School were hung a map of the World on Mercator’s projection and a map of Africa; a large scroll with elementary illustrations of Natural History—typical beasts, birds, reptiles, fish and insects, of sizes as disproportionate as the inhabitants of a Noah’s Ark. There were also placards with arithmetical figures, letters of the alphabet and single syllable combinations: _M a, ma; b a, ba; l e, le_, etc. Over the wall, behind the teacher’s desk and above the black-board, was a long strip of white paper, printed in big black capitals: MWAACHE WATOTO WANIKARIBU ("Suffer little children to come unto Me"). The words were in the widely understood Swahili language, the medium through which Lucy endeavoured with many difficulties and misunderstandings to impart her knowledge to her semi-savage pupils. A lull after her two hours’ teaching had begun. A Negro woman of some intelligence, a freed slave from Unguja and the wife of "Josaia Birigizi" (Josiah Briggs) the interpreter, was talking in a low sing-song voice with the little girls, practising them in the alphabet and the syllables formed by consonant and vowel. The class, ranged upon rows of rough forms in front of the teacher’s desk, consisted of black girls of all sizes, from little children to young, nubile women; but they were separated by an aisle down the middle of the room and were assorted according to height into two categories, "A-_big_-geru" and "A-_lig_-geru," these phrases being Bantu corruptions of "Big girls," and "Little girls." Although nearly if not quite naked when at home, here on the Mission premises they were dressed in short-sleeved smocks of white calico, loose from the neck downwards, most of them soiled and in need of washing. The girls consequently had a frowsy look, somewhat belied by their glossy faces and arms, their brilliant eyes, and dazzling white teeth. The smaller children were pretty little things that any teacher might have petted, but most of the bigger girls had an impudent look and an ill-concealed expression of over-fed idleness tending towards imaginings of sensuality. A critic of missionary policy in those days would have felt inclined to put these bigger girls to good, hard, manual labour in the mornings which should by the afternoon have taken the sauciness out of them; and have reserved their mental education for the afternoon, when they had returned from brick-making or field hoeing.