The queen’s message with regard to education was then given, which flatly contradicted all the false reports that the old heathen party had set in circulation to the effect that Her Majesty had no longer any love or respect for religion, that she was about to put a stop to public worship, close all the schools, and had forbidden the people to pay any salary to the schoolmasters. We then expected the bullock to be presented to the queen’s messengers and the pastors from the capital; but it had been stolen during the night by an uninvited official--one of the judges--who had turned up, and sent it off by one of his slaves at daylight to the capital to be sold there! I did not know all this till a fortnight afterwards. As there was no bullock and none to be had (although there might have been, had the poor people had money with which to buy another one), the visitors had to be fed on pork, at which they were very displeased, and little wonder, thinking that Razàka, the chiefs, and our people were a very mean set of folks not to have provided a bullock for them. Many years after, one of the city pastors present at the opening services, in speaking of them to me, brought the charge of meanness against Razàka, the chiefs, and the people of Fìhàonana because of the treatment they had received on that occasion, and I had to tell him, much to his astonishment, how it was that they were treated as they were, and had no bullock presented. About a fortnight before the date we had originally fixed for the opening of our new church, we found we should have to take down the south gable, as it had been built off the plumb, while we were away on our holiday. A hurricane had so shaken the roof that we found the gable was giving, and would have to be taken down and rebuilt. We put off the opening services for a month. We took off a third part of the roof, took down the gable, made 40,000 bricks, put it up again, plastered it outside and in, whitewashed the inside, reroofed the part we had removed, and did all in five weeks. Nearly all the work was done by our own people, who in addition provided all the material, while an entire set of new mats for the floor was provided by the women. Our people came out very clean and tidy for the opening services, and some of them ‘braw’ even. Their singing was very much admired; for although we had no ‘kist o’ whistles’ to lead the singing, as our people made good use of the organs God had given them our singing was always hearty, and if not always quite as correct and harmonious as it might have been, there was always _soul_ in it, and all joined in the service of song.