Next the boys turned their attention to building houses. They practised on houses for themselves; then they built houses for the missionaries. They decorated Mr. Hope's house with beautiful mahogany panels made from the trees that grew right at their door. When, after a while, the government needed large warehouses the boys from Elat were able to build them. Their greatest triumph was the Elat church. This is not a little chapel as one might expect in a mission; it is a church that seats four thousand people. Not only did they build the church, but they made all the furniture for it, and the many thousands of mats of dried grass with which the roof was covered. Next they went around the country building other Christian churches as they were needed. They learned to make small articles as well as large. From the tusks of the elephants, which were not in cages at the Zoo, but at home in the forests all about, they made ivory chessmen. Of course, Mr. Hope cannot keep forever the many boys and men who come to the school. Most of them must go back to their own homes. He wanted them to know how to farm when they went back, so he laid out a little farm for them to practise on at the schools, and here they learn the best methods of planting and cultivating. They have tried to find new plants which might grow in Africa. Our own American Agricultural Bureau became interested in exchanging plants and seeds, and before long we will see African vegetables in America and American vegetables in Africa. Some boys are taught to become blacksmiths and in their shop they do everything from putting a new blade into a pocket-knife to rebuilding an automobile. "An automobile!" you say. "Where did they find it?" It happened in a curious fashion. Elat was in German territory and when the Great War began and the Germans were driven away, they did not wish to leave behind anything that would be of help to the French army, so they piled up all their bicycles, motor cycles, automobiles, and trucks and wrecked them with sledges and blew them up with dynamite. To be sure that nothing was left they set fire to the wreck. The French officers came along and looked at the pile of scrap iron and said, "Junk! Nothing worth taking with us," and gave it to the mission. When Fred Hope saw it, his eyes shone just as if they had taken him into a big supply store and said, "Help yourself." Some people might have shrugged their shoulders in despair, but Mr. Hope and his assistant, Mr. Cozzens, set the boys at the school to work on the junk heap, and out of it they made an automobile. This model is not to be bought in the American market, but it has a number of good points all its own. Then they made an auto-truck. What was left was made into a steam engine which runs the shaft that in turn runs a planer, a boring machine, a shingle mill, a grinder, and a large lathe.