I cannot close these sketches without some reference to another who was an invaluable helper in the work among the Fang. He was totally blind. He bore an English name, _Robert Boardman_, and had no African name. The natives called him _Bobbie_. He was not a Fang but an Mpongwe, and his mother was an American Negress. His father was educated at Baraka away back in the early days when the missionaries were allowed to use English, and he spoke English well. When he was a young man he came to America. In those days Africa, to Americans, was a romance rather than a reality. Any chief of a village or head of his own family coming here was called a _prince_. So young Boardman (Robert’s father) passed himself off as a prince, and probably without any intentional deception. He married a Negress of the South, who supposed that by her marriage she became a princess. She left family and friends all behind and went to Africa. The disillusionment was very hard and very bitter; and at last, inevitably, she sought relief in drink. She was evidently a woman of superior mind, if one might judge by her children, of whom there were five. One of these was poor Augustus Boardman, of whom I have written in another chapter, and whom drink brought to an early grave. Robert was the youngest child. He was a very interesting boy, and intellectually far above the average. As a young man he lived the dissolute life that was general among the Mpongwe of Gaboon. His blindness was the last result of his dissipation, and was also the cure. He never walked alone again; a little boy led him by the hand. Blindness is a more terrible affliction in Africa, where the helpless are neglected, and where roads are rough and often infested with ants or snakes. He was extremely unhappy after his blindness. There were times when it seemed that it would drive him mad. In his misery he made others miserable around him. Poor material, one would surely say, for the grace of God or any other moral influence to work upon—this physical and moral wreck. But, as I once heard a reclaimed outcast say, “Jesus loves to walk by the seashore where the wrecks come in.”