When I went to Gaboon I engaged Robert as my interpreter; for he knew Fang as well as he knew Mpongwe. Then, when I could speak Fang without him, I undertook the Mpongwe work and I used him as my interpreter to the Mpongwe; so he continued in my service. The first year, when I was itinerating among the Fang and travelling in the _Evangeline_, he went everywhere with me. I recall one evening when we were setting out from the beach in a very heavy sea and had got beyond the surf we saw Robert’s little attendant on the beach very much excited and waving to us to come back. He was yelling something to us which we could not hear distinctly across the roaring surf, but I thought he was trying to tell us something about “Bobbie’s wife.” Very reluctantly I told the crew to go back. We were already in the surf and were going ashore as if pulled by wild horses when at last we made out what the boy was saying, namely: “Bobbie has forgotten his pipe.” The African has no mental perspective, according to our ideas; things great and small, the most momentous and the most trivial, appear upon a flat surface of equality. But it would scandalize an African to hear one speak of a pipe in this disrespectful way. Robert had an unusual mind and was athirst for knowledge. His interpreting was a kind of education for him and he made the most of it. He was always alert for new words and their exact meaning, and he had an excellent memory. There was also a vein of poetry in him. I once heard him, in offering an evening prayer, ask God that Satan might not sow the tares of bad dreams in our sleep—the more appropriate because of the native regard for dreams and the habit of vivid dreaming. But his chief love was music. He was passionately fond of it, and he had a good tenor voice. Shortly after I first knew him, when he was so unhappy, I began to give him some instruction on the organ each day after class. My only intention was to lighten his misery and relieve his solitude. I had not the least thought of any return in missionary service. The little organ which I used in itinerating I left with him between journeys. It was a new and delightful way of spending the hours, and he became more cheerful. In two years a very great change had taken place in him. He was both cheerful and devout. When the time of harvest came in the Fang field and I had need of catechists he was well equipped for the work and I sent him. He took the organ with him; for he played the Fang hymns and played them well. When a secretary of the Board of Foreign Missions afterwards visited Africa he found Robert Boardman among the Fang, preaching and singing, and he made special mention of him on his return to America.