After one month in Africa, while we were still in the tent, I had my first and worst experience of the dreaded African fever, although in this instance it was probably malarial-typhoid. It lasted several weeks. When we had been at Efulen nearly a month Dr. Good was suddenly called to the coast by the severe illness of his wife, who was at Batanga expecting soon to leave for home. Dr. Good was not a physician, but with years of experience and an aptitude for medicine he had acquired such skill in the treatment of African fever that he was almost equal to a physician. As for myself, I summed up my experience in the statement that once in my life I had had a severe headache. I do not remember whether Mr. Kerr’s experience had been as extensive as mine. We both had a vague consciousness when Dr. Good left for the coast that our situation was precarious and fraught with some danger:—in a country called the _Whiteman’s Grave_, under conditions that even in America would have taxed the constitution of the strongest. In the light of later knowledge we could have greatly improved upon our pioneer methods, and they seemed to us quite amateurish though supported by the best intentions. In coping with untried conditions and unknown factors of danger one must always expect to go through a period of preliminary inexperience and make preliminary blunders before attaining the mastery. But in Africa the preliminary inexperience often costs the life of one and the blunders disable another, while the triumph is reserved for those who come after. The imperfection of our first policy was inevitable; the present method, which provides every procurable comfort for men so situated, is not only more humane but immensely more economical. It is only in the last few years that missions have become a science—at least in Africa, and that those who go to dangerous and unknown places may profit by the formulated experience of those who have gone to such places before. Of course it was never intended that two new arrivals, Mr. Kerr and myself, should be left alone at a new station. But the unexpected emergency which called Dr. Good to the coast is typical of the miscarriage of the surest plans that men can make in Africa.