Two other incidents of those days will serve to exhibit certain native characteristics that I may not have occasion to notice again. A party of natives were going to the coast and on the way they stopped at Efulen. Hearing how very ill I was, and consulting with the workmen, they concluded that I might live one more day, or two days at the most. Accordingly when they reached the coast, the two days having expired, they reported to my friends that I was dead. The report was credited for several days, although in the mind of some there was a doubt. It was only when these messengers appeared again and they asked them about the details of the funeral that the story broke down notwithstanding the fine imagination of the natives; for they had never seen a white man buried, and their own customs were very different. They evidently made me so misconduct myself at my own funeral that my friends concluded that I was alive. But that was the nearest I ever came to an untimely end. I would not by any means call those natives unmitigated liars. Not every white man can maintain the distinction between fact and conviction. Again, one night when the fever was at the worst, a small boy, Lolo, who was sitting by my bed keeping cold water on my head, told me that there was no more water. This was the fault of the cook, a man of Batanga. Mr. Kerr was asleep in the other end of the house, and he needed sleep. I sent for the cook and told him to go quickly and bring water. There was a good spring part way down the hill a short distance behind the house. The man refused to go, though he had never been disobedient before. He was afraid of the darkness. It was useless to threaten him or quarrel with him, and worse than useless for a sick man. No power under heaven could have compelled him to go to that spring alone; nor was there any one on the premises who would go with him. Not all are so cowardly in the night; but there are many strong men in Africa who would fight bravely to death with any visible or natural foe, but are arrant cowards before the creatures of their own imagination; invisible and supernatural enemies with which they fill the darkness of the night. It was a great day for us when our new house was finished. It was made entirely of native material and was much like a native house except that it had a floor and was elevated from the ground and had swinging doors and windows. Like all houses of white men in Africa it was set on posts about six feet from the ground. The walls were of bark, in pieces six feet long and from a foot to two feet in width. The bark is held by split bamboo the size of laths, placed horizontally, six inches apart and tied with bush-rope made of the abundant vine, which is split and shaved down with a knife. The roof, which was supported by rafters of bamboo, was of palm thatch. This roof turns the rain perfectly and is much cooler than any other kind. There was no ceiling in the house.