. Africana; or, The heart of heathen Africa. dstead nor bed, and boasted only ofone small chair of the rudest description. In our hutthere were two doors, but neither of them had a lock,and one had no fastening at alL When we learned thatthieves and wild beasts were frequent visitors, we beganto barricade doors and windows with chairs, books, andbuckets. At this moment, however, as our lusfo-ao-e hadnot yet arrived, we were safe from theft, unless weshould be served as were certain members of the Uni-versities Mission, who had their very coat buttons cutoff. There were three other inhabited ho
. Africana; or, The heart of heathen Africa. dstead nor bed, and boasted only ofone small chair of the rudest description. In our hutthere were two doors, but neither of them had a lock,and one had no fastening at alL When we learned thatthieves and wild beasts were frequent visitors, we beganto barricade doors and windows with chairs, books, andbuckets. At this moment, however, as our lusfo-ao-e hadnot yet arrived, we were safe from theft, unless weshould be served as were certain members of the Uni-versities Mission, who had their very coat buttons cutoff. There were three other inhabited houses built onthe same plan as ours, but none of them were so wellfurnished! While there was one efficient door in themanse, and perhaps another in the doctors house,the artisans had no doors at all, but mattings of grasswere propped up in the doorways at night. Chairswere a great rarity; I do not think there were morethan four in the whole station, old boxes doing dutyinstead. THE HOUSES. 75 But althoiigli our houses were only mud huts they. THE BLANTYRE MISSION. had an English finish about them and were very accept-able to those that had wandered so long. Writing; atthis time I said :— The present houses promise to lastonly for about three years, so that in a short time wemust make brick, with a view to more permanentdwellings. Rats and white ants annoy us the former we are constantly at war, assisted bytraps, and cats, and a tame owl. Sometimes a gun isused when half-a-dozen of them may be killed by asingle discharge. They are so troublesome from theirgreat numbers, that we must try phosphorus paste orsome such poison. White ants come up through thefloor, and attack books or clothes, rendering them quite 76 THE MISSION STATION. useless in a single niglit. When a person wants askeleton for a specimen, lie has only to put down theanimal near these ants, and in a short time he findsnothing but the bones. Smaller ants creep every-where. One method of placing o
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