triumph over a mere handful of men, they began to shoot their poisoned arrows, sending them with great force upwards of a hundred yards, and wounding one of our followers through the arm.  Our retiring slowly up the ascent from the village only made them more eager to prevent our escape; and, in the belief that this retreat was evidence of fear, they closed upon us in bloodthirsty fury.  Some came within fifty yards, dancing hideously; others having quite surrounded us, and availing themselves of the rocks and long grass hard by, were intent on cutting us off, while others made off with their women and a large body of slaves.  Four were armed with muskets, and we were obliged in self-defence to return their fire and drive them off.  When they saw the range of rifles, they very soon desisted, and ran away; but some shouted to us from the hills the consoling intimation, that they would follow, and kill us where we slept.  Only two of the captives escaped to us, but probably most of those made prisoners that day fled elsewhere in the confusion.  We returned to the village which we had left in the morning, after a hungry, fatiguing, and most unpleasant day.

Though we could not blame ourselves for the course we had followed, we felt sorry for what had happened.  It was the first time we had ever been attacked by the natives or come into collision with them; though we had always taken it for granted that we might be called upon to act in self-defence, we were on this occasion less prepared than usual, no game having been expected here.  The men had only a single round of cartridge each; their leader had no revolver, and the rifle he usually fired with was left at the ship to save it from the damp of the season.  Had we known better the effect of slavery and murder on the temper of these bloodthirsty marauders, we should have tried messages and presents before going near them.

The old chief, Chinsunse, came on a visit to us next day, and pressed the Bishop to come and live with him.  “Chigunda,” he said, “is but a child, and the Bishop ought to live with the father rather than with the child.”  But the old man’s object was so evidently to have the Mission as a shield against the Ajawa, that his invitation was declined.  While begging us to drive away the marauders, that he might live in peace, he adopted the stratagem of causing a number of his men to rush into the village, in breathless haste, with the news that the Ajawa were close upon us.  And having been reminded that we never fought, unless attacked, as we were the day before, and that we had come among them for the purpose of promoting peace, and of teaching them to worship the Supreme, to give up selling His children, and to cultivate other objects for barter than each other, he replied, in a huff, “Then I am dead already.”