IN WESTERN AFRICA. 
283 
here that no one else could well do. Surely his 
coming at this time is most providential. Church- 
es and schools must have his counsel. And then 
there is a new project on foot, of which you shall 
hear more hereafter. Joseph Gomer. 
Freetown, Sierre Leone, January 12, 1880. 
FIRST VISIT TO ROTUFUNK. 
Though I have been in Africa this time only ten 
days, T have traveled over two hundred miles in 
a row-boat, going to Eotufunk with Mr. Gomer. 
We saw quite a number of alligators, naked 
people, mangrove sw^anips, and some beautiful 
country. Our business was to see Chief Richard 
Caulker and others in authority there, to obtain 
from them a site for the Woman’s Missionary 
Association buildings, near the town of Eotu- 
funk. We met the chief in his canoe, on the 
Bomphe Eiver, some eight or ten miles this side 
of Eotufunk, about eleven o’clock Thursday 
night, and told him our business. He assured 
us he would meet us the next day at noon; but 
it was night before we saw him, and then we 
walked a mile and a half over a rough road to 
find him. Mrs. Mary M. Mair, who is now in 
charge of the woman’s mission^ in Africa, Eev. 
Joseph Gomer, superintendent of Sherbro Mis- 
sion, and two boatmen, — who carried Mrs. Mair 
and ourself across a very muddy, snaggy swamp, 
