CHAPTER IV 
JULY, 1913 — JANUARY, I914 
Lambarene, February i 1914. 
The Lambarene mission station is built on hills, 
the one which lies farthest upstream having on its 
summit the buildings of the boys’ school, and on the 
side which slopes down to the river the storehouse and 
the largest of the mission houses. On the middle hill 
is the doctor’s little house, and on the remaining one 
the girls’ school and the other mission house. Some 
twenty yards beyond the houses is the edge of the forest. 
We live, then, between the river and the virgin forest, 
on three hills, which every year have to be secured 
afresh against the invasion of wild Nature, who is 
ever trying to get her own back again. All round the 
houses there are coffee bushes, cocoa trees, lemon trees, 
orange trees, mandarin trees, mango trees, oil palms, 
and pawpaw trees. To the negroes its name has always 
been “ Andende.” Deeply indebted are we to the first 
missionaries that they took so much trouble to grow 
these big trees. 
The station is about 650 yards long and no to 120 
yards across. We measure it again and again in 
every direction in our evening and Sunday consti- 
tutionals, which one seldom or never takes on the 
paths that lead to the nearest villages. On these 
