MISSIONARIES 
*95 
hideously clothed in coats and trousers. These lads have lost the easy 
carriage and independent bearing of the unsophisticated native, and shuffle 
and slouch along in a lazy, loose-jointed manner that is a distinct irritation 
to a person of energetic, active temperament, and their semi-circular grin as 
they lounge up to you with a loud greeting produces on your part an 
involuntary frown rather than an answering smile. In a half-hearted manner 
they relieve your foremost porters of their burdens, and the straggling 
procession proceeds on its way up the red clay path and through the flower 
garden towards the house. It is probable that at the head of the steps 
leading to the raised verandah, the missionary’s wife awaits you, clasping and 
unclasping her hands, and letting her smile wax and wane as your slow 
approach through the garden gives her a slightly nervous feeling of conscious 
expectancy. Involuntarily her hand goes to her throat—yes! the gold locket 
is there ; she has not forgotten it. She glances at the little bouquet of 
flowers in her bosom—how quickly they are fading in the hot air! She 
smoothes the crumpled pale blue ribbons that give her homely dress an 
almost pathetic remembrance of former smartness, and pulls out the sleeve 
puffs ; touches her hair to ascertain its smoothness ; shakes out the limp 
folds of her skirt; clears her throat; calls up the smile again, now that you 
are close, and finally loses all affectation when she takes your hand and 
gazes into your pale, tired, spiritless face, and in a burst of womanly pity 
bids you welcome, and hurries away to make arrangements for your comfort. 
When you have bathed and changed your clothes, a pleasant languor 
succeeds your crushing fatigue. The missionary’s wife is busy in her 
household, devising additions to the evening meal ; the missionary has 
excused himself, and is gone to wind up the school affairs, and dismiss the 
scholars from the chapel. You are left for a short time in not unwelcome 
solitude. As you sit in the porch, gazing dreamily on the glowing sunset, 
and inhaling the strong, sweet, mingled perfume of the nicotianas, frangipanis, 
mignonette, and lilies in the garden, your ears catch the shrill, clear voices 
of children singing five verses of an evening hymn. Were you with them 
in the building, the glib utterance, thin melody, and nasal twang of the 
performance would jar upon you; as it is, here, softened by distance, it 
strikes a sweet note in the unruffled harmony of your surroundings. From 
the native village, half hidden among the tall umbrageous trees, which stand 
out in velvet blackness against the western sky, comes the faint murmur of 
voices ; and an occasional laugh of the women and girls, returning with their 
pitchers from the water-course, echoes pleasantly through the air. In the 
yellow-flowered thorn hedge at the bottom of the garden a bulbul 1 is piping 
and warbling his mellow notes. You feel enveloped in an atmosphere of 
peace, which is doubly refreshing because of its contrast to the weary tenour 
of your past life. 
The loud clanging of the school bell disturbs your reverie. The 
missionary is once more at your side with many excuses for having for a 
brief while left you to your own devices. The evening meal is announced, 
and you follow your host to the dining - room, or, rather, the one large 
sitting-room of his house. Here his wife, seated at the table before an ample 
tea-tray, welcomes you to the repast, and perhaps adds a quite unnecessary 
apology for its character. As you unfold your clean napkin, you glance 
1 Pycnonotus. In parts of the Shire Highlands and other mountainous districts there are thrushes 
that sing sweetly. 
