XIV 
MENTAL SOLITUDE 
During our first year in Ejahyay, things were 
very quiet, excepting when a sudden conflagra¬ 
tion swept over the city, often greatly endanger¬ 
ing our house. But while we were reasonably 
comfortable physically, the lack of social privi¬ 
leges made us feel very lonely. This sense of 
solitude was relieved somewhat every two weeks 
by the arrival of letters from home. We kept a 
messenger on the road all the time. The mail 
reached Lagos every two weeks and it took our 
messenger a week to go and a week to return. 
He always received an ovation when he entered 
the mission yard on his return. I took my wife 
to Abeokuta once, but I found that on account 
of the heat and fatigue, she received more harm 
than good. 
At no time while we were in Africa did we 
miss the comforts of material civilization as much 
as we did the intellectual privileges enjoyed in 
more elevated conditions of society. The cus¬ 
toms and ideas of the people around us were 
either too cruel or too novel to admit of any in- 
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