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To-day there is no fire in the hearth. There is no chimney in this house so I could not have a fire and enjoy my stay. The owner, however, would not mind the smoke from the firewood. He is used to crouching over a fire and his eyes get hardened. I see in one corner there is a heap of grain called millet, and in another a white ant-heap. It has risen in the night for I did not notice it before, and I am glad that none of my belongings were in that corner of the room. Nothing but iron seems amiss to the white ant. His appetite is terrible and he can play sad havoc with one’s property in a single night. There is grain in one corner I have said, and consequently there are rats.

The Pied Piper of Hamlin of whom you have all heard would find plenty of rats to charm in any African village. Then in the houses there are many kinds of biting insects, and some that don’t bite, but look ugly. The mosquito is calling ping! ping! everywhere, and night is made endurable only by retiring under a mosquito net. The mosquito is the most dangerous insect in Africa, for it has been found out by clever doctors that it is the mosquito bite that causes the dreaded malaria fever.