r clothes, and to be good little boys and
girls. This is causing the Sisters great distress. Any one who does
not believe in that selfish theory, that charity begins at home, but
who would like to help to spread Christianity in darkest Africa and
give happiness to five noble women, who are giving their lives for
others, should send a postal money order to Marie T. Martin, the
Reverend Mother Superior of the Catholic Mission of Old Calabar,
Southern Nigeria.

And if you are going to do it, as they say in the advertising pages,
"Do it now!"

[Illustration: The Mother Superior and Sisters of St. Joseph and
Their Converts at Old Calabar.]

At Calabar there is a royal prisoner, the King of Benin. He is not
an agreeable king like His Majesty of the Cameroons, but a grossly
fat, sensual-looking young man, who, a few years ago, when he was at
war with the English, made "ju ju" against them by sacrificing three
hundred maidens, his idea being that the ju ju would drive the
English out of Benin. It was poor ju ju, for it drove the young man
himself out of Benin, and now he is a king in exile. As far as I
could see, the social position of the king is insecure, and
certainly in Calabar he does not move in the first circles. One
afternoon, when the four or five ladies of Calabar and Mr. Bedwell,
the Acting Commissioner, and the officers of the W.A.F.F.'s were at
the clubhouse having ice-drinks, the king at the head of a retinue
of cabinet officers, high priests, and wives bore down upon the
club-house with the evident intention of inviting himself to tea.
Personally, I should like to have met a young man who could murder
three hundred girls and worry over it so little that he had not lost
one of his three hundred pounds, but the others were considerably
annoyed and sent an A.D.C. to tell him to "Move on!" as though he
were an organ-grinder, or a performing bear.

"These kings," exclaimed a subaltern of the W.A.F.F.'s, indignantly,
"are trying to push in everywhere!"

When we departed from Calabar, the only thing that reconciled me to
leaving it and its charming people, was the fact that when the ship
moved there was a breeze. While at anchor in the river I had found
that not being able to breathe by day or to sleep by night in time
is trying, even to the stoutest constitution.

One of the married ladies of Calabar, her husband, an officer of
the W.A.F.F.'s, and the captain of the police sailed on the
_Nigeria_ "on leave,"