the district. The men in the town were
selfish and greedy, and would not let the inland natives come with
their palm oil and trade with the factories, and fights often took
place, and blood was shed. "This will never do," Mary said, and she
began to help the country people, allowing them to steal down at night
through the Mission ground, and guiding them past the sentries to the
beach. The townsmen were angry, but they could not browbeat the brave
white woman, and at last they gave in, and so the trading became free.

Then she began to oppose the custom of killing twins, and by and by she
came to be known as "the Ma who loves babies." "Ma" in the Efik tongue
is a title of respect given to women, and ever after she was known to
all, white and black, as "Ma Slessor," or "Ma Akamba," the great Ma, or
just simply "Ma," and we, too, may use the same name for her.

One day a young Scottish trader named Owen came to her with a black baby
in his arms.

"Ma," he said, "I have found this baby thing lying away in the bush.
It's a twin. The other has been killed. It would soon have died if I
hadn't picked it up. I knew you'd like it, and so here it is."

Ma thanked the young man for his kindly act, and took the child, a
bright and attractive girl, to her heart of hearts. "I'll call it
Janie," she said, "after my sister."

She was delighted one day to hear that the British Consul and the
missionaries had at last coaxed the chiefs in the river towns to make a
law after their own fashion against twin-murder. This was done through a
secret society called Egbo, which was very powerful and ruled the land.
Those who belonged to it sent out men with whips and drums, called
runners, who were disguised in masks and strange dresses. When they
appeared all women and children had to fly indoors. If caught they were
flogged. It was these men who came to proclaim the new rules. Ma thus
tells about the scene in a letter to Sunday School children in Dundee:

Just as it became dark one evening I was sitting in my verandah
talking to the children, when we heard the beating of drums and
the singing of men coming near. This was strange, because we are
on a piece of ground which no one in the town has a right to
enter. Taking the wee twin boys in my hands I rushed out, and
what do you think I saw? A crowd of men standing outside the
fence chanting and swaying their bodies. They were proclaiming
that all twins and t