thence was sent up the White Nile to a Mission-station in
the Shillook country. The climate of tie White Nile destroyed thirteen
missionaries in the short space of six months, and the boy Saat returned
with the remnant of the party to Khartoum and was readmitted into the
Mission. The establishment was at that time swarming with little black
boys from the various White Nile tribes, who repaid the kindness of the
missionaries by stealing everything they could lay their hands upon. At
length the utter worthlessness of the boys, their moral obtuseness, and
the apparent impossibility of improving them determined the chief of
the Mission to purge his establishment from such imps, and they were
accordingly turned out. Poor little Saat, the one grain of gold amid the
mire, shared the same fate.

It was about a week before our departure from Khartoum that Mrs. Baker
and I were at tea in the middle of the court-yard, when a miserable boy
about twelve years old came uninvited to her side, and knelt down in the
dust at her feet. There was something so irresistibly supplicating
in the attitude of the child that the first impulse was to give him
something from the table. This was declined, and he merely begged to
be allowed to live with us and to be our boy. He said that he had
been turned out of the Mission, merely because the Bari boys of the
establishment were thieves, and thus he suffered for their sins. I could
not believe it possible that the child had been actually turned out into
the streets, and believing that the fault must lie in the boy, I told
him I would inquire. In the mean time he was given in charge of the
cook.

It happened that on the following day I was so much occupied that I
forgot to inquire at the Mission, and once more the cool hour of evening
arrived, when, after the intense heat of the day, we sat at table in
the open court-yard. Hardly were we seated when again the boy appeared,
kneeling in the dust, with his head lowered at my wife's feet, and
imploring to be allowed to follow us. It was in vain that I explained
that we had a boy and did not require another; that the journey was long
and difficult, and that he might perhaps die. The boy feared nothing,
and craved simply that he might belong to us. He had no place of
shelter, no food; had been stolen from his parents, and was a helpless
outcast.

The next morning, accompanied by Mrs. Baker, I went to the Mission and
heard that the boy had borne an excel