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As the canoe glided along the river she communed with God, and in the end left the issue with Him. "Man," she thought, "can do nothing with such a people." Arriving at the landing beach she made her way by a forest track to a village of mud huts called Ekenge, four miles inland.
One of the young men she had taught in school said, "I will pray for you, but remember you are asking for death when you go to that wild country." It was getting dark when Mary's boat landed near Ekenge. The rain was pouring down. It was a four-mile walk to Ekenge. Mary and the five children started out. Mr. Bishop and the men who carried the baggage were to follow.
She treated them as human beings, saw the romance and tragedy in their patient lives, wept over their trials, and rejoiced in their joys. There was one little idyll of harem life which she liked to tell. Some slave-dealers arrived at Ekenge, and among their "bargains" was a young and handsome girl, whom Edem bought for one of his chief men.
They carried the packages Mary had brought with her. They began to walk through the jungle. It was four miles to Ekenge where Chief Edem lived. As they came near to the little village of mud huts, the chief rower whispered to Mary, "There is Chief Edem. Praise God, he is at home and sober."
Divesting himself of part of his clothing, and obtaining some strong sticks, he made a rough stretcher, on which the inert form was laid conveyed to Ekenge. For a fortnight Mary tended the patient in his mother's house, hoping against hope that he would recover, and that the crisis she dreaded would be averted, but he was beyond human help.
Mary began hers before she had the buildings in which to teach, one at Ekenge and the other at Ifako. The latter was held in the afternoon in order that she might be back in her yard by sunset. The schoolroom was the verandah of a house by the wayside; the seats were pieces of firewood; the equipment an alphabet card hung on one of the posts.
Timidly the men tiptoed past the place where the "medicine" had been. Then they went on to their own village. Once more Mary thought that all would be peaceful now for a while. She started for the village of Ekenge. No sooner was Mary gone than the people of Njiri began drinking again. Then they started quarreling and fighting. One of the men in the village ran and told Mary.
The principal wife of a harem in close neighbourhood to Mary went to pay a visit to her son and daughter at a village in the vicinity of the Cross River, some eight hours distant from Ekenge. She found the chief so near death that the head man and the people were waiting outside, ready for the event. Hastening into the harem she spoke of the power of the white "Ma" at Ekenge.
Taking advantage of their superstition and fear the witch-doctors some of the cunningest rogues the world has produced held them in abject bondage, and Mary was constantly at battle with the results of their handiwork. The chief of Ekenge was lying ill.
All his other wives at once gathered up their children and left him, but he remained firm. As the woman had been a neighbour of "Ma's" at Ekenge, it is probable that her influence had told on her then. But the outstanding event in this direction was that a twin boy was taken home by his parents, who were determined to keep him.
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