and many making rapid progress.

The larger Mission House, which Mary intended to occupy the space in
front of the yard at Ekenge, was a stiffer problem for the people, and
for a time they hung back from the attempt to build it.




XI. A PALAYER AT THE PALACE

Perhaps the greatest obstacle to Christian truth and progress was not
superstition or custom, but drink. She had seen something of the
traffic in rum and gin at the coast, but she was amazed at what went on
in Okoyong. All in the community, old and young, drank, and often she
lay down to rest at night knowing that not a sober man and hardly a
sober woman was within miles of her. When the villagers came home from
a drunken bout the chief men would rouse her up and demand why she had
not risen to receive them. At all hours of the day and night they would
stagger into the hut, and lie down and fall asleep. Her power, then,
was not strong enough to prevent them--but the time came.

The spirit came up from Calabar and was the chief article of trade.
When a supply arrived processions of girls carrying demijohns trooped
in from all quarters, as if they were going to the spring for water. At
the funeral of one big man seven casks of liquor were consumed, in
addition to that bought in small quantities by the poorer classes. A
refugee of good birth and conduct remarked to Mary once that he had
been three days in the yard and had not tasted the white man's rum.
"Three days!" she replied, "and you think that long!" "Ma," he said, in