unworked fields, and especially to the Okoyong district, but "Daddy"
Anderson was opposed to the idea. Before returning, she wrote the
Foreign Mission Committee and begged to be sent to a station other than
Duke Town, though she loyally added that she would do whatever was
thought best. She sailed with the Rev. Hugh Goldie, one of the veteran
pioneers of the Mission, and Mrs. Goldie, and on arrival at Calabar, in
October 1880, found to her joy that she was to be in charge of Old
Town, and that she was a real missionary at last.




V. AT THE SEAT OF SATAN

The first sight she saw on entering her new sphere was a human skull
hung on a pole at the entrance to the town. In Old Town and the smaller
stations of Qua, Akim, and Ikot Ansa, lying back in the tribal district
of Ekoi, the people were amongst the most degraded in Calabar. It was a
difficult field, but she entered upon it with zest. Although under the
supervision of Duke Town, she was practically her own mistress, and
could carry out her own ideas and methods. This was important for her,
for, to her chagrin, she had found that boarding was expensive in
Calabar, and as she had to leave a large portion of her salary at home
for the support of her mother and sisters, she could not afford to live
as the other lady agents did. She had to economise in every direction,
and took to subsisting wholly on native food. It was in this way she
acquired those simple, Spartan-like habits which accompanied her
through life. Her colleagues attributed her desire for isolation and
native ways to natural inclination, not dreaming that they were a
matter of compulsion, for she was too loyal to her home and too proud