A native smith taught me to weld iron; and having acquired
some further information in this art as well as in carpentering.
and gardening from Mr. Moffat, I was becoming handy at
most mechanical employments in addition to medicine and
preaching. My wife could make candles, soap, and clothes;
and thus we had nearly attained to the indispensable accomplishments of a missionary family in Central Africa, — the
husband to be a jack-of-all-trades without doors, and the wife
a maid-of-all-work within.
In our second year again scarce any rain fell. The third was marked by the same extraordinary drought, and during these two years the whole downfall did not amount to ten inches. The Kolobeng ran dry, and so many fish died that the hyaenas from the country round collected to the feast, and were unable to clear away the putrid mass. A large old alligator was left high and dry in the mud among the victims. The fourth year was equally unpropitious, the rain being insufficient to bring the grain to maturity. Keedles lying out of doors for months did not rust ; and a mixture of sulphuric acid and water, used in a galvanic battery, parted with all its moisture to the air, instead of imbibing more from the atmosphere as would have happened in England. The leaves of the trees drooped, and were soft and shrivelled, though not dead. Those of the mimosae were closed at midday, the same as at night. I put the bulb of a thermometer three inches under the soil in the sun at midday, and found that the temperature was from 132° to 134°. When certain kinds of beetles were placed on the surface, they ran about for a few seconds and expired. But this broiling heat only augmented the never-tiring activity of the long-legged black ants. Where do they get their moisture? Our house was built on a hard ferruginous conglomerate, in order to be out of the way of the white ant. Their black brethren got in despite the precaution; and not only were they able to moisten soil to the consistency of mortar for the formation of galleries, which they do by night, that they may be screened in the day from the observation of birds as they are passing and repassing towards any vegetable matter they may wish to devour, but their inner chambers were surprisingly humid, though dew there was none, and, our dwelling being placed on a
