Wednesday, November 2.—Called at Consulate and received letters. We had the clerk translate the telegram which General Stone wrote for us to send to Souakim, with reference to transportation, into Arabic, and then we were advised to get General Stone’s seal to it.
Thursday, November 3.—We have found and engaged a good interpreter at a moderate price. We called on General Stone and obtained his seal to the telegram.
Friday, November 4.—Called at the Consulate. Sent telegram of General Stone to Marquette, at Souakim. It will take some days to get an answer from it. We are told to-day that the English steamer we intended to take down the Red Sea has been delayed for about ten days. It is better to pass our Quarantine here than at Souakim. This is our only consolation, for we are very anxious to be off now, although they all tell us that we are early yet.
Saturday, November 6.—We hope this week to see at least the beginning of the end of our waiting here. Much will depend on the answer to our telegram; some will depend on the letters from General Stone: much more will depend on the movements of that English steamer on the Red Sea.
It is not always possible to make circumstances.
The new fiscal year opens most hopefully. It began September 1, and the statistics for September which I have just compiled show a larger enrolment and a larger average attendance than was ever before reported in the whole history of our work. The figures are these: 15 schools; 661 pupils enrolled; average attendance, 332. Among these pupils are 200 who are reported as having ceased from idol-worship, and 137 who give evidence of conversion. There are other hopeful features—a good band of teachers and helpers, numbering 27, not one among them now whom I would like to have resign, and a spreading and deepening interest in this work among our churches, and peace in all our borders. The hoodlum element is measurably quiet, and we work without molestation, except as now and then the heathen cousins or uncles of some of our young converts try what virtue there is in stripes to exorcise from them the Christian devil. The boldness and the constancy which some who are still children—scarcely in their teens—have shown, declaring to their persecutors when dragged before an idol, “I will not worship it, though you kill me,” remind one of the legends of primitive Christianity.