IN GORGEOUS MITRE

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 555, 7 January 1929, Page 11

IN GORGEOUS MITRE

BISHOP IMPRESSES MUD-HUT DWELLERS HUGE AFRICAN DIOCESE The Bishop of Accra, West Africa, the Right Rev. J. O. Aglionby, told the ‘‘Daily Mail” recently how he walks through mud-hut villages in the heart of the jungle, wearing his gorgeous mitre and cope and carrying his staff, to impress the natives. Dr. Aglionby, whose diocese contains 2,500,000 natives and only 2,000 white men, is in England on holiday He said:

Sometimes for many weeks I travel through the dense forest with native bearers who carry on their heads my bed, bath, robes, food, gramophone and magic lantern. I wear shorts, a shirt and a sun-helmet. ' But as soon as I arrive in a village I change into my most elaborate robes and walk nr procession, preceded by a cross-bearer and accompanied by native servers in red cassocks and lace-trimmed surplices. In this way I visit the chief, often sitting on a golden chair beneath an umbrella. It is very important that I should dress in my most ornate robes. This shows to the chief that I am as important a man as he and he pays more attention to what I have to say. The natives are greatly puzzled by my gramophone. They say to me, “Where is the little man?” and look all round the gramophone for him. They dance wildly to the dance music.