Thinking black; 22 years without a break in the long grass of Central ...

74
THINKING BLACK
diagnosis of the mental state of a " white " who can
hazard such nonsense.
{19th June 1890.)
Here comes June, and the time to be up and off.
Across a brook, on the third, we ^ wave good-bye to kind
Mr. and Mrs. Arnot, and away East we go, off and out
of Bihe. Just in time, too, for war is brewing, the
Bihean bent on giving his last national kick at the
Portuguese. More than that : this brewing storm breaks
behind our backs, and we are swept before it, not out
to the Ocean—that has storms enough—but into our
long-loved, long-lived-in Interior. My old friend Senhor
Silva Porto, Capitao Mor, seeing trouble ahead, resolved
on sudden suicide, and blew himself up with gunpowder.
A dramatic death this. Six barrels of gunpowder lined
out as deathbed, the said six covered with a drapery of
Portuguese flags, the old Portuguese topping it all as sad-
hearted sacrifice. Up went the famous explorer in an
explosion, and down went the old Bihe dynasty in that
same smash. For this death of Silva Porto must be
avenged. Too long ignored by his own nation, too long
despised by the Biheans, here is his solution to force the
^ Peccavi I I find I have been remiss in my introductions—who are the
" We " ? In the sequence of seniority the names are Messrs. Thompson, Lane,
and " the writer," a mere boy in those days. A threefold cord not easily
broken, we were utter strangers to each other at the start and represented
the three nationalities of our race. Yet I can recall with delight the splendid
lives these good men lived before my eyes, the consummate fellowship being a
treasure. Mere rules and regulations in Africa are a poor enough guarantee
for a tranquil time, but if love be the fulfilling of the whole law, then love
guided by the Word of God is better than any code of laws.