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

"BORING IN '
FARTHER
7'&
GoverDment's hands. And, sure enough, Bihe was
broken : Captain Paiva s joint expedition of Portuguese
and Boers came on the scene, the king captured and carried
off to San Tome. There the wild Atlantic is Portugal's
surest sentinel on that lonely isle ; there the slaves find
themselves so hopelessly locked in for life that they eat
earth for suicide.
This is how we take the great plunge. An Ombala,
or Chiefs town, rests upon the top of the rather steep
slope slanting down to the sandy Kwanza beach, crowded
with " dugouts." But this ramshackle village is so very
much the key to the crossing that you must enter by its
front gate, wriggle through the huts of the malodorous
town to effect your exit on the shore. We don't stand
long, however, ere there files down to the beach a long
trading caravan, waving the big flag of little Portugal,
and this with ours makes a fine babel in bidding for
canoes. Meantime, Messrs. Thompson and Lane have
crossed to receive our loads, while I remain for three
mortal hours to direct the crossing. Then (Heaven-sent
chance !) the old broken-backed chief comes dow^n, and we
sit cheek by jowl chatting Christianity. With one foot
in the grave, here is a withered old man treating you to
a long, disconcerting scrutiny, and quizzing incredulously
as to our Garenganze Gospel venture. We yet await
classification, it seems ; we are not traders, nor raiders,
therefore he cannot get at us, cannot "place" us.
The only category he can conceive is that of the "people
who live by doing nothing." The Vachokwe tribe, next-