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

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THINKING BLACK
believe, some of these old dears, believe with aged bodies
and childhood hearts. Summer has come late to them,
no doubt, but it is the summer of God that knows no
winter. There they are, crooning an old "Golgotha"
song of Christ's dying pangs. Pitched on the wrong key,
notes all out, yet I defy you to deny that they are
singing sense into that holy hymn.
(20th August.)
It is notorious that our African is a congenital liar,
and here comes an example. Breaking your way along
the trail, any native travellers you encounter make
strange temporising mancBUvres until convinced you
come peaceably. A party of six carrying food signals
us a long distance off, and their plan is literally to
" hedge " us. Immediately all the baskets are in hiding
in the grass, along with five of the party who lie flat
with bated breath, while No. 6, a bolder spirit he, comes
slowly along the path till we accost him. His story is
always a stupid concoction of lies, not at all cleverly
spun, but palpably false; not mere ** embroidery," that
is to say, but the lie circumstantial. When, however, you
divulge your identity as peaceful nobodies, away to the
winds go his fears, and he coolly whistles up his friends
in hiding, utterly regardless of the lie-direct this ugly
appearance of theirs gives to his sheepish story. Nor is
our rascal ashamed one tiny bit. For with eyes liquid
with mirth he— just a plain everyday liar—enjoys it all,
and sees no sting in the suggestion that he is one of the
greatest tale-tellers within the confines of the solar