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

88 THINKING BLACK
meat-shop ; now for your Luban bedroom. Yonder it is
hidden discreetly on the edge of a thicket in the same old
sixpence of a hamlet built on pestilential soil, and there,
in the dust, we must sleep the sleep of the just. The
deepening darkness, however, forces us to postpone our
supper-shot till the morrow, and lying down genuinely
" meat hungry " we dream of a morning fry of juicy
venison "fixings." The sun rose, and so did we ; but our
brave butcher's shop has vanished in the night, dashing
for dear life. For in the moonlight ("There goes our
breakfast," thought I), wuff ! wuff ! came a pack of jackals
scurrying through the meadow, chasing those antelopes
for their lives ; miles and miles they pant, heaving flanks
and gaping, dribbly mouths telling how terror-struck are
the buck.
Nothing reminiscent of England here ; no copse and
hedgerow, no down and moor, no slate roof and grey
spire ; a wilder, denser look everywhere, and just so
much more interesting. Farewell the gas, glare, and
paint of thy shops, Albion ! Shops, did I say ? The
African never dreamed the shop-idea, and only very
grudgingly will he be so kind as to barter you an evening
meal, kind for kind. But—shop or no shop—fish I want
and fish I resolve to have, for their tell-tale bones are
strewn all over the town. The Chief tried to brazen the
matter out, but with stony severity I met his every no,
no, no, with my sanguine yes, yes, yes.
" All right," said
he wearily, " if fish you must have, fish I must find, so
just wait till I poison some for you!' Right off he picks