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

BUT
CHAPTER VII
'' Own Up and Pay Up "
TyTT'HEREIN the reader continues
the perilous process called
" boring in^' and encounters along the
trail sundry sons of BeliaL
how ridiculous all this trekking seems in retro-
spect, when we see to-day this same Central Africa
quickly becoming a gridiron of railways. Against
our weary retrospect of thirty-two months from England
to the Garenganze, Sir Douglas Fox now offers a prospect
of three days to the same goal from Benguella. Ah me,
as the curtain of memory lifts, it is incredible to think
that within two decades the pant and puff of the red-eyed
engine will be heard rumbling along our old trail. And,
remember, we are told that double band of steel linking
the Ocean with the Katanga will mean the commercial-
traveller stage of existence—ambassadors for Canadian
whisky, Scotch tweeds, English marmalade, packed in
the sweltering carriages and making the country hum.
Not far down our Congo the very cannibals who hurled
clouds of arrows against Stanley's canoes are to-day them-
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