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

"OWN UP AND PAY UP*' 117
To judge from their dirty appearance they seem, at one
time, all to have suffered from hydrophobia and never
completely recovered from the dread of water then in-
spired. These and many more form a band of black
rogues who fatten on honest men :
witness Livingstone
in these very latitudes in 1854 and his perilous plight.
By way of temporising, a common proposal from these
road-blockers is a delay of some days for the Kasendo, or
blood covenant of friendship, between the travellers and
the lord paramount, a mere trick this, of course, *' to
bleed us " in a dear double sense. The idea of this one-
sided covenant as unfolded is a sort of " Mutual Accommo-
dation Society Limited," and I assure you it is limited
—strictly so—our upstart Chief being sole beneficiary :
he wants everything, even a literal suck of your blood.
Every few miles means a new embarrassing case of a
blatant Kinglet demanding your money or your life, yet
most of these nobodies only dreamed in one night they
were kings, their proof of regal succession being as weak
and visionary as that of the Pope being the fabled
successor of Peter. But patience must be your pet virtue
in Africa, remember, and now, oh now, is the time to
produce your pet. Calico and beads are their £ s. d., but
mere current coinage is the least and last thing in their
despotic demands. Our prudent shabbiness, in fact, is a
necessary boon ; for they want our boots, want our shirts,
yea, they must have the only iron cooking-pot we possess
—perhaps. And all this under splitting vertical rays,
the precious dry season quickly speeding past with our