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

118 THINKING BLACK
Garenganze goal yet a long way ofif. These fine folks do
not measure time by means of little machines carried in
their pockets. No need in this easy land to catch train
or tram by a fraction of a second. There is not one time-
piece in the vast country, their only watch and eight-day
clock being the accurate sun who faileth never. To say,
therefore, that " punctually on the stroke of six " our caravan
moves out of camp is an error, unless you apply the phrase
to our slavers, who can only get their bondsmen off after
a sixth whack with a stick, "punctually on the stroke
of six," indeed.
{Sth September.)
But we have an anchor to windward all the time.
Here are your September and October rushing past, I
repeat, the punctual rains due at any time, like an express.
And here, too, are your hot Africa and hotter Africans
trying hard to make us a broken-spirited jumble of dis-
traction. But we meet our Rob Roy's hang-dog look with
the genuine and exultant retort that though indeed
empty-handed we are not empty-headed, and therefore
cannot give what we do not possess. Well, this demon-
strable denial of ours is, as I have said, a real anchor to
windward, for the African has a curiously hard-headed
way of judging things by practical proof. But, mark you,
until in some way you have paid this man's demands,
normal relations with the tribe in food-buying are not
supposed to be established. You are boycotted, and
neither by charter nor barter can you get anything from
them. First things first is the idea in this preliminary