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

122 THINKING BLACK
cross one Coilantogle Ford sort of boundary only to find
that the Roderick Dhu you have just escaped has a dozen
cousins of the same ilk farther ahead. Often a coarse
English ballad is a truer snap-shot of African life than
more pretentious poetry, and if a coarse land needs coarse
description then here you have Luvaleland in modified
English rhyme :
"There's a king on every ash-heap,
There's princes not a few,
There's a whole raft-load of potentates
On the road to Tinibuctoo."
Thus you see the divinity that hedges every tiny chief
has to be propitiated with Ochivanda, or tribute, and the
galling fact is that this nobody has all your own men in
the hollow of his hand. He has marked you for his
lawful prey. Perceiving you in perplexity means that the
iron is now red-hot, so he strikes with a will and like a
wild one.
" Keep the trail white for us to return " is the
catch phrase from your traitors, and at every turn they
deplore your lack of deep respect for all constituted
authority. They nag you and they jag you with the re-
minder that all the chiefs will loot any further transport
following us in, if we fail to make the path '* white" by
paying exceptionally extortionate tribute. Proverb-logic
again routed us, and this time the reminder was that
**the key that opens is also the key that locks." Nor
was this all. Our Biheans rushed to more mad metaphor
to make us yield. " Look," said they, ''at this long road
in from the Ocean : like the human body, lo ! what is this