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

DARK DOINGS TN LUVALELAND 139
Catholics, farther East, make the cosy Protestants blush,
for while we are famous ** furlough " folks, they burn their
bridges and stick to their posts. Both nuns and priests
dedicate their lives to the land, never hoping to sight
Europe again, while we parade England with lantern
lectures ! These Eomans laugh at us for so deserting our
posts, and say that we are like a soldier who runs out of
action to go and try his skill at a shooting-range. The
real battle and real bullets are in here, in the bush, while
away yonder on a far English platform is the amateur
shooting - range. " I felt like a fireless chimney in
summer," was the testimony of an old "deputation"
Missionary in England.
{19 th September.)
Unless, however, this record is to remain hopelessly
tangled, we must mention sundry Luvale traits that block
our road. Like chief, like people. Copying the Wagogo
on the Zanzibar road, here you have a whole tribe
spreading its nets and lurking by the roadside for loot.
Legal loot, though, this claims to be ;
for when the word is
passed along the path that a caravan is advancing, there
is a tribal flutter, and this news draws them like a magnet.
Sea-lawyers every soul of them, they flood your camp and
pack in so tightly that the perfumed crowd exhales the
noxious smell of a bad drain. Dr. Johnson's remark
about Scotland is really applicable to odorous Luvaleland.
For when they informed him, travelling by night, that
he had entered Scotia, he retorted, " Yes, I could smell
it in the dark "
! (Fie ! Dr. Johnson). Having the blood