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

160 THINKING BLACK
excellent example of His eternal equipoise of law—these
howling sandstorms, I mean, rushing like fiends across
the miles of blistering sand. For, be it noted, this
sun burns, and burns, and b-u-r-n-s until, at a certain
point, it seems to have overreached itself. Thus having
disturbed by rarefaction the atmospheric balance, out
rush the sand-hounds of the desert, these whirling
hurricanes that easily establish equilibrium as by royal
command. They blind and choke mere man, no doubt,
but nevertheless the perfect balance of Nature is restored
by a perfect Creator. Nor dare a snug—and smug
Missionary claim exemption from a mouthful of dirt upon
the plea that God's message has brought him to these
wilds : are not " the winds His messengers " too ? You'll
only get sand in your teeth if you open your mouth in
objection. Moral : Eain or shine, do not tamper with
God's government of His own Africa.
This is not all. Such real give and take is there in
this desert panorama that we are not surprised when, by
way of counterpoise, the pendulum swings from sand-
storm to the old hoax of mirage. Curious policy of make-
believe this, for here you have a dead desert that long ago
has killed all the poetry out of the waste ; here, wonder
of wonders, is a howling wilderness in a sham penitential
way turning poet and cheating us with mirage. Stern
and forbidding as the earth is about here, what is this if
not the desert turning poet ? A mocking attempt, shall
we call it, to produce an imaginary oasis in lieu of the
real thing : else how can you square the undeniable fact