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

172 THINKING BLACK
allowed, so you, the possessor of a richly developed sense
of humour, must mop up the gravy with a sop of mush.
Talk about manners, some of the royal notions of hon ton
make you fancy you are dining in the moon. Yet how
can I laugh at him when I remember that our own Henry
the Eighth, with magnificent unconcern, did also eat with
his fingers ? And when hungry would he not take up his
victuals and swallow them in handfuls at a time ? Why,
Mushidi in comparison is as polite as a dancing-master.
Be it noted, this puzzling Mushidi is keen on writing,
and here in Bunkeya it is a sight to see every paltry
scrap of paper prized almost more than cloth. One man
after another treats a bit of old newspaper as tenderly as
a crisp bank-note, a rumour having come in from the far
Ocean that our race was really " ruled by paper." Even
calico is common, they say, but does not paper buy
calico ? So they seize on every scrap they can find, and
soon you see the Chief scrawling on it a rapid Pitman's
system of shorthand kind of writing. Since the days of
old when his ancestors scribbled with sepia on papyrus,
this is the first timid dip into the great ocean of Literature
by the mighty negro. With a dexterous sweep of your
borrowed pencil he flashes along the paper in a curious
switchback manner, the lines crossing and recrossing each
other in a hopeless tangle. Oh! ye who have seen a
spider crawl out of an inkstand and stroll across a sheet
of letter-paper ; never since then have you seen the equal
in penmanship. And all this crooked calligraphy because
we as a white race are ruled by paper, forgetful of the