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

FARTHEST, BUT SHUT, IN 173
fact that although paper rules us, we at least rule our
paper. What a black-and-white jumble of crooked lines
*' Medicine," is what he calls it, and, truth to tell, so
cryptic does it look that, in England, after vainly trying
to decipher same, one would most naturally send it round
to the local chemist to be made up as a prescription.
This " black-art " notion of letter-writing has got such
a cunning grip of the negro brain that even your own
black boy will recall you on urgent business by scrawling
a few lines of zigzag nonsense on a bare sheet of paper.
The real message, of course, is verbal, but these magic
lines of criss-cross could not be omitted. Is there any
significance in the fact that the negro word " to write "
is only the word " to tattoo," and does he think that we
tattoo on paper precisely as he does on his body ? Even
Mushidi, who does not believe in discretion being the
better part of valour, has been known to scrawl one of
these vainglorious cryptograms to his enemy in arms.
I wonder, does he think that to have it out in black and
white is better than settling scores in black and blue ?
Along with this funny stenography he (joyously scenting
battle !) takes great good care to send the eloquent
present of a hoe and bag of bullets, offering his enemy
a this-or-that choice— peace or war, bullets or hoe ? A
sort of heathen Parcels Post arrangement this, I suppose,
with accompanying communication per Letter Post.
No notion has he that in this writing of ours we catch
the living thought as a word and imprison it on paper.
The exact idea he seems to have of the business is akin