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

190 THINKING BLACK
At our end of the line, too, this identical thing is
happening, many an Arab arriving at Mushidi's capital
never again to leave it. Mere packmen as such often are,
Mushidi politely plunders the trader—with the man's own
permission, the bargain being a dark affair in which the
new-comer is presented with a wife and fields in exchange
for the trade goods of some defrauded Coast merchant.
Never will Mr. Packman sight the sea again, and never
will the owner of the goods touch even a farthing in the
pound. Thus Mushidi squares accounts with his commer-
cial foes. Does the seductive Coast rob him of his caravans ?
Then he will retaliate and pleasantly plunder a venture-
some Arab of another man's money. But by no manner
of means are you to imagine that this tit-for-tat trickery
is barren of result. Truth demands the candid confession
that this alone is the thing an African can understand.
Lex talionis is written in his bones, and it is only when
two rival factions are united in a common bond of horror
of each other that they desist from crime.
* ^ *
But what about the Portuguese wife? Poor Queen
Maria de Fonseca ! Some
ladies realise that their fortune
is invested in their face, and naturally expect to draw
interest on the said capital. Maria de Fonseca, alone of
all her colour among a million blacks, found her capital
invested not in her face but in her skin, and drew cent
per cent interest accordingly. Financial interest as well
as social ditto ;
for the lady who boasted— " My face is my
fortune, sir ! " she said—well knew that her boasted beauty,