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

VICE VERSA 193
Sankuru, and this is how it came about. His father and
kinsmen were killed off in the attack on their village, and
the little son was put down at Mushidi's feet in the same
row as his relatives' skulls. These skulls Mushidi formally-
put his foot on, by way of " trampling on the necks of his
enemies," but the boy was spared and came to us. Picture
that little black boy sitting down with his hand on his
father's skull, like a young English schoolboy toying with
a football. Espousing the cause of the slave as we boast
of doing, Mushidi often twits us with our ignorance of
their wild ways.
Alas ! it is true, they are a moral mass of putre-
faction ; but the negro himself explains it all in his
luminous proverb : " Slave status causes slave state."
Body bondage means soul bondage. And so the days
pass, these polyglot slaves swarming round the king like
gadflies. Never before has such a mass weltered in Central
Africa, for a real black Babylon is his insane idea. A born
linguist, as I have said, Mushidi day by day pours out
cataracts of vituperation on the bowed heads of his
pudding-stone population. '* Son of a dog !
of the dust !
" and " Son
" are the customary compliments he pays
even to his own elder brother, Likuku. Vaunting himself
to be not a man but a " wild beast," he roars more than
he speaks, and I suppose the Shakespearean comment on
it all would be the sarcasm in A Midsummer Night's
Dream— " Well roared, Lion !
" This Mushidi roar,
though, is really the most hopeful part of his harangue.
The real danger is when he opens his mouth wide and