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

198 THINKING BLACK
baked hard in the fire of adversity. If he could not die
famous he would end infamous, so he planned a devilish
deed. Yonder far East, and tucked away in between the
Wanyamwezi Hills, was his natal village, where the pest of
chigoes had never yet come ; well, here is his chance
why not import a plague and die infamous ? This would
ease his endless pressure of penury, this, the mad idea
that his name, as a grey monument in history, would ever
be linked with the introduction of such a deadly plague.
So he dared the deed and cursed his native land. The
collecting of " seed " chigoes was too easy not to succeed,
and he safely let them loose on their bad business of hate.
Years after, when the townsfolk out East fought in a frenzy
of determination to eradicate that chigoe pest, many a
curse was linked with Katigile's name. Yet some people
say the Devil has no Missionaries, and no propaganda
The heart of man never showed more truly the bad stuflf
of which it is made than just here in this baneful deed.
Even Katigile himself died with his toes eaten by chigoes,
cursed with his own cruel curse.
# * *
So the days drag past, seemingly a mere hyphen and
connecting link. Mushidi holds on to us, and we hold on
to the country. "If you are tied in ropes," says the
proverb, *' the more you tug the tighter the knots become,"
so even here we learn to bide God's time. (Is it not in
the Captivity Epistles that Paul writes of the Church's
heavenly calling ? Seated in a dark Roman prison, was
it not just then he claimed to be seated in the heavenlies ?)