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

VICE VERSA 199
The sorest thorn in our side these days is the resident
Arabs at the capital. They make a dead set against us,
buttering up " The Sultan " for hours and plotting darkly.
Every time we pass their camp going on to Mushidi's they
curse Christ with bitter blasphemy. The revengeful relish
in their invectives is the darkest smudge in all our exper-
ience ; verily, the poison of asps is under their tongue.
Yet they pray for hours and by clockwork from the
highest to the lowest— pray to God and curse His Anointed.
No wonder the arm-chair Englishman misunderstands it
all. " On one occasion," says Augustus Hare, " I was
present at a garden party given by Lady Salisbury in
honour of the Sultan of Zanzibar. In the middle of it
the Sultan came up to the hostess and said, * Now, please,
it is time for me to say my prayers. I should like to go
to your room and be alone for ten minutes. I always do
this four times a day.' The Archbishop of Dublin was
so delighted with this, that on being presented to the
Sultan he said, * I am glad to have the honour of being
presented to a man who has made a promise and
kept it.'" But contrast the same sort of Zanzibar
Arab here with us in the African bush, not in an
English flower garden. Kuomba Muungu is the great
Arab phrase, " praying to God," but locally this formula
has become the term for murder, Tu na hwenda
kuomba Muungu being the double equivalent for *'Let
us be off to prayers," or (save the mark) "Let us be
off to kill." It does not often happen that staid old
English can hit off such gruesome drolleries, but you have