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

BLACK SUFFRAGETTES 245
drawing near—a mere chance ultimately changing the
colour of the map—country, I mean, for the negro knows
nothing but the real map of nature drawn to the scale of
eight furlongs to one mile. Well, the happy day came when
one of the hill-men, prowling down in the plains, spied a
crowd of Lake dwellers huzzahing over some find they
had made—iron-ore it turned out to be. But shall we
not rather call this an unhappy find, for did they not
seize the wandering highlander and slay him as a sacrifice
on the opening of the mine? Remember, in Africa,
without the shedding of blood there is no—no anything, so
how could they dare exploit this new mine without the
traditional human sacrifice ? Indeed, these nude capitalists
of long ago are rather reminiscent of modern Steel Trusts
in the fact that they believed strongly in sacrifice, but
only to the extent of making some scapegoat outsider the
sufierer. So they slew this man and sprinkled his blood
down the open mine, "cleansing by blood" the mineral
deposit. And thus it was the clock of destiny struck for
those hungry hill-men, their vengeance not taking the
form of a shrill warcry but rather a long nagging
lawsuit. For days and months they doggedly pushed
their claim for compensation, the fisher chief ]S"ongwe
temporising like a shrewd old lawyer. A tangled tale
that lawsuit, a tale of loops and ties, loose threads
and entanglements, inconsistencies and nebulous nothings.
But fine words even in Africa butter no parsnips, and
finally the highlander snatched a legal victory—verdict
That the said Muvanga receive a slice of foreshore for dry