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

THUS FAR AND NO FARTHER 265
demons shriek out invectives. In this Assembly there is
no President or Mr. Speaker, and the logic of these demon
utterances is so illogical that the Lubans have seemingly-
broken into the spirit-world at the lunatic asylum end.
Distinctly Dantesque is this gulf of theirs, the very look
of the place suggesting uncanny, supernatural notions.
Keluctant daylight only trickles in here and there through
the mountain fissures, and as Nature has such a very
definite voice to the negro, why wonder that they all
seem to hear her proclaim the special sanctity of this wild,
woeful region? "Dim religious light" with a caution.
The acoustics of the place are so wonderful that a mere
whisper is caught up and goes echoing on and on through
the galleries and corridors of the mountain. When I
passed down there a wet wind was blowing bleak, and the
noise came groaning out from the Cathedral entrance like
a huge organ. Far from being a mere thing of con-
temporary gossip, this Chivawa (like its sister-
cathedral Songa farther South) is the High Court of
Appeal in all tough lawsuits—its yea utterly yea, and its
nay, nay. After wrangling out hot legal puzzles in their
hot little hamlets, the final word cannot be said until
Messrs. Pro and Con go off" on their hundred miles
tramp to throw themselves for adjudication at the feet of
these mighty dead.
" The plunge into darkness" is what
this sort of legal gambling is called. The old vein of
incipient flippancy is now gone utterly, and there these
negroes lie prostrate in suspense. He who awakes out of
his swoon to find himself beplastered with white chalk