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

"NEMESIS, DAUGHTER OF NIGHT" 313
mean, for in Africa 12 = 10. Not a question this of the
negro hlase palate but rather the pinch of hunger ;
senti-
mental repugnance loathes a shining and repulsive snail,
but its nutritive qualities are exceptionally high. So, too,
caterpillars. Not merely when famine stalks the land but
tribally, the Luban gloats over these furry little creatures
with a polite name. An apologetic African, with that
day-in-day-out ache in the pit of the stomach, defended
these extremes of diet in the clever retort : " Even in the
dark, who ever forgot the road to his mouth?" This
famine, of course, is the metaphoric dark night to
him.
Here is an equally hungry fellow defends his doleful
diet of boiled snakes by saying, "A hungry man will
even burn his mouth." (The snakes, that is to say, are
figuratively scalding food.) But as a matter of fact the
Lusato, or boa-constrictor, does taste like delicate veal and
is a famous Luban titbit. My friend Chivangwa has a
lively collection of snakes of many colours and sizes, and
these, kept in gourds, feed on flour and mice pending the
gluttonous *' snake supper." Every new moon he takes
them out for dentistry, and instead of hanging them on
a peg he prefers to coil them round his neck. Even
antelopes they think inferior eating to snakes. This I
found on sending a native back ten miles at sundown to
bring on some venison I had killed, but on reaching the
spot he drew blank, the antelope non est. Hours after,
however, he lurched into camp dumping down some very
toothsome-looking steaks in the moonlight, not mine but