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

324 THINKING BLACK
the rising sun, whole herds of antelopes crowding each
other off the ant-hills, each paltry peak their true Mount
Ararat in the deluge. See, too, the swimming snakes
darting about, heads erect and fangs menacing. Add to
this a thousand rats drowned and drowning. The crocodiles,
too, have leaped the banks and are wallowing in new
fishing-ground. Fancy an oily crocodile with unconquerable
levity sailing in triumph into your submerged kitchen !
He does not need to cook to eat, albeit he has come to eat
the cook. It took three days for the waters to assuage,
and for more than a week everywhere we moved was
through sinking quagmire. On venturing into our houses
again to get a notion of the damage sustained, the awful
smell of decomposing food, etc., drove us back. To in-
ventory the losses is impossible, and after searching in
vain a reasonable time for anything once possessed you
give it up and reckon it among antediluvian possessions
and memories.
But again, let us ask the question : Is this proximity
of Fort and Mission prudential ? Now, here it may not
be amiss to suggest that the particular peril of most
Missions in Africa is the tendency of Government and
Mission to go their own ways, seeking as wide a berth
as possible. But this amounts ultimately to a peril, for
only with the civil power keeping a Mission in its proper
place can the latter be stripped of its false prestige.
Many a little Protestant Pope in the lonely bush is forced
by his self-imposed isolation to be prophet, priest, and
king rolled into one—really a very big duck he, in his