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

CHAPTER XVIII
Boring out East
TJyT HEREIN, Mushidi being dead
and done with, the perilous pro-
cess begins called ^^ boring out.'^
NEARING this plateau wall, the blue blur sharpens
into bold black lines, and you soon find it swerv-
ing from a straight N. and S. course to form
many a large '' dream" valley down which roars an angry
torrent from the watershed. " Box canons " all of them,
and shaped like a U, with occasionally a sharp-shaped Y.
The river long ago dug out these ravines and is now
wriggling down the middle like an 8. Hamlets crouching
in the reeds on either side of the river-bed dot these
valleys sparsely, the people all high-strung and excited.
Mugavi, a nervous little quicksilver man, is very kind as
we pass through his place, and there is a curious loadstone
of afl&nity when black and white thus defeat Babel by
chatting in a common lingo. You, seem to walk straight
into each other's hearts. To be tongue-tied as to the
negro's language means that an unnavigable ocean washes
between your two souls, cutting you off from converse
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