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

BORING OUT EAST 363
after laboriously moving my arm up and down for some
minutes like a stiff pump-handle he lets it go, only to be
seconded by his wife, a small and very daintily finished
little lady. This dame, I suppose, thought she had made
quite a toilet. Ordinarily dressed in a simple and strong
homespun, to-day she thinks herself irreproachably
gowned in an old ragged and coloured blanket, marred
with as many patches as blotches. Why is it that, right
down from the days of Mother Eve, as soon as a woman
arrives at self-consciousness her first thought is of a new
dress ? In the local homespun she would have been
handsome, but now she is horrid. A sprinkling of loud
yellow patches on a red ground is her ideal. They
despise even fine lace, think it a rag, and call it *' a lot
of holes tied together." Alas !
evil communications do
indeed corrupt good manners, for in half a tick this new
stiff pump-handle salute with high and low is de rigueur.
But Chilolo is a real and reliable sort of a man and would
make a good impression if sketched when he is speaking
in his firm and yet quite unostentatious way. If dis-
simulation is the mask of the soul, then sincerity is its
face, and I like the transparency of this old hero. Smoking
a meditative pipe, he told the tale of these Arabs' entry
into the country on the old plea of honest trade. Told of
their picking a quarrel after a thousand hateful impertin-
ences. Told finally of attack and repulse in quick suc-
cession, with the promise of a real big battle on the
morrow. Such, then, is *'the man behind the gun," a
desperate enemy but a fine friend. An African this