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

FIRST THINGS FIRST 19
bath fashion. This grass, of course, is so dense that it
hides the tiny trail, so each step is a squeeze forward into
the unknown, the said squeeze being equivalent to the
turning on of the tap on our little 3 6-inch -long nobodies.
But there is a law of compensation even here. Oh yes,
these nobodies become somebodies with their resultant
revenge. I saw one such diminutive "dew drier" go
straight up to mamma and let her have a sounding smack
in the face. Angry ? Not she. Dissolving in smiles,
she looks at her offspring proudly : " What a splendid
warrior he'll make !
" Pushed on ahead in the dark dawn,
of course, these little bits of black humanity run the
chance of a hungry old hyena or leopard lurking by the way
to nab first comers. Too well are they aware that even
the smallest contributions are always thankfully received
by the Carnivora. And thus is evolved Africa's enfant
terrible, the sad stuff, forsooth, out of which Mr.
Missionary has got to build the poor little African Sunday
school. Ragged schools, one might indulgently call them,
only the problem is to produce even one rag sometimes.
But all this is to anticipate, for it is easier to talk
about the trail than to use it, and we are forced to settle
ourselves down on the sickly seaboard like a man in a
railway station condemned to wait the next train. Heigh
ho ! here it is you learn that patience must be your pet
African virtue, and here, too, you first face the dangerous
yet delightful fact that you are wholly in the negro's
hands for weal or woe. For if those expected carriers of
ours don't come out of the hills one of these days and