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

KAVANGA: GATES OF THE MORNING 381
digestion, these obstinate pumpkin seeds would—well,
would not digest, hence these glorious gardens all from
stolen fruit. Natural law in the spiritual world, verily.
At night in the woods we built a large fire, a mighty
roarer five feet high, fed with logs eight feet long. The
great blaze flares through the night, and at daybreak we
slink out, in the raw morning air, to rub our fingers at
this all-night (and all-right) blaze. But we soon find
that these parts are alive with tsetse, so the only way
to avoid their tormenting sting is to go off in the moon-
light, travelling six hours—not per day, but per night.
High in the west hangs the monster moon as white as a
new half-crown. But our path, remember, is fringed
with an endless grove of trees, and the moon weirdly
throws their sharp black shadows on the ground.
Peeping out from these ghostly traceries of trees, we
guess here and there the tiny ribbon of trail hardly
hinting its presence, and this elusive little path is our
precious all. Only eighteen inches wide though it be,
it is a sure guarantee of real standing ground, every-
where else a mass of shags and jags. Newcomers laugh
at it, call it " the corkscrew," " crooky-crooky," and
other naughty names ; but in later years the man who
ought to know is he who " bikes " it. What, a " bike "
in such a tangle ? Yes, why not ? Hypercritical as he
is forced to be, he is pledged to praise it with a reason !
For, nota bene, the negro and the cyclist are bound in
a common bond of horror lest they puncture their
double Dunlop tyres, the negro's bare toes being as