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

KAVANGA: GATES OF THE MORNING 383
bird. Our meal-bags depleted, the bewitching cry of
this bird quite disorganises the march, one man after
another dropping out of line to follow its lead. Finally,
the percentage of this defection ranges so alarmingly
from zero to a hundred that we call a halt for stragglers,
as it is extremely dangerous to lose sight of one another
in this wilderness. To your great surprise and greater
indignation, one, two, even three hours pass in waiting
man after man dropping in with a lordly gift of whitest
honey and a pleading, propitiatory smile to atone for his
crime. (*' Own up and pay up," remember, is the forest
rule.) Would gladly buy for instant, indignant use some
of that wax Ulysses stuffed into the ears of his sailors
to pass the Sirens safely. Now it is you resolve never,
never more to enter on such a ruinous game of travel
as this "heads—I win, tails— you lose" groping and
guessing in pathless bush. Oh, those shameful hours of
fret ! fret I fret ! Did not John Wesley say, " I have
no more right to fret than I have to curse and swear " ?
Surely this is the kind of facetious forest described by
Gordon Gumming as a forest of fish-hooks relieved here
and there with a patch of penknives.
One sight I saw there, far from human ken, and
never shall I forget it—a sort of glimpse away back at
prehistoric man. As far as cold ink can do it, let me tell
you what I saw—a theme this for blinding tears. There,
leaping about from tree to tree, exactly like a monkey,
was a horrible human being stark naked. A poor woman
this who had lived nearly all her days as an animal