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

384 THINKING BLACK
amongst animals, the bony fingers like talons of a hawk
being all the weapons of her forest w^arfare. The body
cunningly coloured like the grey bark of the trees in
which she lived, you can scarcely for a moment locate
her, until you catch sight of the black eyes gleaming like
coals of fire. Then comes a shriek followed by a fierce
cataract of what the natives call " monkey curses
{Mafinge ahorowe), and ofi" she springs from tree to tree,
twisting her face into a grotesque sneer. She has
forgotten how to speak with human modulation and can
only screech, a literal proof this of the Spanish saying,
" Live with wolves and you will learn to howl." Then
a snatch of curious song reaches us from the top of one
of the highest trees, a song-dirge containing a half-hint
that she was rebel against her race, with a reason :
"The black stork croaked into the town
A truth that made the folk all frown j
'Twas a message weighted with grief
! '
* The Earth is God's : man's a thief
She had fled the dwellings of man, poor soul, driven mad
by the injustice of her own tribe, not a human being now,
but the " black stork " roosting on branches and shouting
in rebellion against man the robber, "The Earth is
God's : man's a thief." Here is a proof, surely, that
insanity is often only the logic of an accurate and
overtaxed mind. Even the tough blacks with me nearly
wept at this sight of sorrow ; and one old philosopher,
after a solemn and dignified pinch of snuff*, said, ** Truly
the human race is only a huge beehive : w^e, the human