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

398 THINKING BLACK
of these solemn-faced sacrifices about to be ofi*ered up.
With no book but nature, every little picture is to the
negro Christian a parable ; and here again, looking out
on this vast expanse of skyline, you get some more of
his ** thinking black " philosophy. He has been shut
in all his life to the plains, never saw such a pitiless
waste of waters. He looks, and looks, then a dreamy
thought comes into his eye and he sighs, " Ah yes
what a tragedy that we humans can see far farther than
we can walk " ! In other words—how little our life agrees
with our lip ! How little our word squares with our deed !
To top all my trouble, yonder is Kilwa Island lying
oflf in mid-Lake, the robber's den from which this Arab
Shimba launches his bolts. Darting about like black
ducks, you can see his scout-canoes patrolling the Lake,
and the problem now stands how to slip past these
lynx-eyed blacks and cross Mweru. The very dirt on
my calico coat (a thing my boy tailored for me) is now
a boon, for one startling speck of white in a canoe
would tell tales. Eemember, we have Arabs behind us
as well as Arabs in front, and, as Lord Macaulay puts
it, " Those behind cry * Forward,* and those in front
cry *Back.'" Therefore, on we agree to go, and God
be with us on the waters
Dawn of the 4 th of July saw us shooting out into
the hot and oily waters of an uncharted sea, Mweru
at this end describing many strange curvatures quite
unknown to the R.G.S. Capes, bays, and deltas all
foreign to the map, yet old-fashioned enough to the