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

"GREAT WHITE LAKE' 399
negroes. My cook can turn a phrase as neatly as he
turns a pancake, and on taking in this vastitude of
skyline he said, '*Who ever fought successfully with
God ? He killeth even aristocrats." Yesterday we were
in the grips of revolt—no, never, never more to agree.
Here we are to-day kinsmen dear, bound in the common
bond of fear that the Arabs may nab us. I felt then
more than I had ever felt before the essential kinship
of men. Clouds of water-fowl rose on our approach, so
dense that blindly banging with a No. 12 we bring
them down freely. A spur-wing goose so falling nearly
killed one of my men, the point of spur being a terrible
dagger, and quite serious enough to brain a black at one
blow. The estuaries, however, are the certain postal
address of Mweru birds of every hue, and from far
and near the congeries flock to a glorious dress parade.
To commit that bit of bright- coloured scenery to paper
would be impossible, the thing is all too grand and
elusive. Pelicans, grey, white, and salmon-pink with
yellow pouches—as serious as a sermon; whistling tree-
ducks, black and white, zebra-barred and chestnut ; dainty
lily-trotters, black and white, golden yellow, chocolate
brown ; bronze-green cormorants and black darters
kingfishers, crowned cranes, curlews, sandpipers. Ibis
religiosa, spur-winged plovers with yellow wattles, black
water-rails with lemon beaks and white pencillings
herons galore, large grey herons, purple slate ditto,
Goliath ditto. Last, not least— yea, king of all, the rosy
flamingo, rare as royal, and peeping selectly out above