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

FIRST THINGS FIRST 23
already, but opines that his birth-name is too juvenile
was it not given him without his permission and therefore
purely conjectural ? Should not a name be an appro-
priate photo of his character? He alone knows that
name. So he argues and so he acts, and this is the
reason why the question of native names becomes a
perplexity, a hate, and an amazement. For as the ins
and outs of his life go like his river in twists and turns,
even so each new aspect of life means a new name. In
this respect the long sinuous Congo has the same history
as a Congo native, a dozen new names for the dozen new
twists down stream. A mere Smith or Brown cannot
exist in these lands, for there is the real article, a Mr.
Smith really worth the name for he works in iron, and
an equally real Mr. Brown as brown as a berry. No
wonder, when you tell the African that in Heaven we
shall have a new nature, his rejoinder is, "Then we
must get a new name." New nature equates new name.
come.
But the worst part of this Benguella story is yet to