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

416 THINKING BLACK
Quite a cheery reflection this for Mr. Robinson Crusoe
Africanus.
* * #
But who said it was four thousand miles to Old
England? Mocking at mere mileage, there goes the
homely tapping of a woodpecker, each warm-hearted tap
tap ! tap ! hinting that round the next bend of the Lake
the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland may
come into full view. Nor is this all. Flir-r-r ! goes a
covey of red-legged partridges trying on the same happy
hoax, the very birds apologising for the long lapse in
letters, and sending us these home-felt sights and sounds
of theirs as substitute. The poor little Mission garden
is also a policy of make-believe, and resembles Stevens'
Indian one, the most pathetic thing in a whole land of
exile. The native trees and shrubs and plants with
huge leaves flourish rankly. But the poor little home
flowers, the stocks and mignonette and wallflowers
They struggle so gallantly (like the Mission lady and
Mission baby) to persuade you that this is not so very
far from England, and they fail so piteously. They will
flower in abundant but straggling blossoms, but the fierce
sun withers the first before the next have more than
budded. It is a loving fraud, but a hollow one. The
very wallflowers cannot be more than exiles. Yet here
in this affectation of a garden you have the pulse of the
party, the only remaining member of which is Mr. Higgins. Tlien don't
forget Miss Jordon! Both winning and wise, Mr. and Mrs. Higgins have
held on all these years without release, the last stop-press news being that
their far-off Luanza house has gone up in smoke.