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

A PAGE OF HISTORY 427
been known to cross Mweru direct, all insisting on making
the detour round the North end. Along the shores, the
canoes dart about like wild-fowl, while far out you can
descry an odd, daring Shila man, his dug-out appearing
as a dark speck, rising and falling on the crest of the
wave. " Nursing " his canoe he calls it, and even in a
grey, cruel sea that game of pitch-and-toss he plays with
the Lake is a safe thing, even in the angriest storm.
Down dips the dug-out into the water-trough, only to
reappear riding the wave with the safety of a duck. A
mere log, it must mount every wave, nor dare it cleave
even one :
no
wonder, therefore, it curtsies so deeply to
the blast out of sheer respect. He is making a try for
something good for supper and has, all the while, en-
shrined in his vision, the picture of the log-fire with wife
and children squatting round. Long before Europe got
wind of the idea, these canoes were fitted with invisible
marconigram apparatus, for the most tenacious legend
of these fishermen is that they are perfectly au courant
with their wives' doings at home. This mysterious union
is so real that any act of infidelity on her part is doomed
to react prejudicially on her fisherman out at sea. Thus
all cases of drowning are brought home to the "guid-
wife," just as, on the contrary, she accepts with smug
complacency the tribute of being the efficient cause of
a good haul of fish. For during all the time of her
husband's absence in mid-Lake has she not kept the
dozen " taboo " rules sacredly ? She dared not, for
instance, raise her hand to the shelf in her hut, nor