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

BLACK MAN = BLACK MANNERS 447
heathendom. Hence this happy solution in the housing
of the people, with the hope that God will '* home " the
people we have *' housed."
Of course in fighting filth of this sort you must be
ruthlessly efficient, and one old man even took the field
and defended my action when I could scarcely do so
myself. Kinder to me than I could be to myself, he,
referring to the breaking with many a past custom, said,
**How can you enter through an old abandoned door-
way without first breaking the many cobwebs blocking
entrance ? " A concession this—and from a very old high-
and-dry Tory—that their ancient ideas were cobwebs,
nothing more. And here is my reward this trip, for I am
now living with a raw Luban in his own three-roomed
house : mark you, in his house, when a year ago you
could not h^ve slept in his town, the pestiferous hole
being nigh mortal.
These lines are penned to the flicker of a tiny lamp
burning linseed oil : not true linseed, really sesame, and
not a bad light. This oil is grown for us by the Lubans :
a new crop is just being planted, and these oil-growers
speak about "growing" our light for us. Thus literally
"light is sown for the righteous." Who ever heard of
the Israelites having mineral oil? Obviously it must
have been sown ; and Christ the Light was sown in
sorrow too.
But what about tools ? you ask. Talk about
economising your hardware—here is a snapshot I saw
to-day, eloquent of the penury of centuries. The negro