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

BLACK MAN = BLACK MANNERS 467
like a gramophone record, the same magic shriek rent
the same still air with the same magic appearance of
the hippos. I spent the whole night wondering what
this /lomo-hippo league meant at all at all, and—and I
am wondering still. Call it " black art " if you like,
I prefer to think of old Nyemba as an artful black : the
phenomenally long time these huge hippos were sub-
merged is not such a puzzle after all, for it seems as
if the hippo's very ungainly bulk is in its favour. That
is to say, with lungs full of air, his specific gravity
thereby becomes almost equal to that of water, with the
result that he can coolly walk or run along the bottom
of the river-bed as though it were dry land.
With a land of this sort that can boast not one
butcher's shop, sometimes the Missionary with his own
right arm can open up a long-shut tribe by a happy kill
of hippo—fancy thousands of pounds of beef for one
bang of a gun. The killing of one such monster gave
us our first footing on the Luapula. By a long detour
of miles and months here we come out on the Luapula,
striking the left bank a few miles below the Falls
object : to pick a Mission site at Johnston Falls. ^ Ad-
vancing from the West this time has made the muddle,
for the ofi'-bank is agog with excitement, my quondam
friends "turned to be my enemies." Across the stream
they throw many a dainty morsel of black logic : " You
^ Mr. Pomeroy began here, then came Mr. and Mrs. Anderson, then Mr.
Campbell and others. The second phase of this station was when Mr. and
Mrs. Lamond and Mr. Sims retired back from the river to Kaleba, Mr. and
Mrd. Campbell branching off to begin work on Lake Bangweulu.