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

FAR, YET NOT FARTHEST, IN 33
legend spread for over the Interior, and in the solemn
matter of slavery these " black Portuguese " became the
great knights of industry in the land. Even when a
young boy Bihean really finds his legs, oflf he is drafted
East, across the Kwanza River, to be trained like a young
bull-dog to show his teeth at the slaves. At six years of
age the busy little commercial brain of Master Bihean has
long ago learned the market prices of human flesh and
blood, man-slave, woman-slave, child-slave, and baby-slave
all assorted and ticketed in his head.
At glad last—and thanks to kind Mr. Woodside—we
climb out of that loathsome littoral one lovely evening in
July. Casting a last long look at the Western Atlantic
disappearing in strange apocalyptic glow among the
Catumbella Hills, ours it is to take the first faltering
step on oui^ way. Not again shall we sight the salt sea
until one remote day the wide continent is crossed and
the Indian Ocean flashes into view at Chinde. The
" boring " of Africa is the native's technical term for this
crossing from sea to sea. Working out to the sea after
being shut in to the long grass of the Interior for nearly
twenty years, the first snifi" of the Ocean ozone dilates
the nostrils with the subtlest of all human joy—the
prickly breath of the salt sea driving deep down into
the panting lungs. Louder than the thousand Greeks
of Xenophon you can utter the long-pent-up shout,
" Thalatta ! Thalatta !
" on sighting the great green sea
** The sea ! the sea ! the open sea !
The blue, the fresh, the ever free !