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

BIG
CHAPTER V
** Boring in" Farther
JyT
J
HEREIN the traveller reads
his first lesson in " thinking
blacky' and discovers that to he in Africa
the said Africa must he in him,
with fate as these early days in Bihe are, the great
event of our real start is now looming in the near
future, and our prospective caravan gives us a lot of
work. For here in Bihe we find out that the launching of
a Far-Interior caravan is as ceremonial a function as the
sister ceremony in connection with a British battleship. It
seems that just as God gives us the stars and we all make
our own astronomy, so Mr. Genus Homo Africanus seizes on
a hundred humdrum events and drives the monotony out of
them by some formal, fashionable function. This setting
out of a Far-Interior caravan, for instance, is one such
event, and so orthodox in character that you must begin
by ceremonially " going into camp," as the phrase goes.
Now, this only means that you formally shake the dust from
your feet, by leaving your village hut, and, picking out a
bit of forest, you hoist your private flag on the highest