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

** BORING IN" FARTHER 69
pious lady whose house had been burgled the night before
return thanks to the Lord that " He had made her lighter
for the upward flight"? And we too had been robbed,
not by person but by place, for our last and nearest bank
lay far behind on the Benguella shore. Praise Him,
£ 5. d. is demonetized in those early days, and the only
cheque-book you can reckon upon is God's own blank
cheques, your Bible. Did not Billy Bray love to say,
" The promises of God are just as good as ready money any
day " ? So the fact gradually soaked into our souls that
we could only run the race set before us as we laid aside
every weight. Such surely was the pinch of this particular
party. Narrow indeed is the way that leadeth into the
Far Interior. In this exceptionally hard year the Garen-
ganze trail is indeed a narrow cork-screw thing, and our
far-off goal can only be gained by a minimum of "dead
loads." Two pairs of boots, two shirts, and (oh luxury I)
just two or three humble handfuls of tea for the long
journey and longer imprisonment ahead. The pity of it,
such a pauper provision of tea for the days of acclimatisa-
tion lying in wait for us. At first, this terrible tea was
reserved only for the high solemnities of our vagabond life.
As the days of depletion advanced on us, however, and the
tea nearly finished, it was only by the feeling of a sudden
plunge into profligacy we dared to drink a coward cup of
straw-coloured tea. Crouching like a devotee at a shrine,
before a smoky fire, your Missionary, in the most appro-
priate of kneeling attitudes for such a function, brewed
his "cup that cheers" with all the solemnity of a high