Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1929-04-21

/ 'Expurgated Africal" The girl made
a gesture Of impotence. I'VE &c
through all this effort TO see a wild
country and then you want to look
first, to know If the show is proper
enough for mel"
mot a Bit" he denied dryly. 81
wasn't worrying about your morals.
The show will be decent enough-what
there is in sight. I dare say you see
worse at balls"
Reluctant amusement was touching
him. "Expurgated Africa" he re-
peated. you find this-dull?"
1T isn't vivid" she admitted. She
tilted her sunburnt young face up to
him. IT didn't expect the movies, of
course, but somehow this does seem
tame. All these villages and bananas
and toddling babies. There has been
lot of bother to it, and lot of exer-
else, and the forest Is marvellous, and
the first village or two was interesting;
but as for savages-why, these jolly
blacks might as well be Swiss"
Phil Lovett was silent as they walked
rapidly on.
It was long village, with the last
hutS down the slope; the land beyond
dipped down to the river. He wished,
W4IItOu1 AoALuuAdIAlS VIC ASoSo11' otAoe
they had not camped so far from that
river, their only water supply.
They could see the people nova
packed mass in the sunshine of the
clearing, a seething mob of black
backs. They were naked, but for bit
of bark cloth through a grass belt,
black as ebony, and glistening with sun
and sweat, rocking and swaying auto
matically with the hypnotic drums.
The crowd was packed about a large
hut, and the rhythmic drumming was
Just in front of the hut
Lovett had fairly to thrust his way
through the throng. The blacks were
not consciously obstructive, but they
were utterly possessed by this thing
that was happening. Men, women and
children rocked and stamped and
crowded forward. Their eyes were
fixed, intent, avid with excitement.
The drums were Quickening. Faster
and faster the snail ones, like the
crackle of a stick along picket fence,
heavier and heavier the big ones, with
deep, goading reiteration.
Boom, boom, boom!"
y X X X
THEY were in the forefront of the
crowd From all about them came
q SdoPn1s
Out from the hut's low door there
came crawling an amazing figure in
long, dropping black-and-white hair Of
the Colobus monkey. Crawling back
ward it came, with eerie agility, like a
strange-running spider. then sprang to
its feet and proceeded slowly, still
walking backward, facing the hut.
Monkey fur dangled from it; cowrie
shells tinkled; parrot feathers jutted
from a barbaric head dress-it was
with the witch doctor, in full panoply.
After him, out of the hut, came a
young girl, walking ahead of two men.
She was a young thing of about IA, a
slim, graceful little dark creature, in
wisp of orange bark cloth, with iron
leglets and armlets glinting against
her dark skin.
Her small, closely cropped head hung
forward, unlike the upright carriage OF
most African women, and there was in
her scarcely visible face, in every tinid
line of her, sort of dazed hostility,
of submitting terror.
"It's a sort of religious ceremony.
think she represents a ghost" said
Lovett, and turned to question one OF
his own porters he found next to him.
Sallie's knowledge of Swahili-that
useful hngua franco Of Africa-was