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.grass.As a krait can strike in the fiftieth part of a second, and (To be concluded.)   AN AFRICAN LOVE SONGBy CHARLES BEADLEIMAGE.as yonder river rock! VIII.Against the green sky are blue cones, Did you hear that monkey chatter? My love sits beside me upon the bridal couch!hudding, like pookoo up on a hill, Wei-walli!.Ow! Her touch is like a green grass snake!From the restless mutter of the forest Wei-walli!.Ow! Did you hear the welcome of the frogs?and the murmur of the river.Wei-walli!.Ow!IV.Wei-walli!.Ow!STATEMENT.Her legs are like young palm trees whispering!This is the home of my love, Her thighs are as soft as the kernel of the baobab!IX.whose beauties are sung by the mosquitoes Supple is she as the neck of a young giraffe!Her acrid smell is more pungent than the greenwoodby night Did you hear that hippo snort?smoke,and danced by the flies Wei-walli!.Ow!and far sweeter than the wild honey of the country of theby day.Wei-walli!.Ow!M Xosa!Did you hear the cricket shrilling?SONG.V.Wei-walli!.Ow!(High tenor chant.) And her breasts are like unto small ant hills!Wei-walli!.Ow!I have feasted upon venison and fish, Her eyes are two storm-veiled moons,yams roasted and wild orange! and her flesh is as cool and as smooth as a banana frond!X.I have drunk of the wine of the palm, Did you hear the jealous knight-hawk screech?Her chines are as firm as the filled bladder of a kid,and made merry to the sound of drums upon the hill! Wei-walli!.Ow!and smoother than an elephant s tusk!Wei-walli!.Ow!Did you hear the hyena swear?CHORUS.Wei-walli!.Ow!(Bass.) VI.Wei-walli!.Ow!Wei-walli!.Ow! The complexion of my love is woven from forest shad-Wei-walli!.Ow! ows,XI.and her teeth were stolen from a baby crocodile!Her love song blends in harmonyII.Did you hear that big one flop?with a jealous lion s roar!For they have prepared against the coming of my love Wei-walli!.Ow!Wei-walli!.Ow!a bed of young grass from the softest flanks of the river! Wei-walli!.Ow!Wei-walli!.Ow!While I have anointed my bodyIn the smoke of the greenwood fire! VII.Wei-walli!.Ow! Her hair is crisp like unto young mealies between the XII.Wei-walli!.Ow! teeth, Her clutch is like an orchid!and her nose is exquisitely flattened like a wild plum! Ehh! the mosquitoes bite!III.Did you hear the parrot scream? Wei-walli!.Ow!My love walks like unto a leopard stalking buck! Wei-walli!.Ow! Wei-walli!.Ow!And her belly is as smooth and as round Wei-walli!.Ow!.OW!304THE INTERNATIONAL 305THE DISCOVERY OF GNEUGH-IOUGHRCK(A Fragment).As I approached the landing-place, continued the ex- able to fix his mind upon his affairs.Every pebble by the road-plorer, the savagery of the natives manifested itself in a thou- side on which the sun s rays chanced to fall at the proper anglesand extravagances.would catch his eye, and crying,  Cowrie! Cowrie! he wouldIn one canoe was to be seen a medicine man, waving a saf- leave his occupation and rush after it.This frequently led tofron rag, who parleyed in some inscrutable jargon; the tenant of free fights between savages who had observed the pebble at theanother, a gorilla-like creature, boarded my boat, and plied me same moment, and they would continue to fight even after theywith idiotic questions as to whether I had been there before, found it to be only a pebble.Some seemed altogether hypno-where I was born, who was my father, was I a native of the tized by their desire for cowries, and, picking up pebbles, wouldcountry (!!!), what were my political opinions and my moral maintain angrily that they were cowries, or were better thancharacter, in short, everything that an imbecile curiosity could cowries, or would be cowries one day!conjure up.He paid not the least attention to my answers.I Their conversation was exclusively on this one subject.Itlearnt afterwards that this was part of a religious ritual of these was unlucky or irreligious  I was never able to determine theastonishing half-men [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]