Page:Harris Dickson--Old Reliable in Africa.djvu/269

 feed these gins unless some miracle set the negroes to running. The negroes baffled McDonald; he couldn't understand them. Half-plowed fields lay utterly deserted, while droves of naked blacks lounged in the shade, or squatted before his commissary. Cajolery could not lure them into the fields, and wages possessed no charms. McDonald wrathfully considered a resort to certain methods, which the settled policy of his Government forbade.

In the beginning McDonald had been almost hilarious—for a Scotchman. At the free distribution of seed he had a bargain-counter rush, with prices reduced to nothing. Every negro toted away his half-bushel of cotton seed, with explicit instructions how to plant. Not a seed was planted wrong—or right. On the first plowing day Shilluks, Dinkas and Nyam-Nyams had swarmed about, watching Zack Foster open up his long, straight rows; Shilluks wrangled with Dinkas for turns at holding the plow handles. McDonald's face beamed. He became optimistic and romantic as he slapped Colonel Spottiswoode on the back, and exclaimed, "That furrow, sir, marks a new era in the history of empire. The plow point of civilization is overturning the sloth of ages. Mark the light upon those happy negro faces. It is the hope of better things, an awakening."

The Colonel did not interrupt, while