THE ORDERING OF THINGS 357 



during the part of the month when her light is 

 invisible. 



The native never troubles his head about the 

 mysteries of the creation, of the commencement 

 of life, or of his own origin. The present and the 

 future are sufficient for him, each distinguished by 

 its own peculiar preoccupations and uncertainties. 

 I suppose the future really troubles him but little — 

 he is too much of a fatalist for that. Still, in spite 

 of his disregard of the mysteries of the past or the 

 contingencies of the future, it is a singular fact 

 that that widely travelled legend of how the 

 chameleon brought death into the world, which 

 is known all over Bantu South Africa, and even 

 up the coast as far as Zanzibar, is current in the 

 districts of Zambezia. It is somewhat to the 

 following effect. 



Long ago, death occurred only as the result of 

 violence — the violence of war, or that of the attack 

 of wild beasts, or the punishment of grave offences. 

 Otherwise people did not die of disease, for ex- 

 ample, of old age, boredom, or the thousand-and- 

 one unnecessary causes which in these latter days 

 hurry us, all untimely, into the cold and silent 

 tomb. But the position had its drawbacks. It 

 ended in a population so numerous as to give rise 

 to an insufficiency of food. So those great ones 

 who held in their hands the economic Ordering of 

 Things held a conference, away in a lonely place 

 by themselves, and free from the embarrassing 

 attendance of the representatives of the halfpenny 

 press. They decided, after much discussion, that 

 there was only one thing to be done, namely, to 



