Monologue From Abyssinia

New Zealand Listener, Volume 8, Issue 194, 12 March 1943, Page 9

Monologue From Abyssinia

ES, Abyssinia is my home, but I decided not to go back again as I could not ‘get there in time to make the triumphal re-entry with Uncle Haile, "Oh, you see a strong resemblance? Yes, I do think I’m like him. And yet some people say ‘Nonsense, how can an Abyssinian vulture possibly look like the Emperor of the country?’ But you need to remember that it’s a country in | which very strange things happen. Take that mischievous book by Evelyn Waugh now . . . Dear me, you are squeamish! "Our job? Well, we are the Health Inspectors (only over there it’s pronounced In-peck-ors), because we go round cleaning up the meat off everything that dies. Keeps the flies away, you know. Yes, that’s why we don’t wear frilly lace collars and stockings. Some of the work is fairly deep-seated, as it were, and we, need to have our necks bare so that We can really get to the heart of the matter. Same idea as a butcher rolling up his sleeves, I suppose. Yes, I’ve read the Encyclopaedia_ Britannica, which says that my Egyptian brother is a remarkably foul feeder. That, of course, is a matter of opinion or relativity. Very well; er agree to differ. "WhatP Yes, of course; we always wait around until the person or whatever it is, dies. .A_ sick traveller could never have a lonely _death-bed-there would always be some of us to spare time to watch to the last. 3 "And yet you see those Australians next door? They’re killers. I simply can’t understand it, of course. Live and Let Live is my motto, Mind you, there’s no sense in wasting time when anything is dead. But as for swooping down on some defenceless running animalphugh! Cannibalism!"

J.