Word: abyssinia
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From the tangled, blue fastness of the Aberdare Mountains, a Mau Mau leader named Simba ("The Lion") wrote last week to a white settler: "I have just returned from a course for brigadiers in Abyssinia, and have under my command one division of 12,000 men, 400 machine guns, 300 Bren guns, 100 Sten guns, 10,000 rifles and 40 mortars . . . I could wipe out 50 battalions . . ." Next day, with a band of hand-picked warriors, he struck hard at the settler's estate...
...Feast of Us Others had been managed by the Trasteverini themselves until 1917, when the Fascist Dopolavoro (workers' recreation society) tried to turn it into an organized political celebration. "One year," recalls Housewife Felicetta Gaudenzi, "they brought a Negro all the way from Abyssinia to stand at the entrance to the bridge. You paid so much, and you punched him. Then, unless you paid extra, he punched you back...
...House is the people. That's a strong point for Leverett. If you apply there, you can bring all your friends with you, and there'll be room for everyone. Putting your money on a popular House may mean one year as roommate to an opiloptic. Slavic major form Abyssinia...
...knew a little more. In 1930, on a trip through Africa and the Middle East, Novelist Evelyn Waugh had dined with Besse on the roof of his home in Aden. Waugh had described him (under the pseudonym of M. Leblanc) in When the Going Was Good: "He talked of Abyssinia, where he had heavy business undertakings ... he expressed his contempt for the poetry of Rimbaud . . ." He thrived on risk and had made and lost more than one fortune. He liked shark-infested waters: it made swimming more interesting...
Above Lake Tanganyika's blue waters the Bahutu or Wahutu (singular Muhutu) were minding their own business 300 years ago when the Batutsi or Watusi (singular: Mututsi) wandered in, probably from Abyssinia. The Batutsi announced that hereafter they would run the twin kingdoms of Ruanda-Urundi, and look after the Bahutu. Because the Batutsi brought with them wondrous long-horned cattle and because they were seven feet tall, the Bahutu did not argue the point...