CH. I] ADV^ENTUROUS LIVES 9 



think much of the race problem at home, it is pleasant 

 to be made to realize in vivid fashion the progress the 

 American negro has made by comparing him with the 

 negro who dwells in Africa untouched, or but lightly 

 touched, by white influence. 



In such a community as one finds in Mombasa or 

 Nairobi one continually runs across quiet, modest men 

 whose lives ha\e been fuller of wild adventure than the 

 life of a Viking leader of the ninth century. One of the 

 public officials whom I met at the Governor's table was 

 JNIajor Hinde. He had at one time served under the 

 Government of the Congo Free State ; and at a crisis 

 in the fortunes of the State, when the Arab slave-traders 

 bade fair to get the upper hand, he was one of the eight 

 or ten white men, representing half as many distinct 

 nationalities, w^ho overthrew the savage soldiery of the 

 slave-traders and shattered beyond recovery the Arab 

 power. They organized the wild pagan tribes just as 

 their Arab foes had done ; they fought in a land w^here 

 deadly sickness struck down victor and vanquished with 

 ruthless impartiality ; they found their commissariat as 

 best they could wherever they happened to be ; often 

 they depended upon one day's victory to furnish the 

 ammunition with which to wage the morrow's battle ; 

 and ever they had to be on guard no less against the 

 thousands of cannibals in their own ranks than against 

 the thousands of cannibals in the hostile ranks, for, 

 on whichever side they fought, after every battle the 

 warriors of the man-eating tribes watched their chance 

 to butcher the wounded indiscriminately and to feast 

 on the bodies of the slain. 



The most thrilling book of true lion-stories ever 

 written is Colonel Patterson's " The JMan-eaters of 

 Tsavo." Colonel Patterson was one of the engineers 



