208 MOZAMBIQUE 



they have lived and are able to endure field 

 labour under the tropic sun. 



When we go big-game shooting in Africa we 

 prepare ourselves by studying, in the literature of 

 the subject, in which most European languages 

 are rich, the habits and behaviour of the game we 

 are going to hunt, but we do not take the same 

 pains with the labour we are going to employ. 

 Under the modern system of high cultivation, 

 involving the elaborate study of the plant, the 

 soil and the climate, we have overlooked the fact 

 that in the Tropics there is another element to 

 study of which the laboratory can tell us nothing. 

 Hence the intending planter has few facilities for 

 acquainting himself with the characteristics of the 

 people whom he will be compelled to employ. He 

 goes with his European system based upon a 

 definite amount of work for a definite amount of pay, 

 requiring every man to sweat his sixty minutes 

 to the hour. The ability to understand and 

 manage natives is very largely a matter of tem- 

 perament, some men being constitutionally 

 incapable of appreciating the native point of 

 view, interpreting as intentional offences or neg- 

 ligence what may be merely the natural expression 

 of a happy, irresponsible disposition providentially 

 bestowed. Such men will never succeed in 

 Africa and should not go there. But most men 



