NATIVES AND I.AHOUR 213 



Is it not possible that when Nature in bestowing 

 upon the natives of Africa an appetite for fer- 

 mented liquors and making the earth bring forth 

 abundantly of fruits that they can ferment and 

 drink she did so in her wisdom ? I am not sure 

 that we are wiser than Dame Nature when we 

 legislate to try and stop natives drinking — which 

 we shall never do — or denounce them as sunk 

 in depravity — which is not the case. For thou- 

 sands of years before we ever came on the scene 

 natives have been fermenting wines and distilling 

 spirit; of that we may be quite certain. Every 

 African traveller who has left the main paths of 

 European occupation must have met with evi- 

 dence of this. Mr. Walter Goodfellow, leader of 

 the British Ornithological Expedition to Dutch 

 New Guinea, in a communication to the Times 

 (March, 1911) stated that the natives of the coast, 

 who were "quite unacquainted with white men," 

 get fearfully intoxicated with a fermented drink 

 they make out of a species of sugar palm, wild 

 orgies taking place leading on to lights which 

 lasted two days at a time. I feel sure that if 

 we could but know the truth the advent of white 

 men has had the effect of checking native indul- 

 gence for drink, not of encouraging it. 



I am not excusing drunkenness; I certainly 

 believe that indulgence in some of their whole- 



