276 AFRICAN CAMP FIRES. 



it. Therefore it would seem that man is in sin 

 whichever way you look at it 



14 But," interposes the inspector firmly but 

 politely, " is it not possible that sexual sin and 

 the sin of opposing Divine Will may be of balance 

 in the spirit, so that in resisting one sort a man 

 acquires virtue to commit the other without 

 harm " And so on for hours. 



At twelve-thirty the safari drifted in. Con- 

 sider that fact and what it meant. The plain 

 duty of the headman was, of course, to have seen 

 that the men followed us in the day before. 

 But allowing, for the sake of argument, that this 

 was impossible, and that the men had been forced 

 by the exhaustion of some of their number to stop 

 and camp, if they had arisen betimes they should 

 have completed the journey in two hours at most. 

 That should have brought them in by half-past 

 seven or eight o'clock. But a noon arrival 

 condemned them without the necessity of argu- 

 ment. They had camped early, had risen very, 

 very late, and had dawdled on the road. 



We ourselves gave the two responsible headmen 

 twenty lashes apiece ; then turned over to them 

 the job of thrashing the rest. Ten per man was 

 the allotment. They expected the punishment ; 

 took it gracefully. Some even thanked us 



