THE COUNTRY 343 
forth from their woodland shelters a little less cautiously 
than of yore. The Massai complacently watches the 
growth of his quite enormous herds; the Nandi, partly 
shorn of his, turns resolutely to the cultivation of a soil as 
rich as any in Africa. The Ketosch need no longer bury 
themselves and their cattle together in the stifling smoke 
of their cave fortresses on Elgao slopes, the little raid 
going on, and the small war parties occasionally hovering 
about, are not serious, and if the chiefs do not suppress 
such youthful exuberance the local police surely will. In 
short, at present, contentment reigns over all beautiful 
Nzoia land, and, indeed, in all British East Africa and 
Uganda. ‘The question is, can it continue? 
The difficulties and responsibilities of England’s ad- 
ministration are only beginning. To these simple people 
who so readily trust and obey even a shadowy rule, some- 
thing more than protection is owing. They can most 
easily be protected from each other, but can they as readily 
be protected from the consequences that must inevitably 
follow the coming to their country of the white man? 
Alas! from much that is utterly evil England has 
already failed, quite failed, to protect them. She did a 
great work when she made a declaration that slavery 
should cease, and enforced that declaration with the 
crews and guns of her men-of-war. But in Africa to free 
the slave is not by any means the same thing as to rear 
and educate the man. 
England surely has had laid on her shoulders the very 
greatest and most difficult of all possible tasks that civiliza- 
tion can allot to any people. All over the world, on con- 
tinents and amid the islands of the sea, she has at least 
attempted to do what the judgments of posterity will 
assert has not been as persistently attempted by any con- 
quering race. She has aimed high and her aim has been 
to be fair —to her conquered as well as her conquering | 
