364 THE LAND OF THE LION 
now there is no great danger of their being harassed, but 
the kindly Elgao and N’dorobo are close neighbours and 
need immediate protection. ‘‘Closing”’ their little country 
would be no hardship on the incomers, and would save 
the simple and brave people from untold misery. 
Nairobi as it is at present is a fruitful cause of evil to 
the whole country. Thousands of porters and labourers 
from many different tribes come there to get work. They 
are engaged for Government contracts or on hunting 
sefaris, and return there to be paid off. There are some 
five hundred white men and women in and near the town, 
and how many Somali and Hindi it is not easy to say. 
Probably at least two thousand. ‘The black population, 
of course, varies a good deal, but there cannot be fewer 
than from ten to fifteen thousand natives, and very few 
comparatively of these are married. When the labourers 
and porters come back, having worked on Government 
contract or on sefari for months, much of their cash goes 
in a wild spree. Men and women in plenty are there to 
grab from them what they are but too ready to part with. 
The results can better be imagined than described. 
British East Africa needs to-day the service of the 
ablest young men the homeland can send her. There 
amid her tribes, among her mountains, work that cannot 
fail to influence the great future awaits the doer. 
She needs, first, a settled policy that shall free her 
from the unsettling result of whirligig politics and shift- 
ing parties in England. 
Second, she needs the trained civil servant fitted for 
his work among settlers and natives, reasonably paid for 
doing it, reasonably pensioned when it is done. 
Third, she needs a first-rate staff of young men; vet- 
erinary, agricultural, medical, educational, and police, to 
study the country, overcome its peculiar dangers, solve 
its problems and aid those in authority by placing at their 
