AO PLEACFOR. THE, NATIVE 371 
supply a stouter guard. Time was when even the posses- 
sion of a few goats might be fraught with danger and his 
half-starved cattle had to be secretly fed by day and care- 
fully hidden in impenetrable thickets by night, if they were 
to be saved from the all too frequent raids of the ubiquitous 
Massai. These ever-dreaded warriors are now under 
control, having their own pasturages assigned them. They 
may, and dostill, proudly maintain that all cattle were given, 
by the Creator God, to the Massai and that none but they 
have a right to them. But in practice the fear of losing 
their own immense and beautiful herds renders them the 
most conservative and law-abiding of the tribes. Of the 
East African native then, it may indeed truly be said, 
that “His lines have fallen unto him in pleasant places and 
that he has a goodly heritage.”’ Yet perhaps that it has 
been too goodly, too easy, and too luxuriant, has been his 
undoing. It has supplied him with an environment in 
some respects so favourable that from the very beginning 
there never have been called forth in him (by the hard insis- 
tence of mother nature) those sterner qualities that alone 
have enabled the conquering races to remain masters of 
the field, in life’s long welter of battle. The struggle for 
existence that has turned half-beasts into whole man has 
been tempered fatally for him and in consequence some 
quality of character, some soul-bone or soul-muscle that 
the fully upstanding man cannot live without, he-has never 
developed. 
The explorers of Africa found themselves confronted by 
well-nigh insuperable difficulties and dangers. To get on, 
to force a desperate way forward, to reach some hitherto 
unknown lake, river, or mountain, these were their goals. 
In the attainment of them lay the hope of reward and 
recognition. They were only human, and the swarming 
black life that opposed or aided their progress, had to be 
beaten back or forced to do their will, for the white man can 
