382 THE LAND OF THE LION 
well proved his faithfulness and competency. I found him 
with some difficulty, and then the extent of the plot was 
evident. Surrounded by Mohammedans he lay in a deep 
hypnotic trance, and 250 rupees, three months’ wages, had 
already disappeared. For several days he was ina dreamy 
and irresponsible state. When his mind cleared up I think 
I made him see the extent of his folly, at any rate he placed 
himself under my doctor’s care, and gave me his word he 
would have nothing more to do with native “dowa’’ 
(medicine). “These men, as he said, had “ put dowa on him” 
for years, and thereby had probably robbed him of quite 
half what he had earned. 
I have only space to touch thus briefly on some of the 
most evident of moral and social shortcomings of the East 
African native. I do not believe, nor do I think that many 
who know the native believe, them to be capable of any 
sudden social, moral, or religious conversion. “They must 
be helped slowly, they are Nature’s retarded children, and 
to hurry them, is in the end but to push them backward 
and downward. 
But to deny, on the other hand, their capability for 
steady progress and development toward better things, is 
to deny the evidence of palpable facts. Men who have 
travelled far in Africa are sometimes found saying that 
the native is without natural affection, that he neglects 
his children, that he casts out unburied his dead, that he 
makes no provision for the future, but squanders all he 
wins. In many cases this is true, but in many more it is 
untrue. I have seen evidence often of a tender care for 
children, and a willingness to provide for parents who were 
old and past all work. If we but knew better and were in 
a position to enter into their tribal life, we could judge as 
now we cannot. Those whose testimony on such subjects 
is of real value, are the missionaries. They know the 
native as no traveller, no official, ever can (Lieutenant 
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