384 THE LAND OF THE LION 
man who, though unjust in his stewardship, was not lack- 
ing in worldly wisdom. He distributed his gifts in such a 
way that, when he failed, his friends were in honour bound 
to give hima helping hand. Such is to-day the settled habit 
among the most enlightened East African natives. 
I myself traced, again and again, the money I had given 
to the best of my men. It took much cautious persever- 
ance on my part to draw out the information I needed, but 
when I had done so, I found that the money had not really 
disappeared. It had gone into the impoverished hands 
(not pockets, no native has a pocket, and no one has thought 
of opening a savings bank for him) of his multitudinous 
relatives — old, middle-aged, and young. A poor porter, 
earning his ten rupees a month, was often quite ready to 
feed, clothe, and lodge several relations poorer than himself, 
while the relatives of a man like my Brownie or John or 
David seemed to me numerous enough to require a Nairobi 
‘“‘Social Register’’ to record them, and that register, be it 
understood, would include a suburban region of several 
hundred miles! My men were “in funds,” the friends 
and relatives were not! That was enough. When their 
own time of need should come, those they had helped could 
be counted on to do for them what they without hesitation 
were now doing for others. Better far, they argued, give the 
rupees to those they knew, than trust them to some Hindi 
trader who might run off to India suddenly; or to bury them 
in the floor of the hut from whence often they were stolen. 
The East African is, when once given a chance, far from 
being what the unobservant traveller might take him for. 
He is no mere savage spendthrift, his methods are his own, 
his way of arriving at them, also his own. Superficially 
he may seem simplicity itself, but he is a keen observer, 
and if you succeed in winning his confidence you will find 
that often he has good reason for what he does. 
I must touch next on another supposed evidence of the 
