392 THE LAND OF THE LION 
plateaus between Victoria Nyanza and the sea. But who 
shall blame the Waganda for cringing? He has learned 
to cringe to save his life. Unlike his neighbours to east- 
ward, he has acquired traditions; he can name for you his 
kings (running backward for at least five hundred years), 
and many of these have been bloody monsters. Mtessa, 
when the humour took him, would have a long trench dug 
in the porous earth, and above it he would have men’s 
throats cut, till the flowing blood filled the trench to the 
brim; and that was only a few years ago. Cana people be 
expected to emerge quickly from a rule such as that into an 
honourable, self-controlled manner of living? To expect 
. such a thing is to expect the impossible. 
I have said nothing about the native as a craftsman, 
but undoubtedly he has in him the makings of a very 
good craftsman, and no one has made,as yet, much of an 
effort to help him along this most evident line of advance.* 
On any sefari it is easy to pick out a number of handy 
men. I have written elsewhere of the variety of their 
accomplishments. The Wakamba make quite beautiful 
iron and brass work. I have seen some chains made by 
them, that, considering the coarseness of their tools, were 
wonderfully fine. Several tribes smelted their own iron and 
sometimes their copper. In parts of East Africa they 
understand irrigation, and streams of water are carried 
across wide chasms, and along steep mountain sides with 
no small engineering skill. 
The point that I wish, then, to insist on, even at the 
risk of wearying my readers, is this: these people must 
have time given them. They are full of promise; those 
who know them always love them. I think I am safe in 
saying so much. I do not mean the missionaries only, 
* Good industrial schools are now established by the German authorities at Tango. A very small 
attempt at such teaching may be seen here and there in the Protestant or Catholic Mission schools, 
but this, the one all-important method of education for the African, has received little attention. 
