A VAIN ENDEAVOUR 149 



to graft an archaic but vigorous and highly- 

 specialised organism upon a rudimentary one 

 of thin blood and low vitality. A creed rooted 

 in and nourished by the most ancient human 

 traditions could not possibly develop among 

 people who possessed no traditions and had 

 not enough positive original sin in them to 

 make their asthenic souls worth the saving. 



On this desert tract where men are blown 

 to and fro by the fiery breath of recurrent 

 drought, they should be left to sink in the sand 

 or swim in the aether, to develop body and 

 soul of a tenacious fibre, or else to be elimin- 

 ated by the adverse conditions under which 

 they exist. Subject to tuition, kept erect by 

 outside support, they must presently stagnate 

 and ultimately perish. From my point of view 

 their preservation was not nearly so important 

 as that of the herd of oryx I was endeavouring 

 to protect from its legioned enemies in central 

 Bushmanland. 



But the case of the Pella tribe was hope- 

 less. Could these people have gone to war, 

 had the desert they inhabited been ten times 

 as wide and had its bounds contained tribes 

 that raided one another, and thus made valour- 

 cum-skill-in-arms the alternative to extinction, 

 they might have developed positive virtues 



