ON AN EAST AFRICAN RANCH 



45 



the common government; the "just consent of the governed" 

 in their case, if taken literally, would mean idleness, famine, 

 and endless internecine warfare. They cannot govern them- 

 selves from within; therefore they must be governed from 

 without; and their need is met in highest fashion by firm 

 and just control, of the kind that on the whole they are 



Tree with Wakamba beehives, Kitanga 

 From a photograph by Edmund Hellei 



now getting. At Kitanga the natives on the place some- 

 times worked about the house; and they took care of the 

 stock. The elders looked after the mild little humped cat- 

 tle bulls, steers, and cows; and the children, often the 

 merest toddlers, took naturally to guarding the parties of 

 pretty little calves, during the daytime, when they were 

 separated from their mothers. It was an ostrich-farm, too; 

 and in the morning and evening we would meet the great 

 birds, as they went to their grazing-grounds or returned to 

 the ostrich boma, mincing along with their usual air of 

 foolish stateliness, convoyed by two or three boys, each 



