36 A COLONY IN THE MAKING chap. 



of their capacity. They applied for farms in these 

 districts. At this time Sir Charles Eliot was H.M.'s 

 Commissioner in the Protectorate. He saw at once 

 the difficulty presented by this fierce nomad race ; 

 that not only were they a menace to the prosperity of 

 the country and of its inhabitants, white and black, but 

 also that they themselves must inevitably stand in 

 danger of degeneration if not of extermination. He 

 realised the two alternatives ; the first of giving them 

 a reserve large enough to allow them to carry on their 

 own mode of wandering life, the second to make an 

 attempt to induce them to abandon their habits and 

 gradually to become useful members of society by 

 curtailing their area and interspersing it with European 

 farms and settlements. Realising the inevitable 

 difficulties and dangers it evolved, he chose the latter 

 policy, which policy was immediately reversed by his 

 successor, Sir Donald Stewart, with the connivance, 

 or rather at the instigation of the Home authorities. 

 In considering the two views there is one thing that 

 must not be lost sight of, and that is this — Sir Charles 

 Eliot was an extraordinary man, almost without doubt 

 the ablest and most far-sighted that the Pro- 

 tectorate has seen up to the present date. His book 

 in itself — " The East African Protectorate M — reveals, 

 not only the wonderful knowledge that he had of all 

 sides of the country during the period of his 

 administration, but also an almost uncanny prescience 

 of events that were to come. But Sir Charles Eliot 

 was more. He stands almost unique among Colonial 

 Governors as a man who sacrificed his career rather 

 than give way over a point in which he believed his 

 personal honour to be involved. It is to be hoped, 

 and indeed it is sure, that his name will live as long as 



