64 A COLONY IN THE MAKING chap. 



his agency to the unfortunate native population. The 

 settler knows, the missionaries and the police know, 

 too, who keep the brothels, who the illicit stills, who 

 the gambling dens, and who are the receivers of stolen 

 property. It is hardly too much to say that in Nairobi 

 there is hardly a crime among natives which is not 

 directly traceable to the Indian. Then there is disease. 

 Venereal and plague are directly traceable to the 

 Indian by whom they were introduced. The " jigger," 

 or burrowing flea, has caused both suffering, loss of 

 limb, and occasionally of life among the native, and 

 also great discomfort and loss of profit to the European. 

 We owe this pleasant little fellow to the Indian. 

 Before the coming of the Indian typhoid was un- 

 known, while his filthy and insanitary mode of living 

 is responsible for much of the ophthalmia and minor 

 diseases in Nairobi. 



These are the complaints that the settler brings 

 against the Indian, and it must be confessed that they 

 form a very grave indictment. It will be seen that the 

 whole gravamen of the charge is not against the 

 Indian as an Indian but against the Indian as a man. 

 If the Indian in the Protectorate were represented by 

 the type so dear to authors and tourists, we would 

 welcome him with open arms. It is not because his 

 skin is black that he is unpopular ; it is because he is 

 a foul liver, a drunkard, and a thief. These are hard 

 words to write deliberately of any class, but I submit 

 that they are justified. There are, of course, excep- 

 tions, not many but a few, worthy honest cleanly 

 citizens, a credit to any State. Such men are welcome 

 and would be popular, were it not that the virtues of 

 so small a minority are overshadowed by the crimes of 

 the vast majority. With every ill it is always easy to 





