70 A COLONY IN THE MAKING chap. 



With the Somalis in the Jubaland Province we are 

 not here immediately concerned when we consider 

 the white colony on the Highlands. They have in 

 the past afforded our Government some considerable 

 trouble, and still further cause for anxiety, but for the 

 present give comparatively little of either. Many 

 who should know consider that both the evil 

 propensities and the warlike powers of the Somali 

 have been exaggerated in the past, and that there is 

 reason to hope that this section at all events will 

 merge gradually and quietly into the civilisation 

 alongside of them. 



The Somali with whom the settler is more im- 

 mediately acquainted is a very different and probably 

 less attractive individual. The faction consists for the 

 most part of men of no particular account in their own 

 country, but full of ambition and a spirit of adventure, 

 who have travelled into our Protectorate for one purpose 

 only, the acquisition of money. As far as the Pro- 

 tectorate is concerned, the sole object of every Somali 

 is to make as much money and in as short a time as 

 possible, and as to the method he adopts for that 

 purpose he is completely indifferent. It must not 

 be thought that I impute this in any way as a crime 

 to the Somali. On the contrary, I admire him 

 heartily for the characteristic. As is a matter of 

 common knowledge, the acquisition of money is the 

 principal object of life, and if only a man obtains 

 enough the manner in which he acquires it is really 

 not a matter of much importance. If only Englishmen 

 invaded Germany with the same object, and the 

 same sticcess, that Somalis invade British East Africa, 

 they would meet with and deserve from our point of 

 view nothing but praise. All I would point out is 



