viii SETTLERS AND OFFICIALS 79 



be at least ^"1000 to ^1500. Such a man is the pick 

 of the service, and he has done 20 years' work in 

 the tropics to reach his position. If he has married 

 he probably has children to educate at home. Con- 

 sider the work that is expected of him — the Provincial 

 Commissioner is judge, tax-collector, military adviser, 

 minister of education, Ambassador-extraordinary, and 

 combines every other possible office in a territory 

 perhaps as big as Wales and with a population of a 

 million. From the point of view of the country is 

 /5000 a year additional expenditure too much if it 

 is to add the spur of ambition and hope to every 

 official from the newest joined A.D.C. upwards in 

 the country ? From the point of view of the settler 

 there is one thing which it is not unreasonable to 

 ask, and that is that in a more or less entirely 

 agricultural and pastoral country like British East 

 Africa each newly joining official, and I here would 

 include the very highest, should have at all events an 

 elementary knowledge of agriculture. It does not 

 inspire respect or confidence when an official asks 

 what curious manner of machinery a churn may 

 be, or calls a field of oats an unnecessarily large 

 lawn ! 



I cannot leave the subject without calling attention 

 to the universal and most generous hospitality which is 

 extended by the officials in British East Africa to all 

 they come across. I do not remember ever passing 

 through a Station without being fed, put up for the 

 night, or being offered every assistance possible by 

 those in charge ; kindnesses which can never be 

 forgotten. Such hospitality has always been one of the 

 most pleasant features of the country, but must, I fear, 

 soon become too great a tax on such an underpaid class. 



