NZOIA PLATEAU AND ITS TRIBES 237 



from the tribal ban of manslaughter, they never kill women 

 or children, and torture is unknown. Smallpox has occas- 

 ionally decimated them, so much you can see; but it is; 

 the white man's, or yellow man's, coming that threatens 

 their ruin. 



I can fancy no journey more fascinating than one under- 

 taken to visit the almost unknown peoples of this beautiful 

 and healthy part of East Africa. The tribes whose country 

 borders the great lake, have already experienced the pro- 

 foundly modifying influences of civilization. That the 

 Waganda have on the whole gained thereby, there can be 

 no doubt. They are a prosperous and well-organized people 

 but how these wild children of Africa will live under 

 the changing circumstances that await them is not so easy 

 to foresee. As I write six Boer wagons slowly cross the 

 sky line. They are but the advance guards, doubtless, 

 of large numbers soon to arrive. I cannot but see in these 

 Dutch immigrants the visible symbols of the future of this 

 country, and anxiously I ask myself how these simple, 

 lovable companions of my wandering will fare at the unknown 

 strangers ' hands ? 



On the rich plains for long centuries the N'dorobo 

 has gathered his meat harvest and, drying it in the sun,, 

 has slipped away to his mountain home. Soon, very soon, 

 there will be none to gather. Game disappears before the 

 Boer as green grass before the grasshopper. I fear me great- 

 ly N'dorobo, and in time Elgoa too, will disappear as com- 

 pletely as the game. 



The Waganda hold their own, on rich lands bordering 

 the lake chiefly, because there are none to dispossess them. 

 Their country is in time deadly to the white man. He cannot 

 live and breed there. But here, if anywhere in East Africa, 

 Englishman and Boer can found and maintain a real home. 

 You have not to think of the climate, no fever threatens 

 you. Unless some new and evil surprise springs up, some 



