THE COUNTRY 343 



forth from their woodland shelters a little less cautiously 

 than of yore. The Massai complacently watches the 

 growth of his quite enormous herds; the Nandi, partly 

 shorn of his, turns resolutely to the cultivation of a soil as 

 rich as any in Africa. The Ketosch need no longer bury 

 themselves and their cattle together in the stifling smoke 

 of their cave fortresses on Elgao slopes, the little raid 

 going on, and the small war parties occasionally hovering 

 about, are not serious, and if the chiefs do not suppress 

 such youthful exuberance the local police surely will. In 

 short, at present, contentment reigns over all beautiful 

 Nzoia land, and, indeed, in all British East Africa and 

 Uganda. The question is, can it continue ? 



The difficulties and responsibilities of England's ad- 

 ministration are only beginning. To these simple people 

 who so readily trust and obey even a shadowy rule, some- 

 thing more than protection is owing. They can most 

 easily be protected from each other, but can they as readily 

 be protected from the consequences that must inevitably 

 follow the coming to their country of the white man ? 



Alas! from much that is utterly evil England has 

 already failed, quite failed, to protect them. She did a 

 great work when she made a declaration that slavery 

 should cease, and enforced that declaration with the 

 crews and guns of her men-of-war. But in Africa to free 

 the slave is not by any means the same thing as to rear 

 and educate the man. 



England surely has had laid on her shoulders the very 

 greatest and most difficult of all possible tasks that civiliza- 

 tion can allot to any people. All over the world, on con- 

 tinents and amid the islands of the sea, she has at least 

 attempted to do what the judgments of posterity will 

 assert has not been as persistently attempted by any con- 

 quering race. She has aimed high and her aim has been 

 to be fair to her conquered as well as her conquering 



