THE COUNTRY 347 



grows tired and, like the Arab, silently slips away; or 

 after infinite pains have been expended on getting him 

 and providing him with tools and teachers, his parents 

 come demanding the youth to aid them to gather the 

 harvest or to migrate with the flocks, and the disappointed 

 teacher sees the last of a promising pupil. 



The East African native is at heart a nomad still and no 

 system of education or of government that does not take 

 account of this deeply inbred tendency can do him much 

 good. The influence of steady work is the one thing he 

 wants in his present state, is indeed the only education 

 he is at first fitted for. The influence of labour will make 

 itself felt in every direction. It will tend to the material 

 prosperity of the country and thus furnish funds which 

 the white man can employ in keeping order and establish- 

 ing a regular administration. "Best of all, the habit of 

 labour will bring the native into contact with the white 

 master, and supposing the native to be (as he is usually in 

 British East Africa) justly and firmly treated, it will instill 

 a confidence and respect, and hold up to the savage a 

 superior standard of comfort which he may be in time 

 impelled to obtain for himself." * 



The African's nomadism is his toughest defence against 

 all education, all real progress, no matter who he is or to 

 what tribe he belongs, whether he be a mission boy, a 

 heathen or a Mohammedan, nothing but force will make 

 him stick to his job. Keep him to it, and he likes it. You 

 will see him dancing from seven in the evening till mid- 

 night, two or three nights in the week, after he has done 

 a long day's work with the hoe in a settler's shamba. You 

 will see him engaging in impromptu races up and down 

 Port Florence pier, after he has toiled from twelve to 

 sixteen hours without a meal, unloading a steamer in the 

 sun. This extraordinary spectacle I have seen myself, 



* Lionel Dech. "Three years in Savage Africa," p. 526. 



