THE COUNTRY 355 



success of what would seem at least a step in the right 

 direction. Now, though no magicians' wand can be waved 

 by any governor or government, that by its waving should 

 suddenly transform age-long savage incapacity into the 

 trained and educated ally of civilized progress, still the 

 beginning of better things could be attempted here and now. 



Some of the natives are willing to work; that number 

 is increasing. A premium should be placed on such will- 

 ingness, a prize which the native could understand and 

 value offered to all who try, and as yet no attempt to do 

 this has been made. 



The system of taxation now in use in the Protector- 

 ate, presses most unfairly on some, and others, those often 

 best able to endure it, it never reaches at all. 



A friend of mine coming to meet me, in May last, 

 saw three Kikuyu lying by the roadside, dead from actual 

 starvation, while tied up in the corner of their poor, red, 

 cotton blankets were the three rupees they were stagger- 

 ing along to pay as hut tax (the only tax the native now 

 pays) to the district collector. 



No native would touch the blankets or the rupees, 

 the men lay in a shrunken little heap as they had died, 

 with their blankets drawn over their faces. 



Now by contrast see the case of the Massai, that petted 

 and most useless of all the East African natives. The 

 Massai will do no work; when he is a boy he herds the 

 cows and sheep; after his initiation he lives for ten years 

 in the warrior's kraal. As a warrior he must obey his chiefs 

 commands and be ready to defend his people against raids 

 of wild men and beasts. Now, this military system of his 

 once made him the dreaded master of all East Africa, 

 but this time is past. There is now no further need for his 

 militarism. He, as warrior, is nothing but a lazy licentious 

 parasite, a burden on the country, if not a danger to it. 

 Change he will not; why should he ? He has the fattest 



