384 THE LAND OF THE LION 



man who, though unjust in his stewardship, was not lack- 

 ing in worldly wisdom. He distributed his gifts in such a 

 way that, when he failed, his friends were in honour bound 

 to give him a helping hand. Such is to-day the settled habit 

 among the most enlightened East African natives. 



I myself traced, again and again, the money I had given 

 to the best of my men. It took much cautious persever- 

 ance on my part to draw out the information I needed, but 

 when I had done so, I found that the money had not really 

 disappeared. It had gone into the impoverished hands 

 (not pockets, no native has a pocket, and no one has thought 

 of opening a savings bank for him) of his multitudinous 

 relatives old, middle-aged, and young. A poor porter, 

 earning his ten rupees a month, was often quite ready to 

 feed, clothe, and lodge several relations poorer than himself, 

 while the relatives of a man like my Brownie or John or 

 David seemed to me numerous enough to require a Nairobi 

 "Social Register" to record them, and that register, be it 

 understood, would include a suburban region of several 

 hundred miles! My men were "in funds," the friends 

 and relatives were not! That was enough. When their 

 own time of need should come, those they had helped could 

 be counted on to do for them what they without hesitation 

 were now doing for others. Better far, they argued, give the 

 rupees to those they knew, than trust them to some Hindi 

 trader who might run off to India suddenly; or to bury them 

 in the floor of the hut from whence often they were stolen. 



The East African is, when once given a chance, far from 

 being what the unobservant traveller might take him for. 

 He is no mere savage spendthrift, his methods are his own, 

 his way of arriving at them, also his own. Superficially 

 he may seem simplicity itself, but he is a keen observer, 

 and if you succeed in winning his confidence you will find 

 that often he has good reason for what he does. 



I must touch next on another supposed evidence of the 



