A PLEA FOR THE NATIVE 389 



shambas or the larger their goat or sheep herds, the greater 

 became their danger. English occupation meant the 

 immediate curbing of Massai aggressiveness; the Kikuyu 

 won a breathing spell. What has been the result ? Within 

 fifteen years the tribe has changed. They are to-day rais- 

 ing great quantities of grain, and their men and women 

 are fast becoming the porters and field-workers of East 

 Africa. Only four years ago a Kikuyu could not be per- 

 suaded to take any work, however well paid, outside the 

 narrow limits of his own country. He would throw down 

 his burden and slip into the bush if he found the sefari's 

 route pointed away from his home. He might be convoyed 

 or guarded to some point on the railroad where he had 

 work given him, but the terror of the unknown would finally 

 prove too much for him. Leaving his job, sacrificing his 

 pay, the timid savage would slink away, perhaps to die by 

 the roadside, as he staggered toward the distant slope of 

 Kenia, his forest home. He is now another man; he is 

 his own man, and the small cash of the country is finding 

 its way into his pocket; he is richer than any other 

 native, with the exception of the Massai. He is, of course, 

 still deeply marked with the moral scars of his long 

 misery; he is a liar and a thief, and parts quite readily 

 with his women folk, but he is undoubtedly on "the march 

 upward." 



I stood, one muggy morning watching a band of Waganda 

 carrying earth for the foundation of a new wing to the 

 miserably dirty little hotel at Eutebbi (lately the official 

 capital of Uganda) . Each man had an empty kerosene can, 

 a box of some kind or a basket, on his head into which he 

 scooped the dirt he was removing with a small hoe. The 

 earth had to be excavated from one place and dumped at 

 another. The journey was forty yards; the men strolled 

 along in line; if one of them wanted to converse with a pass- 

 ing friend he did so leisurely and all the line waited till the 



