214 SAVAGE SUDAN 



'tween-decks and attendant barges some 180 huge- 

 horned Nuer cattle, destined, we were told, to feed our 

 garrison at Malta ! 



In considering the status of big-game in Sudan, as 

 compared with, say East Africa, it is necessary to bear 

 this factor in mind that in British Equatoria (where 

 game is far more abundant) the wild beasts have no 

 such tremendous "prior charge" imposed upon them as 

 their representatives suffer here in the Sudan. For the 

 dominant Masai and other East-African tribes are not, 

 and never were, hunters. The lordly Masai never interfere 

 with game, and contemptuously leave the chase to the 

 despised and outcast nomadic tribes of the Wandorobo. 

 In East Africa, practically the whole of the teeming game 

 was at the sole disposal and enjoyment of the intrusive 

 Britisher. 



In Sudan, the reverse is the case. The indigenous 

 tribes have always been inveterate hunters, and their 

 destruction of game is both wholesale and wasteful. The 

 "limits" allowed to white hunters (on a ^50 licence) 

 appear narrow ; but they are right, since every head 

 now shot by us is an extra drain on the game-resources 

 of the country, over and above the enormous toll which 

 is taken, now as hitherto, by the savage hunting-tribes. 



I venture to think that the existing state of affairs 

 cannot be continued indefinitely. In the interests of all 

 alike, some restriction must, in time, be placed on our 

 savage fellow-subjects as we place it on ourselves. 



Considering that the country is (or was) theirs, and 

 its wild game likewise, it may seem unjust to interfere 

 with ancient forest-rights ; but such ideas are superficial 

 and will not stand a moment's study. 



Here in the Sudan the vital fact is that under the Pax 

 Britannica the savage races decimated a dozen years 

 ago are recovering their former numbers with abnormal 

 rapidity. They promise soon far to exceed them. They 

 are no longer liable to slave-raids which swept them off 



