SCOPE FOR IMPERIAL EXPANSION 315 



which would not be easy to answer were we not 

 able at once to point to the many blessings which 

 European occupation and protection have brought 

 to almost all parts of the great continent. Africa 

 is not, as these persons say, intended to be occupied 

 solely by the African, and in conditions which 

 permit the aborigines to war upon, destroy, and 

 devour each other as was their early wont. Neither, 

 assuredly, have the European nations assumed the 

 guidance and governance of the black races from 

 purely philanthropical motives. Europe is in need 

 of more and still more fields for the settlement of 

 redundant population — that is an ever-present 

 necessity ; and I have never elicited a satisfactory 

 reply from objectors to European expansion in 

 Africa when I have asked them what the position of 

 Great Britain would be to-day if the British popula- 

 tions of her vast over-sea possessions were all now 

 confined within the restricted area of the small group 

 of islands which forms the cradle of the Empire. 



Taking the district I am describing as a whole, 

 there are no very large villages or settlements. 

 One rarely sees more than fifteen or twenty huts 

 at a time — sometimes, indeed, not more than nine 

 or ten ; but it often happens, in the more thickly 

 populated portions of the country, that very many 

 of these groups of huts occur dotted over large 

 areas, and become, no doubt, in course of time 

 bound together by numerous matrimonial alliances. 

 In most cases the small habitations are arranged 

 in a circle, in the centre of which grows a large 

 shady tree, whilst, in lion-infested regions, they 

 are surrounded by a high, roughly built palisading. 



