4 
A COLONY IN THE MAKING 
CHAP. 
his agency to the unfortunate native population. The 
settler knows, the missionaries and the police know, 
too, who keep the brothels, who the illicit stills, who 
the gambling dens, and who are the receivers of stolen 
property. It is hardly too much to say that in Nairobi 
there is hardly a crime among natives which is not 
directly traceable to the Indian. Then there is disease. 
Venereal and plague are directly traceable to the 
Indian by whom they were introduced. The “jigger,” 
or burrowing flea, has caused both suffering, loss of 
limb, and occasionally of life among the native, and 
also great discomfort and loss of profit to the European. 
We owe this pleasant little fellow to the Indian. 
Before the coming of the Indian typhoid was un¬ 
known, while his filthy and insanitary mode of living 
is responsible for much of the ophthalmia and minor 
diseases in Nairobi. 
These are the complaints that the settler brings 
against the Indian, and it must be confessed that they 
form a very grave indictment. It will be seen that the 
whole gravamen of the charge is not against the 
Indian as an Indian but against the Indian as a man. 
If the Indian in the Protectorate were represented by 
the type so dear to authors and tourists, we would 
welcome him with open arms. It is not because his 
skin is black that he is unpopular ; it is because he is 
a foul liver, a drunkard, and a thief. These are hard 
words to write deliberately of any class, but I submit 
that they are justified. There are, of course, excep¬ 
tions, not many but a few, worthy honest cleanly 
citizens, a credit to any State. Such men are welcome 
and would be popular, were it not that the virtues of 
so small a minority are overshadowed by the crimes of 
the vast majority. With every ill it is always easy to 
