70 
A COLONY IN THE MAKING 
CHAP. 
With the Somalis in the Jubaland Province we are 
not here immediately concerned when we consider 
the white colony on the Highlands. They have in 
the past afforded our Government some considerable 
trouble, and still further cause for anxiety, but for the 
present give comparatively little of either. Many 
who should know consider that both the evil 
propensities and the warlike powers of the Somali 
have been exaggerated in the past, and that there is 
reason to hope that this section at all events will 
merge gradually and quietly into the civilisation 
alongside of them. 
The Somali with whom the settler is more im¬ 
mediately acquainted is a very different and probably 
less attractive individual. The faction consists for the 
most part of men of no particular account in their own 
country, but full of ambition and a spirit of adventure, 
who have travelled into our Protectorate for one purpose 
only, the acquisition of money. As far as the Pro¬ 
tectorate is concerned, the sole object of every Somali 
is to make as much money and in as short a time as 
possible, and as to the method he adopts for that 
purpose he is completely indifferent. It must not 
be thought that I impute this in any way as a crime 
to the Somali. On the contrary, I admire him 
heartily for the characteristic. As is a matter of 
common knowledge, the acquisition of money is the 
principal object of life, and if only a man obtains 
enough the manner in which he acquires it is really 
not a matter of much importance. If only Englishmen 
invaded Germany with the same object, and the 
same success , that Somalis invade British East Africa, 
they would meet with and deserve from our point of 
view nothing but praise. All I would point out is 
