i8 
A COLONY IN THE MAKING chap. 
It must not be thought that such a state is inevitable 
or even common, but it is by no means unknown. 
For this state the climate should not be unduly 
blamed. The bulk of such cases are due rather 
to an attempt to live under conditions, or under 
a stress of work such as the country does not 
warrant. As the correct method of living is 
grasped, so year by year will this very minor 
ill diminish. Supposing an African race were to try 
to live in their traditional method in England, even in 
the most balmy summer, one can imagine what the 
death rate would be. When the high veldt in South 
Africa was first peopled by an alien race, there was at 
least the same tendency to nervous diseases and 
nervous irritability. A healthy and more phlegmatic 
race and life than exists there now it would be hard 
to find. 
Lest from this category of ills a false impression as 
to the real and undoubted healthiness of the Protector¬ 
ate be obtained, I produce the death rate of Nairobi, 
far from being the most healthy spot in the country. 
The death rate for 1906 was 12*5 per thousand. 
„ „ 1907 „ 17*8 „ 
„ ,, 1908 ,, 15*8 ,, ,, 
„ „ 1909 » 87 „ 
> > >> 1910 ,, 83 >> >t 
These figures prove beyond any doubt, not only the 
healthiness of the Protectorate, but its increasing 
healthiness. True, it may be pointed out that the 
population of Nairobi consists mainly of adults of 
from twenty to fifty, and that babies and young 
children are in less than a normal proportion. Against 
this, however, stand the counterbalancing fact that on 
