212 
A COLONY IN THE MAKING 
CHAP. 
tribe, the Wa-Kamba, at all events, are absolutely 
precocious at anything connected with machinery ; and 
there is no doubt that the sight of a bursting shell has 
a wonderfully deterrent influence on the bellicose 
intentions of the savage. It may be, and is, argued 
that it would effect a saving if the defence of the 
country were entrusted solely to an augmented force of 
police. Perhaps there might be a saving in money, 
but there are many who think that police work should 
be entrusted to police, and military or punitive 
operations to soldiers. Certainly, excellent as the 
police are in their own sphere, they have much leeway 
to make up before they can compare in efficiency from 
a military point of view with the King’s African Rifles. 
Before disbanding or curtailing further the small but 
highly efficient force that we now possess, it is to 
be hoped that those who are responsible will take down 
the map and mark well the various people who form 
our neighbours. 
The question of the troops on the Northern or 
Abyssinian boundary gives rise to a different class of 
question. On this boundary we have one company 
of the King’s African Rifles. They are scattered over 
a series of posts into which they are dug and fortified. 
Owing to the difficulties of transport across the desert 
country which separates the frontier from the habitable 
Highlands, they are admittedly enormously expensive. 
Those settlers who are averse to what is called the 
Frontier policy argue that a very large expense is 
incurred. That no gain does or is likely to accrue to 
the Protectorate from the maintenance of these isolated 
forts. That, on the contrary, the scattering of these 
isolated baits is liable at any moment to involve 
us in an expensive war or the sacrifice of what little 
