236 
A COLONY IN THE MAKING 
CHAP. 
all events of Marsabit is desert right up to the 
Abyssinian frontier, to the west and south-west lie 
the borders of Uganda and German East Africa, 
while to the coast and south-east lies a stretch of 
country much of which holds plenty of game, but 
which is at the same time nearly all full of thorns, 
fever, and discomfort. In the existing areas where 
shooting may be enjoyed in health and comfort, where 
even an invalid accompanied by his wife and daughters 
can share the sport, the game is slowly but surely 
disappearing. People look round with wonder and 
search for the cause. Need they look further than 
the fact that for the last two or three years some 
thirty or forty parties of sportsmen have in this small 
area accounted for 300 head each ? There are many 
who talk largely of thousands or tens of thousands of 
head in a herd of game. Let them climb to the top 
of a knoll and try conscientiously to count such a 
herd. They will be astonished no longer at the 
numbers but rather at the sparseness of a herd they 
had thought uncountable. It is true that a great 
proportion of this slaughter is of common game and 
is to a certain extent counterbalanced by the killing of 
vermin such as lions and leopards, which would of 
itself have been responsible for much destruction; 
still the rarer varieties suffer as well, and with regard 
to them it is perhaps worth noting the devastation 
that is done in the name of or on behalf of museums. 
Do those nine white rhinoceros ever cause ex-Presi- 
dent Roosevelt a pang of conscience, or a restless 
night? I for one venture to hope so. It is un¬ 
fortunate that we have no close season either enforced 
or natural. But the former is almost impossible, as 
calving time is never constant, but varies both 
