SEEKING ROMANTIC ADVENTURES. 07 
whose object was generally to steal their ivory or capture them¬ 
selves. 
East Africa till very lately was in an awful plight. The curse 
of age-long slavery and perpetual wars and cattle-raiding among 
the tribes turned what should have been a prosperous country into 
the darkest and most hopeless of lands, where every man distrusted 
and feared his fellow. There was no rule, no central authority. 
The strong consumed the weak. It was a region where rapine, 
cruelty, and bloodshed perpetually reigned. 
The distance from one inhabited oasis to another was often 
great. Vast tracts had been depopulated by native wars, pestilences, 
or the slave trade. Safari, therefore, whether they were made up— 
as were Somalis or Swahili exhibitions—for purposes of trade, or 
for discovery or sport, had to be large; a march through much of 
the country meant a little war, and every porter carried a gun in 
addition to his pack. 
NATIVE DISTRUST AND DISCONTENT. 
So it came to pass often that, willingly or unwillingly, almost 
every safari s progress tended but to increase the native distrust 
and discontent and to add to the misery of the country it passed 
through. 
The food question was ever the burning question—men carry¬ 
ing trading goods into the interior couldn't carry a sufficient supply 
of food as well. The limit of human endurance is reached at sixty 
pounds the man. It takes a stout porter to carry that, day after 
day, in the sun. Now that same porter eats in one month forty- 
five pounds of his load, so it is at once evident he cannot carry food 
and other things as well. 
It is needless to say that with the abolition of slavery, and far 
more still with the introduction of protectorate rule by England, 
rule that does most really attempt at least to protect the native, all 
this has ceased. You are obliged to do a good deal for your safari — 
often much more than local opinion deems necessary. 
The porter’s wages are fixed. You cannot pay less, and for 
this country they are high. The quality and quantity of food you 
