ON SAFARI. RHINO AND GIRAFFE 103 
When we arrived, the Commissioner and his assistant were 
engaged in cross-examining some neighboring chiefs as to 
the cattle sickness. The English rule in Africa has been 
of incalculable benefit to Africans themselves, and indeed 
this is true of the rule of most European nations. Mistakes 
have been made, of course, but they have proceeded at least 
as often from an unwise effort to accomplish too much 
in the way of beneficence, as from a desire to exploit the 
natives. Each of the civilized nations that has taken posses¬ 
sion of any part of Africa has had its own peculiar good 
qualities and its own peculiar defects. Some of them have 
done too much in supervising and ordering the lives of the 
natives, and in interfering with their practices and customs. 
The English error, like our own under similar conditions, 
has, if anything, been in the other direction. The effort 
has been to avoid wherever possible all interference with 
tribal customs, even when of an immoral and repulsive 
character, and to do no more than what is obviously neces¬ 
sary, such as insistence upon keeping the peace and prevent¬ 
ing the spread of cattle disease. Excellent reasons can be 
advanced in favor of this policy, and it must always be 
remembered that a fussy and ill-considered benevolence is 
more sure to awaken resentment than cruelty itself; while 
the natives are apt to resent deeply even things that are ob¬ 
viously for their ultimate welfare. Yet I cannot help think¬ 
ing that with caution and wisdom it would be possible to 
proceed somewhat farther than has yet been the case in 
the direction of pushing upward some at least of the East 
African tribes; and this though I recognize fully that many 
of these tribes are of a low and brutalized type. Having 
said this much in the way of criticism, I wish to add my 
