101 
ch. iv] THE WHITE MAN’S WORK 
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 necessary, such 
as insistence upon keeping the peace, and preventing 
the spread of cattle disease. Excellent reasons can be 
advanced in favour 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 obviously for their ultimate welfare. Yet I 
cannot help thinking 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 tribute of unstinted 
admiration for the disinterested and efficient work being 
done, alike in the interest of the white man and the 
black, by the government officials whom I met in East 
Africa. They are men in whom their country has every 
reason to feel a just pride. 
We lunched with the American missionaries. Mission 
work among savages offers many difficulties, and often 
the wisest and most earnest effort meets with disheart- 
eningly little reward; while lack of common sense, and 
of course above all, lack of a firm and resolute disinter¬ 
estedness, insures the worst kind of failure. There are 
missionaries who do not do well, just as there are men 
in every conceivable walk of life who do not do well; 
and excellent men who are not missionaries, including 
both government officials and settlers, are only too apt 
