goats, of mottled sheep, and especially of 
small humped cattle. The cattle form their 
pride and joy. During the day each herd 
is accompanied by the herdsmen, and at 
night it is driven within its boma, or circu¬ 
lar fence of thorn-bushes. Except for the 
milk, which they keep in their foul, smoky 
calabashes, the natives really make no use 
of their cattle; they do not know how to 
work them, and they never eat them even 
in time of starvation. When there is pro¬ 
longed drought and consequent failure of 
crops, the foolish creatures die by the hun¬ 
dreds when they might readily be saved if 
they were willing to eat the herds which 
they persist in treating as ornaments rather 
than as made for use. 
Many of the natives work for the settlers, 
as cattle-keepers, as ostrich-keepers, or, af¬ 
ter a fashion, as laborers. At Sir Alfred 
Pease’s ranch, as at most of the other farms 
of the neighborhood, we found little Wa- 
kamba settlements. Untold ages separated 
employers and employed; yet those that I 
saw seemed to get on well together. The Wa- 
kamba are as yet not sufficiently advanced 
to warrant their sharing in the smallest de¬ 
gree in the common government; the “just 
consent of the governed” in their case, if 
taken literally, Vvould mean idleness, famine, 
519 
