African Game Trails 
too much in the way of beneficence, as 
from a desire to exploit the natives. Each 
of the civilized nations that has taken pos¬ 
session of any part of Africa has had its own 
peculiar good qualities and its own pecul¬ 
iar 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 pos¬ 
sible 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 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 obviously for their ulti¬ 
mate 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 mission¬ 
aries. Mission work among savages offers 
many difficulties, and often the wisest and 
most earnest effort meets with dishearten- 
ingly little reward; while lack of common- 
sense, and of course above all, lack of a firm 
and resolute disinterestedness, insures the 
worst kind of failure. There are mission¬ 
aries 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 govern¬ 
ment officials and settlers, are only too apt 
to jump at the chance of criticising a mis¬ 
sionary for every alleged sin of either omis¬ 
sion or commission. Finally, zealous mis¬ 
sionaries, fervent in the faith, do not always 
find it easy to remember that savages can 
only be raised by slow steps, that an empty 
adherence to forms and ceremonies amounts 
to nothing, that industrial training is an 
essential in any permanent upward move¬ 
ment, and that the gradual elevation of 
mind and character is a prerequisite to the 
achievement of any kind of Christianity 
which is worth calling such. Nevertheless 
after all this has been said, it remains true 
that the good done by missionary effort 
in Africa has been incalculable. There are 
parts of the great continent, and among 
them I include many sections of East 
Africa, which can be made a white man’s 
country; and in these parts every effort 
should be made to favor the growth of a 
large and prosperous white population. 
But over most of Africa the problem for the 
white man is to govern, with wisdom and 
firmness, and when necessary with severity, 
but always with an eye single to their own 
interests and development, the black and 
brown races. To do this needs sympathy 
and devotion no less than strength and 
wisdom, and in the task the part to be 
played by the missionary and the part to be 
played by the official are alike great, and 
the two should work hand in hand. 
After returning from Machakos, I spent 
the night at Sir Alfred’s, and next morn¬ 
ing said good-bye with most genuine re¬ 
gret to my host and his family. Then, fol¬ 
lowed by my gun-bearers and sais, I rode 
off across the Athi plains. Through the 
bright white air the sun beat down merci¬ 
lessly, and the heat haze wavered above the 
endless flats of scorched grass. Hour after 
hour we went slowly forward, through the 
morning, and through the burning heat of 
the equatorial noon, until in mid-afternoon 
we came to the tangled tree growth which 
fringed the half-dried bed of the Athi. Here 
I off-saddled for an hour; then, mounting, 
I crossed the river bed where it was water¬ 
less, and before evening fell I rode up to 
Juja Farm. 
Vol. XLVI.—77 
