214 
SAVAGE SUDAN 
’tween-decks and attendant barges some 180 huge¬ 
horned Nuer cattle, destined, we were told, to feed our 
garrison at Malta! 
In considering the status of big-game in Sudan, as 
compared with, say East Africa, it is necessary to bear 
this factor in mind—that in British Equatoria (where 
game is far more abundant) the wild beasts have no 
such tremendous “prior charge” imposed upon them as 
their representatives suffer here in the Sudan. For the 
dominant Masai and other East-African tribes are not, 
and never were, hunters. The lordly Masai never interfere 
with game, and contemptuously leave the chase to the 
despised and outcast nomadic tribes of the Wandorobo. 
In East Africa, practically the whole of the teeming game 
was at the sole disposal and enjoyment of the intrusive 
Britisher. 
In Sudan, the reverse is the case. The indigenous 
tribes have always been inveterate hunters, and their 
destruction of game is both wholesale and wasteful. The 
“limits” allowed to white hunters (on a ^50 licence) 
appear narrow; but they are right, since every head 
now shot by us is an extra drain on the game-resources 
of the country, over and above the enormous toll which 
is taken, now as hitherto, by the savage hunting-tribes. 
I venture to think that the existing state of affairs 
cannot be continued indefinitely. In the interests of all 
alike, some restriction must, in time, be placed on our 
savage fellow-subjects—as we place it on ourselves. 
Considering that the country is (or was) theirs, and 
its wild game likewise, it may seem unjust to interfere 
with ancient forest-rights; but such ideas are superficial 
and will not stand a moment’s study. 
Here in the Sudan the vital fact is that under the Pax 
Britannica the savage races—decimated a dozen years 
ago—are recovering their former numbers with abnormal 
rapidity. They promise soon far to exceed them. They 
are no longer liable to slave-raids which swept them off 
