The natives begged me to take them out to Karuri’s, and pitying their miserable condition, I agreed to do so, and got together a caravan of several thousands of the starving wretches, among whom were a number of natives who possessed a fair quantity of sheep—perhaps one man would have thirty sheep, and another five or six head of cattle, while, of course, there were numbers of others who had absolutely nothing. It was pitiable to see these people staggering along, first one and then another dropping out to die on the road. Before starting out I made it perfectly plain to them that I would only lead them to the “land of promise” on condition that they placed themselves absolutely under my control and obeyed my orders in everything, and this they promised to do. When I saw them staggering along, almost too weak to drag one foot before the other, and dying at the rate of about fifty per day, I ordered those who had cattle and sheep to deliver them up to me, and each night when we got into camp, I had as many killed as were required to give them just enough food to keep them alive. Niggers have absolutely no feelings of humanity, and the owners of the sheep and cattle grumbled loudly at my action in feeding the others with their property, which they charged me with stealing. I felt perfectly justified, however, in the course I was adopting, although I was pretty certain at the time that these people would some day do their best to make trouble for me, by misrepresenting the facts to the Government officials, who, while always ready to accept any statements against myself, were much less inclined to take the responsibility for their own laxity in the performance of their duty. I never ate any of the meat myself, nor did I allow any of my men to do so, so that it could not be said that I had any personal benefit from my action. As I anticipated, when I took the sheep one or two of the natives deserted from the caravan and went back to the Government station to report that I had been looting their sheep. After much difficulty I got the people through to the Kikuyu country, and distributed them to the different villages, giving them plainly to understand that they must behave themselves.