I saw many Negroes at work in the fields. They were Kikuyus, and were really fine-looking fellows. They were clearing up new ground, chopping down the weeds with mattocks, and digging up the soil and turning it over. The sweat stood in beads upon their brows and backs and ran down their bare legs. I asked the priest what wages they got, and was told that they each received the equivalent of about five cents for a day of ten hours. I suggested to the reverend father that the pay was small, but he said that the natives could not earn more than that sum and even at those wages it was difficult to keep them at work. I hear this same statement made everywhere. The English people here think that the native Africans are well enough paid at the rate of a half cent per hour or of a rupee per month. If you protest they will say that that sum is sufficient to supply all the wants of a black man and ask why he should be paid more. Think of it, ye American toilers who belong to our labour unions. Think of five cents a day for carrying bricks or stone, for chopping up ground under the eyes of a taskmaster, or for trotting along through the grass, hour after hour, with a load of sixty pounds on your head! Think of it, and you may get an idea of how the English white man here is carrying the black man’s burden! Indeed, as the Frenchman says, “it is to laugh!” CHAPTER XXXIII WITH THE BIG-GAME HUNTERS Kenya Colony is in the land of big game, and Nairobi is the chief place where parties are fitted out for hunting. As I write this chapter several large parties are here preparing to go out “on safari,” as such hunts are called. The Norfolk Hotel is filled with hunters and behind it are scores of black, half-naked porters and tent boys, packing sporting goods into boxes, laying in provisions and arranging things for the march. There are headmen rounding up the porters and giving each his load. There are gunbearers seeing to the arms and ammunition, and there are the sportsmen themselves, some clad all in khaki, some wearing riding breeches and leggings, and all in thick helmets. First in the normal personnel of a _safari_ comes the headman, who is supposed to be in full charge, except for the gunbearers and tent boy, who are personal servants and under the immediate direction of their masters. The _askaris_ are armed soldiers to guard the camp at night and look after the porters on the route. There is one _askari_ to every ten or twenty porters. The cook has a staff of assistants. Each sportsman’s tent boy must look after his tent and clothing and serve him at meals. The _syces_, or pony boys, look after the horses and equipment.