Roscoe continues: "Theft is not common among the people for they were deterred from stealing by fear of punishment which was certain to follow."[4] The very fact that there was fear of punishment is indicative of some conception of social morality. Fear as a preventive of crime is not the most commendable incentive to morality, but it is one that must be employed in all civilizations; for man is first an animal then a moral being. The fear referred to does not prove that the Baganda has the highest type of morality, but it proves that they have a type and this is significant for primitive peoples. The low standard in anything may be prophetic of higher ones which are approachable only by means of the lower ones as stepping stones. This is true in art, science and religion. The fact that the Bagandas were "hospitable and liberal and that real poverty did not exist"[5] shows the presence of a social consciousness which in many ways evidences a standard of ethics. According to Roscoe the thief was killed on the spot, death for adultery was certain;[6] yet he attempts to maintain his thesis as to their lack of morality in these words: "The moral ideas of the people are crude, it was not wrongdoing but detection that they feared; men were restrained from committing crimes through fear of the power of the gods."[7] It is obvious that "detection" is to be feared only where there are detectives and these are present only when they have been called forth in response to some social demands. There is still other light to be turned on the ethical status of the African tribes. Bent, more sympathetic towards the natives of Mashonaland, delivers himself thus: "Not only has Khama established his reputation for honesty; but he is supposed to have inoculated his people with the same virtue. I must say that I looked forward with great interest to seeing a man with so wide a reputation for integrity and enlightenment as Khama in South Africa. Somehow one's spirit of skepticism is on the alert on such occasions and especially when a Negro is the case in point; and I candidly admit that I advanced towards Palapwe fully prepared to find Ba Mangwato a rascal and hypocrite and I left his capital after a week's stay there one of his fervent admirers."[8] But Dent adds: "Doubtless on the traversed roads and large centers where they are brought into contact with traders and would-be civilizers of the race, these people become thieves and vagabonds, but in their primitive state the Makalangas are naturally honest, exceedingly courteous in manner."[9]