Page:Travel letters from New Zealand, Australia and Africa (1913).djvu/442

 was very popular in Africa, but that Kermit, his son, was cordially despised. Roosevelt himself, they say, is a thorough sportsman, and a man of undoubted courage. He is not considered a particularly good shot, but they say he is the luckiest hunter who ever handled a gun. Besides, everything was specially arranged for his hunt. Not only all the white residents, but all the native chiefs, did what they could to locate game for him; he did not have the trouble of the usual hunter. It is further said over here that Roosevelt was a great talker, and that he would quit hunting any time to tell about his well-known theories for bettering humanity It is also agreed that hunters are very unpopular among the actual residents of Africa; not that the residents object to the game being killed, but every hunter requires a large number of natives for his outfit, and these are drawn mainly from the farms, where labor is scarce, and badly needed. There are millions of native men able to work, but most of them won't work. In the native settlements, the hard labor is mainly performed by the women, children, and old men; the stalwart fellows who would do the work in a civilized community, strut about covered with grease, looking for fights with other tribes. The whites say these idlers should be made to work; that it is better that they work for a shilling a day than spend their time in idleness and mischief, and I would not be surprised to hear that the British have adopted a Vagrancy Act to reach the loafers.