Men of the Trees
So long as Captain Baker sticks to his mahoganies, he is interesting enough, and we owe to his love of forests many descriptions which are fascinating as well as informative. He has boundless enthusiasm and vitality, and to his initiative is due an organization, which he describes, something after the nature of boy Scouts adapted to African requirements, the necessary good deed consisting in the planting of trees. But unfortunately, a great deal of what he has to say is not new, and not all of it appears to be reliable. If he was really admitted to membership of the Kikuyu Kiama, he appears to know very little about it ; but, judging only by the speci- mens of native language with which his book is sprinkled, this may be due to his inability to understand what was said -to him. He is strangely elusive for one so sure of himself, and again and again it is difficult to place the tribe which is his immediate concern or to gauge the length of his residence among its members. A little information of this sort would assist us in estimating his qualifications. It would be inter- esting-to know, for example, what tribe it is that has earned for itself the name of " Forest Destroyers," and what the name is in the local language. No doubt Captain Baker was influ- enced by the fact that his book was first published in America. His adventures have a trans-Atlantic flavour, and it would only have been possible to exaggerate the hardships and hazards of life in Africa to the extent that he has done, if writing for a public completely unfamiliar with conditions in that maligned continent. Or else he has been singularly
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