EAST AFRICA.*
EARLY in 1906 Dr. Karl Weule was sent to study the ethnology of German East Africa on the spot. He spent some six months in that country, acting with considerable energy, and sustained by that good opinion of himself which is not the least valuable of an explorer's assets. In this volume he records his experiences, ank sets forth his aoqtrisi- Lions. These will be found to be full of interest and value, not a little increased by the fact that the book has had a thoroughly competent translator, who has herself a con- siderable knowledge of life in East Africa. An excellent specimen of Dr. Weule's methods is to be met with on pp. 308 seq., where he relates his inquiries into the "pro- hibited degrees of marriage" among native tribes. Miss Werner thinks that his mode of inquiry is too direct, but allows that it was more fruitful of results than could have been expected. A German policeman cross-examining some strangers who have transgressed regulations could not have been more peremptory. So it seems as we read; still, there must have been a certain bonhomie in the questioner which contributed to his success. To many readers the non- scientific portions of Dr. Weule's book will be the most attractive. There is his estimate, for instance, of German East Africa. He is not sanguine—" It is not a pays de Coeagne where roast pigeons will fly of their own accord into people's mouths "—but he does not despair. If the native, without appliances, can make a living out of the soil, why not the European, with all the help that he can command ? Only the European wants a great deal more. And it must be owned that there is something ominous in Miss Werner's comment. She does not think that the country can ever be colonised as Canada and Australia have been by ourselves. "So far as the country has been settled at all, it is on the planta- tion system,—European capitalists cultivating large tracts
of land by means of native labour it is not a healthy one for employers or employed."
Native Life in East Africa. By Dr. Karl Woule. Translated by Alice. Werner. London: Sir Isaac Pitmtm and Sons. [123. 61. net.]
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