Possibly I Did Not Pursue My Search Deep Enough Into The Earth.

In general, the Masai are an upright and honourable savage race, and it is a great pity that they are gradually dying out.

More or less serfs of the Masai are the Wa N'derobbo, who, unlike their over-lords, are a race of hunters. They are seldom to be met with, however, as they hide away in caves and thickets, and keep constantly moving from place to place following the game. Not long ago I saw a few of them in the neighbourhood of the Eldama Ravine: but these were more or less civilised, and the girls, who were quite graceful, had abandoned the native undress costume for flowing white robes.

In the district from Nairobi to the Kedong River, and in the Kenya Province, dwell the Wa Kikuyu, who are similar to the Masai in build, but not nearly so good-looking. Like the latter, they use the spear and shield, though of a different shape; their principal weapon, however, is the bow and poisoned arrow. They also frequently carry a rudely made two-edged short sword in a sheath, which is slung round the waist by a belt of raw hide. Their front teeth are filed to a sharp point in the same manner as those of nearly all the other native tribes of East Africa, with the exception of the Masai. They live in little villages composed of beehive huts and always situated in the very thickest patches of forest that they can find, and their cattle kraals are especially strongly built and carefully hidden. On one occasion I managed after a great deal of difficulty and crawling on all-fours to make my way into one of these kraals, and was much amazed to notice what labour and ingenuity had been expended on its construction. Unlike the Masai, the Wa Kikuyu have a fairly good idea of agriculture, and grow crops of m'tama (a kind of native grain from which flour is made), sugar-cane, sweet potatoes, and tobacco.

The Wa Kikuyu have the reputation of being a very cowardly and treacherous people, and they have undoubtedly committed some very cruel deeds. A friend of mine, Captain Haslem, with whom I lived for a few months at Tsavo, was barbarously murdered by some members of this tribe. He left me to go up to the Kikuyu country in charge of the transport, and as he was keenly interested in finding out all about the tropical diseases from which the animals suffered, he made it his custom to dissect the bodies of those that died. The superstitious Wa Kikuyu were fully convinced that by this he bewitched their cattle, which at the time were dying in scores from rinderpest. So - instigated no doubt by the all-powerful witch-doctor - they treacherously killed him. For my part, however, I found them not nearly so black as they had been painted to me. I had about four hundred of them working at one thing or another at Nairobi and never had any trouble with them.

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