194 A BOOK-LOVER'S HOLIDAYS 



even so their trust did not extend to letting a 

 stranger like himself see their women and chil- 

 dren, who had retreated into some forest fast- 

 ness from which we were kept aloof. The men 

 wore each a small fur cape over the shoulders. 

 Otherwise they were absolutely naked. Each 

 carried a pouch, and a spear. The spear head 

 was of iron, obtained from some of the settled 

 tribes. Except this iron spear head, not one of 

 their few belongings differed from what it 

 doubtless was long prior to the age of metals. 

 They carried bows, strung with zebra gut, and 

 arrows of which the wooden tips were poisoned. 

 In one place Kermit found where a party of 

 them had dwelt in a cave, evidently for many 

 weeks; there were bones and scraps of skin 

 without and within; and inside were beds of 

 grass, and fire-sticks, and a walled-off enclosure 

 of branches in which their dogs had been penned. 

 Elsewhere we came on one or two camping- 

 places with rude brush shelters. Each little 

 party consisted of a family, or perhaps tem- 

 porarily of two or three families. They did not 

 cultivate the earth; they owned a few dogs; 

 and they lived on honey and game. They 

 killed monkeys and hy raxes, occasionally forest 

 hog and bongo — a beautifully striped forest 

 antelope as big as a Jersey cow — and now and 



