AX'ith Fkishlight and Rifle -^ 



traveller. Those days are gone. The merciless rinder- 

 pest nearly struck the buftalo out ot the list of the East 

 African animal world. It struck at them just as it struck 

 at the Masai race. 



If the inx'estigations of my friend Captain Merker 

 are well orounded, it is thousands ot years since this race 

 of nomads, one of the oldest of all the Hebrew races, 

 made their way oyer the East African plains, there to 

 roam at large, with their countless herds of cattle. 



With one blow their power was annihilated by the pest 

 that came from Europe, that scourge of the cattle-breeder. 

 I often found circular collections of bones ol cattle. One 

 could see them from the far distance on the velt shining 

 white in the sun. Intermingled with them were numerous 

 human skulls. These were the camping-places of the Masai 

 in the year 1890. 



Oyer and oyer again the seli-Scime drama was enacted. 

 The cattle sickened and died. Remedies and charms 

 availed nought. In a few days the camp was pest-ridden, 

 and men, women, and children, helpless and without food, 

 died in agony. Only scanty remnants now surxiye of the 

 once great Masai people. In their days of need their 

 women and children were sent out or sold as agricultural 

 slaves to more prosperous races. 



The buffilo-herds disappeared almost entirel)- at that 

 time, and in ( lerman and Ilritish b^ast Ah'ica only a tew 

 survive. And as it happened here to the Masai people 

 and the- buffakjdierds, so did it happen to the Indians 

 and bison in America. The progress of civilisation is 

 indeed cruel and merciless. Mankind must si)read over 



304 



