THE BIG GAME OF AFRICA 



Masai, and perhaps chiefly as a result of the terrible rind- 

 erpest, which took away thousands upon thousands of 

 their cattle, and caused almost whole villages to die from 

 starvation, they have now been reduced to comparative 

 poverty. The Wateita people resemble very much the 

 Wanika, but all their houses or huts are perfectly round, 

 built of sticks and grass, and always clustered picturesquely 

 together on the hilltops, where, in warlike times, it was 

 more easy for them to defend themselves against their 

 enemies. They belong to the great Bantu race, and live, 

 very much like the inhabitants of the rest of the country, 

 in polygamy, and in gross ignorance and superstition. 



Northeast of the railroad, and farther inland, the trav- 

 eler meets the industrious and courageous Wakamba 

 people, who often successfully withstood the savage at- 

 tacks of the Masai. The men of this tribe frequently used 

 to file their teeth into sharp points, to appeal better to the 

 weaker sex, but this makes them look very ugly and wild. 

 Their chief weapon is a long swordlike knife, and bows 

 and arrows, which latter they understand how to dip in a 

 skillfully prepared and most deadly vegetable poison. Any 

 man or beast even slightly scratched by one of these 

 arrows will die in a very short time, as there is said to 

 exist no means as yet discovered to neutralize the fatal 

 eflfect of this poison. 



The women are very lightly dressed, and they do not 

 seem to wear any cloth at all, this being replaced by pieces 

 of goat skin, which they understand how to make as 

 soft as kid gloves. Of these skins they wear only two 

 pieces ; the one serves as a loin cloth, and the other is tied 

 over the shoulder. The Wakamba are agriculturists, and 



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