AN AFRICAN TRAVELER'S NOTE 



THE Rt'V. W. S. Rainsford, who returned sometime since from an 

 extended trip through British East Africa, has presented to tlie 

 Museum a small collection of implements of war and the chase 

 used by the ('heranfi:anf; X'doroho. In this collection are darts for killinfj 

 the elephant, a (iui\er with iron-pointed, poisoned arrows for fj;eneral 

 hunting', and one arrow with point of wood to which Dr. Rainsford has 

 attached a label with this legend, "For shooting men." He has also pre- 

 sented the Museum with a rare species of monkey. 



Dr. Rainsford gives the following note regarding his gift: 



"The poison smeared on the elephant darts was given me hy the ("heran- 



gang N'dorobo. This small tril)e has li\ed among the heavily wooded 



fastnesses of a range of mountains which l)order the X'zoia Plateau on the 



east in British East Africa, mountains called also the Elgeyo escarpment. 



So far as is known the little tribe has held its own in this home for ages, 

 constantly attacked by Nandi and Karamoja, tribes outnumbering the 

 N'dorobo more than one hundred to one. It has always beaten them off, 

 sometimes with severe loss to the enemy. The fleadly poisoned arrow has 

 been this tribe's all-sufficient weapon. 



The N'dorobo sometimes sell the poison, but I doubt that the poison 

 sold is as deadly as that which they use on their own weapons. Of tlie 

 terrible nature of this poison I have myself been a witness. They told me 

 it lost strength with age. The secret of its i)reparation is most carefully 

 guarded. When fresh, a \'ery slight wound with a wooden headed arrow 

 is sufficient to kill a man almost instantly. 



The monkey {Enjihrocchu.s whitci) I shot on the N'zoia Plateau. It is 

 a \ery shy and very active species living on a level country where there are 

 no high trees, often no trees at all. Indeed it a\oids high and thick woods, 

 where other monkeys are usually found. This flat country is so infested 

 with lions and leopards that all the activity and cunning of the native is 

 frequently called into play to escape them. I ha\ c e\en known lions of that 

 region to hunt down and devour a cheetah. 



I saw the monkeys several times but only once did I succeed in getting 

 a shot. I never saw more than three of them together and I found them 

 harder to stalk than any other ^^nimal I followed in Afiica." 



The N'dorobo, or Wandorobo. of the deadly poisoned arrows, are a 

 people closely allied to the Masai in pliysical type and many cultural traits, 

 but (litter in l)eing a hunting not a pastoral tribe. Dr. Rainsford does not 

 speak of the method of preparing the poison; Lieutenant Weiss of the 

 German army states however that it is derived by lioiling the roots and twigs 

 of Acocanihrra abi/.s-siiiicd into a pitch-like paste and that in this condition 

 it is smeared on the heads of the arrows. 



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