158 ACROSS LAI KIP I A 



take part in it. Omari, Ramathan, and two porters were sent 

 as our delegates, and they were met by an equal number of the 

 Kikuyu. They lighted a fire, equidistant from our camp and 

 the main body of natives, and round it the shauri was held. 

 The Kikuyu declared that we were a bad lot and had smallpox 

 with us, and that we only wanted to enter their country in 

 order to spread it among them. Omari invited them into camp 

 to inspect us, and offered to let them kill any one who was found 

 to be suffering with the dread disease. He refused to discuss 

 the general question that night, for he said that we were starv- 

 ing, and that it is no use arguing with starving people. He de- 

 clared that the natives must at once sell us sufficient food to last 

 that night, and next day we would discuss the matter further. 

 Omari was made a blood-brother with one of the Kikuyu ; they 

 sold us some food, and the conference adjourned till next day. 



When the Kikuyu returned next morning we had our shauri. 

 Ramathan opened it by telling the natives that we had crossed 

 Laikipia, and wanted food to enable us to return northward in 

 order to visit the great mountain of Kilinyaga (the Kikuyu 

 name for Kenya). We therefore requested permission to enter 

 their country and purchase provisions. " You shall not come 

 in," replied one gray -haired elder. " Some white men came 

 some few harvests back to our friends away there at Karthuri," 

 he said, pointing to the south-west ; " they stormed the villages, 

 they seized what food they wanted, and then burnt the rest. 

 When the elders asked for payment they were shot, while the 

 young men were taken away as slaves into the land of the 

 Masai, and we have heard of them no more." We pleaded 

 against the verdict, and protested against being made responsible 

 for the acts of our predecessors. Ramathan made a long 

 and eloquent speech, in which he expressed on my behalf the 

 utmost horror at their story. Ramathan said that the white 

 men who had done these things were bad, and that I was good ; 

 that they were men of war, while I was a man of peace ; that 

 they were great fighters, and I was a great medicine man. He 

 promised that I would pay for everything, steal nothing, and 

 harm no one. He warned them that if they refused to sell 

 food I should infer that their friends at Karthuri had done the 

 same, and that therefore the white men were justified in taking 

 it by force, and I should have to do the same myself He 



