CHAP. XVIII THE GALLA 367 



therefore not impossible that this great tribe may acquire 

 those habits of peaceful industry, which alone can save it from 

 extermination. But this is not the view that is taken by most 

 of the travellers who have seen much of the Masai. Proud 

 and indolent, with an inherited contempt for honest work, and 

 an ingrained hatred of steady exertion, it is doubtful whether 

 the race will be able to accommodate itself to a settled life, or 

 ever acquire the habits of discipline necessary in European 

 service. Whether the Masai will be able to adapt themselves 

 to altered conditions or not, it is certain that they will not do 

 so until their military power has been broken. In British 

 East Africa they play the part which was formerly taken by 

 the Zulu and Matabili in the south, and by the Manyema on 

 the Congo, a part which is still played by the Somali and 

 Abyssinians farther north. Each of these held as their sacred 

 vested interest the right to help themselves to the property 

 of their weaker neighbours. While this claim is maintained, 

 there is no hope of security or peace in the regions which they 

 raid. 



The southward advance of the Somali proceeds in quite a 

 different manner from that of the Masai, for though they make 

 raids, these have less effect than their slow, persistent en- 

 croachment upon their neighbour's territory. The power of 

 the Somali is of quite recent growth. In the days when 

 Vasco da Gama sailed up the coast of East Africa, they had 

 not reached the Juba, and the Galla lorded it over the whole 

 country from Abyssinia to Mombasa. 



The Galla themselves were no doubt originally intruders 

 into Africa. They appear to have crossed from Asia in the 

 neighbourhood of Aden and the Straits of Babel -Mandeb. 

 Thanks to their superior intelligence, and the skill with which 

 they use their long broad - headed spears and round leather 

 shields, they spread southward, driving the former Bantu 

 inhabitants before them, and further reducing the few remnants 

 of the aboriginal Negrillo race. Here and there in the Galla 

 country, tribes of the older people have been allowed to survive, 

 owing to their skill in managing canoes, as the Wa-pokomo, or 

 in hunting, as the Walangulo or Waboni. They were, however, 

 all reduced to the position of helots. But to-day the Galla 

 power is broken. In the north the raids of the Abyssinians 



