CH. XII] THE NDOKOBO 857 



lion in its turn killed two of their hunters. In fact, 

 they were living just as palaeolithic man lived in Europe 

 ages ago. 



Their arms were bows and arrows, the arrows being 

 carried in skin quivers, and the bows, whicli were strung 

 with zebra gut, l)eing swathed in strips of hide. When 

 resting they often stood on one leg, like storks. 'I'heir 

 eyesight was marvellous, and they were extremely skilful 

 alike in tracking and in seeing game. They threaded 

 their way through the forest noiselessly and at speed, 

 and were extraordinary climbers. They were continually 

 climbing trees to get at the hyrax, and once when a big 

 black and white colobus monkey whicli I had shot 

 lodged in the top of a giant cedar one of them ascended 

 and brought it down with matter-of-course inditference. 

 He cut down a sapling, twenty-five feet long, with the 

 stub of a stout branch left on as a hook, and for a rope 

 used a section of vine which he broke and twisted into 

 flexibility. Then, festooned with all his belongings, he 

 made the ascent. There was a tall olive, sixty or eighty 

 feet high, close to the cedar, and up this he went. 

 From its topmost branches, where only a monkey or a 

 'Ndorobo could liave felt at home, he reached his sapling 

 over to the lowest limb of the giant cedar, and hooked 

 it on ; and then crawled across on this dizzy bridge. 

 Up he went, got the monkey, recrossed the bridge, and 

 climbed down again, quite unconcerned. 



'I'he big black and white monkeys ate nothing but 

 leaves, and usually trusted for safety to ascending into 

 the \'ery tops of the tallest cedars. Occasionally they 

 would come in a flying leap down to the ground, or to 

 a neighbouring tree ; when on the ground they merely 

 dashed toward another tree, being less agile than the 

 ordinary monkeys, whether in the tree-tops or on solid 



