348 AFRICAN CAMP FIRES. 



the people. In perusing the following fragmentary 

 account the reader must first of all divest his 

 mind of what he would, according to white 

 man's standards, consider moral or immoral. 

 Such things must be viewed from the standpoint 

 of the people believing in them. The Masai are 

 moral in the sense that they very rigorously live 

 up to their own customs and creeds. Their 

 women are strictly chaste in the sense that 

 they conduct no affairs outside those permitted 

 within the tribe. No doubt, from the Masai point 

 of view, we are ourselves immoral. 



The small boy, as soon as he is big enough to 

 be responsible and that is very early in life is 

 given, in company with others, charge of a flock 

 of sheep. Thence he graduates to the precious 

 herds of cows. He wears little or nothing; is armed 

 with a throwing club (a long stick), or perhaps later 

 a broad-bladed, short-headed spear of a pattern 

 peculiar to boys and young men. His life is thus 

 over the free open hills and veld until, some- 

 where between the ages of eighteen and twenty- 

 one, the year of the circumcision comes. Then 

 he enters on the long ceremonies that initiate 

 him into the warrior class. My knowledge of 

 the details of this subject is limited ; for while I 

 had the luck to be in Masailand on the fourth year, 



