NAIOKOTUKU. 369 



had them in our hands we craftily discoursed as 

 follows : 



" These are beautiful weapons, the most 

 beautiful we have ever seen. Since you are 

 going so spend the night in our camp, and since 

 we greatly fear that some of our men might steal 

 these beautiful weapons, we will ourselves guard 

 them for you carefully from theft until morning." 



So saying, we deposited them inside the tent. 

 Then we knew we had our Masai safe. They 

 would never dream of leaving while the most 

 cherished of their possessions were in hostage. 



