210 THE LAND .OF THE LION 
could haunt the scenes of their wrongs, this would indeed 
be a gruesome and uncanny land to dwell in. Even the 
unobservant sportsmen cannot fail to notice all over this 
country innumerable stone circles and walls, more or less 
solidly put together, which stand in groups, some big, and 
some little; many thousands of such dwellings, or stone out- 
lines of dwellings, still stud the veldt, and crowd on the hilly 
slopes of the plateau and the country nearby. Who raised 
them? When were they built, these habitations so 
unlike all other African dwellings? What evil fortune has 
overwhelmed those who once lived therein? No one can 
answer with any certitude these questions. The wandering 
Nandi, the N’dorobo of the neighbouring mountains, mum- 
ble something of ‘“‘the spirits’ that long ago were the 
builders. None of themselves have any idea of a stone kraal. 
In other countries tradition of some sort lives for 
several generations, at least, and the name of the tribe, if 
little more, is sure to survive the tribe for long. Here it is 
notso. Names among these people mean little. The name 
Lumbwa for instance, now used by that tribe living near the 
lake, is not their rightfulname. So lately as fifteen years ago 
they called themselves Sikesi. ‘The white men who came 
first to this country on their way to Uganda before reaching 
them, passed through Massai tribes, of whom they asked 
naturally the name of the people they should next meet. 
The Massai said they were “‘ _Lumbwa,” their own term of 
contempt for them. By it therefore the visitors called them. 
By it they have ever since been called, and by it they have 
ended in calling themselves. 
The very name, then, of the unfortunate people whose 
kraals dot perhaps the richest plateau in East Africa is 
uncertain. Probably they were called Sarequa. Were 
they a fighting race, who held their rich home land against 
a league of tribes that coveted their herds and unequalled 
pasturage? And were they, only at last, by overwhelming 
