234 THE LAND OF THE LION 
Allthe community keep within doors for two days, the women 
crying loudly. They honour a mother in this respect, as 
they doa father. If anyone dies childless, the body is drawn 
into the bushes and left to the fécé and birds. 
The one thing that impressed me above all others in 
meeting and questioning the Elgoa and Cherangang is 
their high regard for the truth. No one but an ignorant 
and most unobservant man could possibly speak of those 
tribes, who are still uninfluenced by the white man, as 
untruthful. Very much the reverse is the case. A man 
questioned by you will pause and take evident pains to be 
accurate. A Swahili, a man of very mixed race, or a porter 
who has been for years round a town or boma, may lie if 
you confuse him or make him afraid, though this is not nearly 
so common a thing as it would be among ourselves). But 
a native East African, even if the truth be to his manifest 
disadvantage, scarcely ever lies. Confuse him (he is easily 
confused) and he may try to say what he fancies his bwana 
wants him to say, but be patient with him, let him tell his 
story in his own roundabout way, and from beginning to 
end he will so tell it as to do accurate justice, so far as he 
knows, to his adversary as well as to himself. 
I have been deeply touched often, as I watched these 
poor fellows witnessing truthfully to their own expected 
hurt (I speak of all East African natives). 
In Elgoa the liar is a doubly branded man. If he is 
known to have lied in any important matter, he is officially 
driven from the community. 
Take the matter of their dearly loved cattle as an illus- 
tration. If they accept the care of some cows or goats 
for a stranger, years may pass before that outsider can 
claim his own; he may, however, depend on an accurate 
accounting for every calf or kid born during the interval, 
no matter how long it be; no one, from chief to herd boy, 
but will tell him all the truth. Fancy what the result of 
