-») 



The Spell of the Hlelescho 



saw thcin once more, not long a_o-o, under these new 

 conditions, already to a great extent changed hy luiropean 

 inlliience — and changed in a way that was not at all to 

 their advantage. Usine, instead of the beautiful Masai 

 dialects, some mangled fragments of English, they scorn- 

 fully refused objects of barter that were eagerly coveted 

 ten years ago, and insisted on coined money. They no 

 longer wore their nati\e ornaments, but were dressed in 

 European second-hand clothes. In a word they were 

 stripped of all the wild and primitive beauty that had once 

 distinguished them. 



It is a hard fate, when a rude aboriginal people is all 

 of a sudden brought into touch with those of a high 

 decree of ci\ilisation. 



As the former lord of the land ' was deprived of his 

 rights, so the same fate, more or less, befalls the splendid 

 animal world that lends its charm to these solitudes. 



But then — ten years ago! I had been given back to 

 life after sharp suffering, and all that I was now allowed 

 to see in such rich abundance spoke to me in a more than 

 ordinarily impressive language, a language that seemed 

 to me to have an enduring charm. 



And how clearly must this language have sounded in 

 the times ot the primitive past ! 



^ As late as the year 1859 the Masai warriors menaced the places on 

 the coast between Tanga and INIomhassa ! Even in the eighties the 

 explorers Thomson and Fischer had to submit to their demands. To 

 that flourishing period of the Masai belongs the origin of their view that 

 even if the Bantu Negro races have cattle, they must have been stolen from 

 the Masai, for, as they say, " God gave us in earlier days all the cattle on 

 the face of the earth." 



43 



