CHAPTER XI 



THE WAKIKUYU AND WAKAMBA 



Habitation — origin — dress and ornaments — teeth-cleaning — hair- 

 dressing — mtama sellers — past and future risings — Wa- 

 kamba — fear of Masai — chicken farmers — customs — witch- 

 craft — medicine-men — KinyoUa — food. 



From the well-wooded slopes of the snow-capped 

 mountain of Kenia mentioned in the last chapter, 

 where there are a great number of them, to the 

 equally woody uplands north of Nairobi, live the 

 Kikuyu tribe, on the Kikuyu hills and plateau. 



Owing to the great famine of 1897, certain por- 

 tions of this country are now bare of the old in- 

 habitants, but they are decidedly on the increase 

 again, in fact their number will soon reach 

 1,000,000. Their land is the richest and best suited 

 to the needs of Europeans living in tropical East 

 Africa, being more temperate in climate, and with 

 excellent soil for cultivation and pasture, and also 

 well watered by many streams. 



They are a Bantu-speaking people, and their 

 language is very soft and pretty after the hard- 

 sounding Swahili. I tried hard to pick some of it 



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