THE ENDLESS VELDT 149 



ments, with a preference for small milk cans. The 

 Masai have no music of their own, but, Uke the people 

 of all savage tribes, they go wild over American jazz. 

 We had a great deal of fun with our phonograph. 

 They could not understand where the sound was 

 coming from and would gaze all about, looking for it. 

 When we asked them what they thought made it talk, 

 their reply was that we had cut off somebody's head 

 and placed it in the box. 



We had gone over at their invitation to witness a 

 dance but were now entertaining them with our phono- 

 graph. It became so hot that the records curled up 

 and after a while the stench and the flies got so bad 

 that I lost my patience and demanded to know where 

 the dancers were. All sorts of excuses were offered as 

 a reason for not starting the performance. The crux 

 of the matter, however, was that they hoped to stall 

 me and in so doing raise the price. As I was already 

 disgusted with this outfit, I told them in a few words 

 to either start the show as agreed or we would leave. 

 The spokeswoman then said they did not want to 

 dance until a certain girl who hved over the hill arrived 

 as she had prepared special medicine for the occasion. 

 I told her that regardless of the medicine we would 

 not wait, so packing up we started away. When they 

 saw the sugar leaving she called that they would put 

 on the dance at once, but in the meantime the fhes, 

 the heat, and the odor had helped me to decide that 

 I did not care to see the dance anyway, so we left 

 them standing there, shouting and waving their arms. 



The next day, November fourteenth, being my wife's 

 birthday, gave me an excuse for declaring a hoHday 

 in camp. I ordered Ali to prepare a special dinner 



