THE KIKUYU 



55 



Lastly, we come to the most serious defect in the 

 Kikuyu character, and that is his extraordinary dis- 

 honesty. The Kikuyu will steal any mortal thing he 

 can. I believe that beside him even the famous ' 

 Welshman is immaculate ! He will take the crops from 

 your fields, the stores from your storeroom, the fruit 

 from your trees, and the cattle from your yard. With 

 it all he is so cunning. The settler has a heap of 

 firewood neatly cut and stacked. It stands behind 

 his house and having finished the supply that he has 

 within the same he goes to his stack to replenish it ; 

 seizing a log he pulls and to his astonishment and 

 disgust the whole edifice collapses! His Kikuyu 

 boys have very carefully abstracted the whole of the 

 interior, leaving merely sufficient outer crust to keep 

 a semblance of the original heap. I have seen the 

 same thing with regard to maize stored on a platform 

 with thin-meshed wire walls. The mesh has been 

 very carefully cut and then replaced so that the 

 removed square cannot be noticed, and then night by 

 night cobs have been removed from the interior and 

 the wall of grain built up again and the square of wire 

 replaced. Again, a tunnel has with infinite trouble 

 been dug beneath the wall of a shed and a calf con- 

 tained within removed ! 



However, with regard to petty thefts, vigilance and 

 severe punishment will do much ; but the serious 

 problem is with regard to the theft of cattle, and 

 more especially of sheep. Where flocks and herds 

 are large it is almost impossible to detect or prevent 

 this form of crime, which, I fear, is on the increase. 

 The police have proved powerless to deal with it, and 

 farmers have considered the advisability of taking the 



1 Reference is made to one " Taffy " and not to any later prototype. 



