THE PLAINS. lOI 



When a lion is heard roaring near a kraal at night a party of warriors will 

 often go out and drive it away. The Masai probably regard the loss of a cow 

 as something more serious than a warrior being wounded or damaged. 



From their absolute indifference to game the Masai are the most admirable 

 people it would be possible to have in a game reserve. Moreover, they can live 

 in absolute harmony with the game, for both they and the game are dependent 

 for their well-being on the grazing grounds remaining intact. They leave the 

 country just as they find it save for a few cattle tracks and the grazing down of 

 the grass. An agricultural people, on the other hand, with their cutting down of 

 bush and forests and clearing and hoeing everywhere, make it impossible for any 

 game to live, and only nocturnal animals like the bushpig and the porcupine thrive, 

 which feed by night on the stolen products of the fields. The Masai, from their 

 unsuitabillty to live side by side with Europeans, have been the cause of one of 

 the greatest problems it has been the lot of the administration to have to deal 

 with. They cannot be weaned from their pastoral life, and, indeed, could they be, 

 it would be the death-blow to the organisation and independence of what is 

 undoubtedly a fine people. They are inclined to be somewhat truculent, and 

 they are inveterate cattle-thieves, but they have always played the game in 

 their relations with us. From the time we first came into their country they 

 have been our allies and never our enemies, although now and again some of 

 their young bloods have given a little trouble. They have helped us in all our 

 small expeditions against other tribes, and this has been in a measure an outlet 

 for the martial feeling which is developed by their system. 



Their organisation, for a savage people, is exceedingly good, and the allegiance 

 of all the different clans and tribes to their paramount chief, the Lunana, is 

 unquestioned. 



Seeing how well they have behaved to us in the old days when East Africa 

 was but a caravan route to Uganda, and when they might have with impunity 

 made themselves exceedingly objectionable to us, they deserve well at our hands. 

 That they should be weaned from their pastoral life, as some suggest, and that 

 their organisation should be broken up, thus reducing them to the level of the 

 timorous non-militant tribes, is hardly a fitting reward. Suggestions such as 

 these probably emanate from white men who envy their grazing-grounds and 

 wealth of stock. 



Sir Donald Stewart's arrangement that certain areas, called " Masai Reserves," 

 should be absolutely and entirely devoted to the Masai, was a very happy, and 

 really the only fair, solution to what was called the " Masai problem." In these 



