2io THE LAND OF THE LION 



could haunt the scenes of their wrongs, this would indeed 

 be a gruesome and uncanny land to dwell in. Even the 

 unobservant sportsmen cannot fail to notice all over this 

 country innumerable stone circles and walls, more or less 

 solidly put together, which stand in groups, some big, and 

 some little ; many thousands of such dwellings, or stone out- 

 lines of dwellings, still stud the veldt, and crowd on the hilly 

 slopes of the plateau and the country nearby. Who raised 

 them ? When were they built, these habitations so 

 unlike all other African dwellings ? What evil fortune has 

 overwhelmed those who once lived therein ? No one can 

 answer with any certitude these questions. The wandering 

 Nandi, the N'dorobo of the neighbouring mountains, mum- 

 ble something of "the spirits" that long ago were the 

 builders. None of themselves have any idea of a stone kraal. 



In other countries tradition of some sort lives for 

 several generations, at least, and the name of the tribe, if 

 little more, is sure to survive the tribe for long. Here it is 

 not so. Names among these people mean little. The name 

 Lumbwa for instance, now used by that tribe living near the 

 lake, is not their rightful name. So lately as fifteen years ago 

 they called themselves Sikesi. The white men who came 

 first to this country on their way to Uganda before reaching 

 them, passed through Massai tribes, of whom they asked 

 naturally the name of the people they should next meet. 

 The Massai said they were "Lumbwa," their own term of 

 contempt for them. By it therefore the visitors called them. 

 By it they have ever since been called, and by it they have 

 ended in calling themselves. 



The very name, then, of the unfortunate people whose 

 kraals dot perhaps the richest plateau in East Africa is 

 uncertain. Probably they were called Sarequa. Were 

 they a fighting race, who held their rich home land against 

 a league of tribes that coveted their herds and unequalled 

 pasturage ? And were they, only at last, by overwhelming 



