NZOIA PLATEAU AND ITS TRIBES 217 



N'dorobo. I daresay others too, but these are only deserters, 

 restless wandering fellows, or criminals driven forth from 

 their own people, or leaving them voluntarily in order to live 

 .and hunt on the veldt. Such wanderers are very common 

 in the little known parts of the Protectorate. Sometimes 

 they find their way back whence they came; in a few cases 

 they are adopted into the tribes they visit. These were the 

 wild men we met when we first hunted the country in May, 

 June, and July. They could be of little aid to us. They 

 were Nandi turned N'dorobo, poor hunters, knowing little 

 of game or its habits, living chiefly on honey (it was then the 

 honey season) or on such meat as they could get by hanging 

 on the skirts of sefaris, and on the leavings of the lion. 



Our present friends are members of the Upper Cherang- 

 ang, taking their name from the mountain range to the 

 east of the Nzoia plateau. In its highest forests they have 

 held their own for ages. The Lower Cherangang, a quite 

 separate community, hold the heavily forested lower skirts 

 of the range. Neither of these small mountain communities 

 have ever come in touch with the white man, till H. came 

 among them and won their confidence. The Lower Cher- 

 angang even he has scarcely met, they still hold aloof. If 

 you approach one of their well hidden villages you find no 

 one there, except perhaps some crippled aged folk, who 

 cannot escape into the woods. 



I was most anxious to visit this tribe, but my friends of 

 the Upper Cherangang dissuaded me. To go unannounced 

 they said, "might be dangerous." Even they could not be 

 sure of safely avoiding the numerous staked game pits which 

 filled the lower regions of the forest, besides, some of the 

 younger men might let off an arrow or two in panic 

 *' dangerous or not we should find no one." In short they 

 would not guide us there. 



These small independent communities came evidently 

 of good stock. They could not possibly be ranked as pigmy, 



