NZOIA PLATEAU AND ITS TRIBES 221 



guides' contention is true, and that in the long grass and 

 cover, the spear and shield armed warriors of the Karamojo, 

 Elgao, or Nandi, are no match for them. 



Where these people came from they have no idea. They 

 say they were here before the Massai, before the Sarequa, 

 and Massai tradition asserts as much. But wherever they 

 came from, even to a casual observer it is evident that they 

 are a highly developed race. Often the hair alone is 

 negroid in type, the lips are thin, the nose fine, sometimes 

 almost aquiline, the forehead well modelled. I said 

 some way back that we came on the trail of an Elgoa 

 war party, and that these Cherangang guides of ours 

 seemed instinctively to know whence it came, and on what 

 errand it was bound. Their guess we proved afterward 

 to be accurate in every particular. It seems the Elgoa had 

 been obliged to pay their hut tax (but lately imposed on this 

 tribe) in goats. Said they, "The white man has taken many 

 of our goats, and says he will take more ; let us go and take 

 some of the Katosche's goats to make up." One has heard 

 of larger and more civilized peoples going to war on pretty 

 much the same ground. One of our best hunters, a half- 

 breed, Massai Nandi, who has done a lot of "scrapping" 

 in his day, was heard to remark, under his breath, that if 

 "Bwana Hoey had not engaged him just then he'd dearly 

 have liked to join the crowd." They are born "scrappers," 

 these people, one and all. They don't make the fuss and 

 boastful show, that our own red men, in the days of their 

 power and glory, so loved to indulge in. They go much 

 more quietly about the trade of stealing and murder, and 

 indeed are far braver men. Their contempt for life, all life 

 including their own, is complete. Death seems to mean 

 very little to them. They bury one of their own dead, if 

 you insist on it. If you do not, they leave the body in the 

 nearest clump of bushes, and no shadow of death seems to 

 trouble, even for an hour, the living. 



