A PLEA FOR THE NATIVE 377 



In their regard for truth there is the widest difference 

 among the tribes of East Africa. The remoter, the wilder, 

 the tribe, the more truthful you will find the tribesman! 

 The Waganda by the lake, who are comparatively well 

 known, and among whom missionaries, both English and 

 French, have laboured with great success for many years, 

 have attained to a degree of culture quite unexampled in 

 East or Central Africa. These are sadly acknowledged to 

 be, even by their missionary guides and teachers, both 

 dishonest and untruthful. The Kikuyu are noted liars and 

 thieves. The Massai and the Nandi will deliberately lie to 

 you, though I have noticed that if you know the man to 

 whom you are appealing, and ask him directly to tell you 

 the real truth or be silent, he will pluck a blade of grass 

 and hold it for a moment between his fingers; if, after hav- 

 ing done so, he repeats his previous statement, it will be the 

 truth. I have in another place written at some length 

 of what impressed me as the quite extraordinary regard 

 for truth that you find among some of the smaller and 

 unknown tribes. I cannot fancy any man more scrupu- 

 lously accurate than the N'dorobo, a tribe popularly (and 

 I feel sure mistakenly) supposed to be people of a low order 

 of intelligence. The Elgao would proudly declare that no 

 liar could remain in the tribe. They asserted as much of 

 their neighbours, the Maraquette, with whom they were 

 not always on the best of terms. No scientific man could 

 possibly desire more careful, more accurate, more pains- 

 taking witnesses to facts that come within their observation, 

 than were these wild men, who had never conversed with 

 any white man but myself and my guide, Mr. A. C. Hoey. 

 Their power of observation was excellent, their statements 

 of the incidents of a quite bloody battle in which they had 

 engaged three years before was, as I happened to be able 

 to prove, wonderfully free of all exaggeration. 



How then can we account for this remarkable difference 



