xr SWAHILI AND OTHER NATIVE TRIBES 129 



The next people met with on the road to the 

 Great Lakes are the Wa Kamba, who inhabit the 

 Ukambani province, and may be seen from M'toto 

 Andei to the Athi River. They are a very large 

 tribe, but have little cohesion, being- split up into 

 many clans under chiefs 

 who govern in a patri- 

 archal kind of way. In 

 appearance and dress 

 or the want of it they 

 are very like the Wa 

 Taita, and they have the 

 same custom of filing 

 the front teeth. As a 

 rule, too, they are a 

 peace-loving people, 

 though when driven to 

 it by hunger they will 

 commit very cruel and 

 treacherous acts of 

 wholesale murder. 

 While the railway was 



being constructed, a severe famine occurred in their 

 part of the country, when hundreds of them died of 

 starvation. During this period they several times 

 swooped clown on isolated railway maintenance gangs 

 and utterly annihilated them, in order to obtain pos- 

 session of the food which they knew would be stored 



K 



M'KAMHA \YOMAN. 



