246 ELEPHANT-HUNTING IN EAST AFRICA chap. 



times of famine the aged and weakly succumb, and this 

 doubtless tends to preserve the stamina of the race. The 

 price of a wife among them is ten bee-tubs, as going concerns ; 

 but Lesiat explained, when asked why, since he was so anxious 

 for more progeny, he did not marry another (for they are not 

 restricted in the number they may wed), that the girls can 

 choose their own husbands and only marry young men. 



The Ndorobos of the present day are a mixed race. You 

 see quite different types among them. Some are black, with 

 negro characteristics, others comparatively light-coloured and 

 have the better features and hair of the Masai. This is ex- 

 plained by information I got in the course of interesting con- 

 versations I had with Lesiat and others of themselves. 



Originally there were small, cattle-owning tribes in this 

 country, akin to the Wakwavi and Masai, but weak and dis- 

 united. The sites of some of their former kraals have been 

 pointed out to me and are still discernible. The Wakwavi, 

 who then frequented the pasture land west of the Lorogis (which 

 are, in fact, the north-eastern extremity of the region common!}- 

 called Leikipia), where their former cattle-tracks can be even 

 now plainly made out, raided all their cattle, and were subse- 

 quently themselves driven out by invading Masai. Row-row's 

 people — now living under the eastern side of Kenia — are the 

 remnants of the former, while the nearest Masai are to-day at the 

 western base of that mountain. But the survivors of the petty 

 tribes of this district, who had lost their live stock, joined the 

 original Ndorobos, who from time immemorial had lived as 

 these do to-day, and took to their mode of life. One old man 

 (of genuine woolly-headed, negroid type) was pointed out to 

 me as a specimen of the pure old Xdorobo stock. 



Since Abdulla and his men had left on their second trip to 

 Mthara, ill luck had invariably attended me, with the result that 

 either through unfavourable conditions or my own clumsiness, 

 or a combination of both, I had not killed a single elephant. 

 We had, indeed, picked up, during my week in the Lorogis, one 



