XIII A SO/0 URN A T RESHIA T AND KERE 291 



which the Swahihs call Wakwavi, a pastoral people who 

 formerly lived side by side with the Masai (to whom they are 

 akin), and by which race of marauders they were, after long 

 fighting, dispersed. They are now scattered far and wide ov^er 

 East Equatorial Africa, and members of the clan may be met 

 with living among the different tribes in the most distant 

 parts. They are useful as affording means of communication 

 with the peoples among whom they have settled, and whose 

 languages they have acquired, for every caravan has some men 

 with more or less knowledge of Masai. There are, of course, 

 drawbacks to passing all one has to say and the answers 

 through two interpreters (one is bad enough, even if efficient), 

 and no doubt the meaning is often altered or turned upside 

 down ; but in these remote parts, so seldom visited even by 

 Swahili traders, one may think oneself lucky to be able to 

 communicate at all, however imperfectly, with the inhabitants. 



Lekwais (such was my present interviewer's name) told 

 me that around Bumi, the next district, which we should reach 

 on the morrow, were many elephants ; and that some had 

 been seen that very day b}' a boy who had come from there. 

 One herd, he told me, had its retreat by day in bush growing 

 1)1 the lake itself, but might be found outside in the early 

 morning ; others were in the habit of coming down to drink 

 during the night, and retreating to the back country for the 

 hours of da)-light. It was from him that I first learnt that 

 there was only one river entering the lake, from the north (as 

 Dr. Donaldson Smith found and has now made known), and 

 not two as had been supposed. Lekwais called this river the 

 Warr, but said (as I afterwards myself found) that it had a 

 variety of names. 



This elephant news was indeed encouraging ; and I could 

 not help thinking continually how very fortunate I had been 

 to reach this country so successfully and easily ; my men and 

 donkeys all safe and sound, not one having been seriously 

 sick or sorry since leaving Nyiro. All through this wide 



