BRITISH EAST AFRICA 183 



personae are Government officials, big-game 

 enthusiasts, long-bearded Italian missionaries, men 

 from a land where rouge and face powder are 

 used instead of clay and mud and evil-smelling 

 grease. Meru is in the centre of a hill country. 

 In the forests herds of elephants roam and 

 strip and feed. But there are few great bulls 

 left in the troops. Time was when the early 

 officials could shoot their tuskers before break- 

 fast. Here the Roosevelt expedition halted for 

 a while and five or six elephants fell to their 

 rifles. 



The Wa-Meru are an offshoot of the great Ki- 

 kuyu tribe. They can boast of a large proportion 

 of finely-built men, some of whom are really 

 handsome, despite their endeavours to render 

 themselves hideous by means of clay and grease 

 rubbed into their faces and often worked into a 

 grotesque patchwork. Many of their women- 

 folk, too, are of fine physique and appearance, 

 although the male members of the community 

 seem to have monopolized the greater share 

 when good looks and healthy physique were 

 originally served out. 



Their " El-moran," or young warriors, are, 

 as a whole, a fine body of men, agile and well 

 knitted together. They are athletes of no mean 

 ability, and are particularly proficient in the 

 art of wrestling. They mat and plait the hair, 

 and rub grease and mud into the knotted plaits. 

 Armed with long, keen-bladed spears and mur- 

 derous-looking swords, they have proved them- 

 selves foes of no mean mettle on more than one 

 occasion. When Meru was first established as 

 an administrative Boma, the countryside ran 

 blood because of " nguos," or vendettas, sworn 

 by the El-moran. A whole " rika," or clan, 



