UGANDA 287 



numbers of N'Derobo. Old Sumatwa was one of 

 these. I can picture him now coming down from 

 the forest to the Httle camp where I was super- 

 intending the cutting up of a Jackson's harte- 

 beeste — an old man with long, thin, aged legs 

 striding down the hillside, carefully picking his 

 path and giving one the impression that he was 

 following a zigzag spoor. Sumatwa' s life had 

 been spent in hunting; no hoof-marks missed 

 his eye, no Serval cat bounded away into the 

 long grass but he saw every leap. His dominat- 

 ing passion in life had been the following and 

 killing of game, and into every glance and move- 

 ment he threw his calling. Game was to him the 

 alpha and omega of existence, and when fresh 

 meat was not to be obtained he would greedily 

 devour the most revolting offal. His overlords, 

 the Masai, said of him and his people, " After 

 the lion comes the hyaena and jackal, then the 

 vulture, and then the N'Derobo." He had no 

 hut, no lasting or even temporary abode. He 

 was a nomad who would tell you but little of 

 himself or his people, and who knew nothing of 

 his history and cared a great deal less. 



The day will come when the glorious highlands 

 of western British East Africa will be tenanted 

 by whites from the Uasin Gishu plateau to the 

 northern confines of German East Africa, and, 

 like the wild animals of the forests and plains 

 of that strangely fascinating land, the N'Derobo 

 will die before the advance of civilization. 



As the shrouds of romance and abysmal ignor- 

 ance are raised off the face of Africa, her own 

 innate mysteries will be washed away as the 

 clouds and mists are sometimes lifted off the 

 shy face of Mount Kenia. And so the descendants 

 of old Sumatwa will disappear into the realms 



