MOMBASA TO KIKUYU. 19 



treacherous, and are only too anxious to spear a 

 lagging porter. Mr. Hall at that time never went 

 more than half a mile from the fort ; one of his 

 headmen had been attacked and lost a portion of 

 his nose within 400 yards of the gate, and they 

 had even attempted to take the fort itself. 



One of these people described to Mr. Hall how 

 they killed forty-nine out of fifty men of a Suahili 

 or Arab trading caravan who had offended them. 

 " We crept very closely round their camp at night 

 and watched their sentinel. First he walked about, 

 and we kept very quiet ; then he sat down by 

 the fire and his head began to nod ; sometimes he 

 would raise it and yawn ; but at last he rolled 

 himself in his rug and blanket and went to sleep. 

 Then we told off four men to every tent and ran 

 in and killed them all. We got lots of ivory and 

 cloth and guns and beads." 



These are the people amongst whom Mr. and 

 Mrs. Watt and their five children (the eldest only, 

 I think, ten years of age) proposed to settle 

 down ! 



The entrances to their villages, usually built in 

 very thick thorny bush, are carefully arranged in 

 such a way that a visitor who does not know when 

 to take a turn to the right or left will probably 

 find himself in a pit and very likely impaled on 

 a sharp-pointed pole — like Ben Battle of classic 

 memory — which stands in the bottom of it. 



The Kikuyu country, however, is a most fertile 



