via THE MASAI 95 



elephant's tusk, is only worn by elders who possess large 

 herds of cattle and many children : it denotes the 

 wearer's wealth. Examples of Ijoth kinds of clamp are 

 shown in the British Museum. 



When a warrior attains the age of thirty years he 

 marries and settles, and if a man of importance he may 

 be elected chief The life of a warrior is a tame affair 

 now that this tribe is under British control. Raiding, 

 cattle stealing, plundering, and murdering are not per- 

 mitted. Some notion of the extent and frequency of 

 Masai raids may be gathered from Gregory's statement 

 based on his own observations in 1893. 



" South of Merifano on the Tana, Harris and I found 

 the Galla driving their Hocks and herds across the river 

 to escape the marauders, and saw the smoke of theliurn- 

 ing villages wdience the natives had Hed. At the 

 Kiboko river I found the dead bodies of some AVa- 

 Kamba who must have been surprised and murdered in 

 their sleep, as their arrows were still in their sheaths, 

 and their simes in their scabbards. Two days' journey 

 north of this place the road was littered with the debris 

 of broken boxes captured from a caravan taking stores 

 to Sir Gerald Portal's party in Uganda. Again, on the 

 Kapte plains near Bondini, during our second march 

 south fronr Machakos, we encountered a small party of 

 El-J\loran, who were on their way to attack some Ki- 

 Kamba villages. (Jn the plains of the Thika-Thika we 

 met some Kikuyu refugees from Igeti ; their country 

 had been ravaged l)y the Masai army which we had 

 seen enkraaled on the shores of Lake Naivasha, and the 

 district, for two days' march in length by one in breadth, 

 had been cleared as if by a hurricane. The fugitives 

 described the sudden attack, the massacre, the devasta- 

 tion of the plantations, the capture of the cattle and 

 the burning ot the villages. And yet as we listened to 

 this sickening story, we realised that this was merely 

 one incident in a continuous series of such horrors." 



The warriors in the zenith of their power would 



