100 EASTERN ETHIOPIA viii 



beast. Drinking blood seems a horrible practice, but 

 the poor in Enghmd eat a large quantity of blood in the 

 form of a sausage known as " black pudding " which 

 consists of bullocks' Idood, spiced, mixed with fat and 

 cooked. Blood is an important ingredient in the haggis 

 so famous in Scotland, and in whose honour Burns wrote 

 a poem descril)ing it as the 



"Great Chieftain o' the puddin' race." 



Moreover, some thirty years ago the drinking of warm 

 bullocks' blood was advocated as a cure for consumption, 

 and patients afflicted with this disease would regularly 

 attend slaughter-houses in London and drink the pre- 

 scribed quantity of this supposed specific. 



As the Masai live on milk, meat, and blood, and hunt 

 no game, they are dependent on their flocks and herds. 

 Zebras, gazelles, and kongoni run unmolested with the 

 cattle. Their domestic animals are cattle, sheep, goats, 

 donkeys, and dogs. The cattle are humped (zebus) and 

 oxen without humps they treat with disdain. The 

 settlers have crossed some of the native cattle with un- 

 humped species and in two generations the hump 

 disappears. 



Anatomically the hump of the zebu consists of fat 

 interspersed with muscle fibre ; the latter is derived 

 from the l>road thin stratum of muscle known as the 

 panniculus carnosus, immediately beneath the skin. 

 This is the muscle which enables oxen and horses to 

 twitch tlieir skin, especially when irritated by flies. 

 The hump is excellent to eat, especially when salted. 

 The cattle can take care of themselves. It is stated 

 that a herd will charge a leopard, or a hysena, and 

 leave it a sluqjeless mass. It is common for a ):)oy 

 of five or six years to be left in charge of a herd of 

 cattle and manage them without difficulty. It is 

 strano'e that cattle allow children to manao-e them so 

 easily. Kipling, in the delightful Jumjle Book, refers to 

 thi^ matter in India : the very cattle, he writes, that 



