266 THROUGH MASAILAND TO THE BORDERS OF KIKUYU 



courtesy signs of weakness. So they became more impudent 

 than usual, and two thefts were attempted in the afternoon. 

 One moran snatched a piece of meat out of the hand of a porter 

 and ran off with it. The porter yelled to him to bring it back, 

 and as he did not obey, fired, missing the robber, who, however, 

 dropped the meat. Another stole a wooden spoon from our 

 cook, and was disappearing with it when one of our light-footed 

 Somal caught him, wrenched away his booty, and gave him a 

 good drubbing with it. Nothing further came of either incident, 

 but a less satisfactory accident occurred to the traders. As 

 already several times remarked, the people from the coast 

 delight in making the natives wait upon them, and Kijanja, 

 the guide and headman of Kimemeta's caravan, had made a 

 moran fetch water and other things for him. As a pledge of 

 faithfulness, the warrior had left his spear in Kijanja's tent, 

 and came to fetch it in the evening after being paid for his 

 work. But the spear had disappeared, and though the whole 

 camp was searched for it, it could not be found. The traders 

 offered the man another and much better spear, but he would 

 have his own back and no other. The whole thing was in fact 

 a trick ; the moran had got one of his comrades to carry off the 

 spear, and knew that he could get pretty well anything he liked 

 out of the terrified traders. He demanded the value of ten 

 cows in goods. The traders, who all hang together in their 

 journeys in Masailand, got the goods together with much 

 incense-burning and praying, the death of the thief being the 

 principal thing asked of Heaven ; and the moran eventually 

 went off' chuckling, with 200 coils of iron wire, 100 of brass 

 wire, 100 strings of beads, and ten naiberes. 



The traders, who were ashamed of the whole affair, tried to 

 keep it secret from us, but the incense-burning betrayed them. 

 Count Teleki would never have submitted to such an extortion, 

 though he would have paid what he thought really fair. We 



