374 



THROUGH JUNGLE AND DESERT 



CHAP. 



I cannot vouch for. Love of freedom and laziness 

 are the only apparent inducements which cause the 

 Wanderobbo to lead their precarious life. They im- 

 pressed me as being more like wild animals than 

 men. Restraint of the slightest nature they could 

 not brook ; and although they readily admitted the 

 advantages accruing from cultivation of the soil, they 

 flatly refused to have anything to do with such work, 

 notwithstanding the fact that I offered them hoes 

 and seeds, and told them how to plant and cultivate. 



Later, during my journey, two of these people at- 

 tached themselves to my caravan, and from them I 

 gathered some idea of their mode of life. In the 

 rainy season, when the bees make no honey, and the 

 able-bodied men are unable, on account of the moist- 

 ure, to use their bows with effect, they have but one 

 means left for supporting life. This is, for some one 

 to climb a tree, or ascend some high hill, and there 

 watch for vultures. When they see these birds cir- 

 cling about and finally descending to the earth, word 

 is sent to the village, and all sally forth in search of 

 food. They will eat anything in the shape of meat, 

 be its state of putrefaction what it may; and I was 

 told that they frequently battled with hyenas and 

 vultures for the remains of the carcass of some beast, 

 slain by a lion or other animal, long after an ordi- 

 nary human being would be willing to approach 

 within loo yards of it. 



From the Masai who had settled among the Wan- 

 derobbo I gathered the following information con- 

 cerning the dispersal of the Masai, after the plague 

 had destroyed their flocks and herds. When the 



