THE OROMAJ OR CHIEF OF THE RESHIAT VILLAGE 157 



approach nearer until the fence was completed, and show them 

 some of our wares, with a view to finding out what they would 

 like best. But now a great disappointment awaited us. Iron 

 was worthless, the}^ did not care for stuffs, and they took 

 our little beads for seeds. The only things they fancied were 

 the big blue ukuta beads, which, though they had never 

 seen them before, they at once called Tcharra or Tchalla. 

 Of these, unfortunately, we had only ten strings, so they 

 were no good for bartering purposes. Not until the women 

 put in their word on the subject were the blue and red Masai 

 beads allowed to be worth anything, and they were finally 

 accepted as currency, one string being taken as of equal 

 value to about two pints of dhurra. At this rate, without 

 further discussion, some fifteen loads of grain were quickly 

 purchased under Qualla's superintendence, our men being 

 forbidden to do any bartering on their own account, lest our 

 currency should become depreciated by competition. 



When the market was in full swing and the natives had 

 furtively looked their fill from a distance at our white faces, we 

 approached them in a friendly manner, to find that even the 

 warriors shrank from us with the greatest dislike, not appa- 

 rently from fear or shyness, but from disgust. Some prime 

 tobacco, which I offered to one man, was indignantly refused, 

 although all the Eeshiat are very fond of chewing tobacco and 

 taking it as snufi*. The feeling of repulsion, however, soon wore 

 off, and in the afternoon some two hundred men and women 

 crowded into and about the camp, touching and staring at all 

 the things new to them. 



The chief of the village, or, as they called him here, the 

 Oromaj, also came to see us. He was about fifty years old, 

 very slim, and more than six feet high. He wore no ornaments, 

 and his only clothing was a coarsely woven sackcloth-like 

 garment several yards long, made of sheep's wool, such as we 



