DISTRICTS NORTTI OF LAKE RUDOLF 



163 



offered for sale. Our men got such good rations now that 

 the}^ were able to eat their fill without any trouble taken by 

 themselves. Later in the afternoon natives came in from a dis- 

 tance with dhurra and tobacco, and generally just before sunset 

 a few men or women would appear with milk, fish, or pieces of 

 beef. All day long, however, a few young or old men would 

 stop in camp to chat or otherwise amuse themselves, and we 

 made them welcome, as they never did anything to annoy us. 

 They did not beg or attempt to steal, they were neither impor- 

 tunate nor shy, and they maintained this satisfactory behaviour 

 from first to last. 



In spite of our friendly relations with the Eeshiat, it was 

 extremely difficult to get any reliable facts about the surround- 

 ing country, as our questions were either cautiously answered, 

 evaded, or taken no notice of. We concluded at last that the 

 natives were forbidden to give us any information, but why, we 

 failed to discover. The following is a brief summary of what 

 we either observed for ourselves or wormed out of the Eeshiat. 



These people occupy the flat district stretching away from 

 the northern shore of Lake Eudolf, their territory extending on 

 the west rather further north than on the east, being bound in 

 the former direction by Mount ISTakua. Two large rivers, the 

 Bas and the Nianamm, one of them also called the Leba, which 

 flow into Lake Eudolf on the north, cut their land into two 

 parts, the western half of which is more thickly populated than 

 the eastern. Each division has its own Leibon, and another 

 official called the Oromaj, whose position perhaps corresponds 

 with that of the upper Lygonani of the Masai. Apparently 

 there are four large Eeshiat villages with three settlements 

 of Burkeneji and Eandile in the western, and only three large 

 Eeshiat villages in the eastern portion of what may be called 

 Eeshiatland. All we ourselves saw were the big village near 

 our camp, and several small enclosures containing a few huts, 



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