V 



TRAVELS IN EASTERN AFRICA 



159 



our camp at Hameye. He told this to the old men, 

 and presently returned with a request from them for a 

 present. As it is customary to begin one's acquaint- 

 ance with a strange tribe with gifts, we sent a quantity 

 of beads and wire to them by Motio. He returned with 

 the intelligence that they were dissatisfied with the 

 present. This I had expected ; so I told him to inform 

 them that the present I had given them was but a 

 small beginning of what would be theirs, should they 

 behave properly toward us ; and to assure them that 

 not only would we give liberal prices for food, but that, 

 as soon as we had bought all we needed, we would dis- 

 tribute the remainder of our goods among the tribe, as 

 a proof of our friendship and liberality. 



Motio said that they refused to bring food on that 

 day, but that on the following day their chief medicine- 

 man would come, and make blood brothers with the 

 white man ; and then trade would begin. We were 

 much disgusted at this turn of affairs, but decided to 

 make the best of it ; and so sent word to the Wamsara 

 that we would expect their medicine-man early the next 

 morning. Thereupon, the natives marched away, shout- 

 ing what Motio told us was a war-chant, and during the 

 afternoon no natives appeared. 



That night there was a good moon, and about mid- 

 night my gun-bearer, Karscho, awoke me with the 

 intelligence that there was a rhinoceros drinking at a 

 spring not more than sixty feet away, I leaped from 

 my bed, and seized a rifle; knowing that if I succeeded 

 in Ijringing down the rhinoceros, the question of food 

 supply would be solved for a period of at least two days. 

 But I was destined to disappointment; for ere I was 



