98 Wanderings in Eastern Africa, 
wounding of his friends. I have often been struck 
with the manner in which he has controlled his tongue 
when the character and interest of others have been 
at stake. 
The Wanika, taken as a whole, are not thieves. In- 
dividuals there are who have the propensity to help 
themselves to what is not their own, but it would be 
wrong to judge a whole people by the doings of a few. 
A thief may not be held in the greatest abhorrence by 
the Wanika, but he is certainly a by-word, a proverb, 
and a laughing-stock among them. Some of them are 
really honest, and would not steal on any account. 
The Waribe are considered the most thievishly in- 
clined of all the Wanika, so much so that they have 
a proverb among them to the effect that he is not a 
child of Ribe who does not steal ; and yet, during a re- 
sidence of ten years among them, thieves have only 
troubled us on two or three occasions, and they have 
always been the same parties ; yet we leave our doors 
and windows open night and day, so that opportuni- 
ties are not wanting, if the people were disposed to 
steal. In times of famine they may help themselves 
to cassada, but this is as venial an offence as it would 
be for a hungry man in England to carry away a few 
turnips from a field through which he may happen to 
pass. 
The breach of the seventh commandment is common, 
but it is held to be a serious offence, and is punished 
by fine when discovered. Wilful qold-blooded murders 
are almost unknown. Such atrocities as fill the columns 
of our daily papers in England — a wife murdering her 
husband, husband the wife, fathers and mothers their 
children — would, if read to these savages, excite their 
