128 
ELEPHANT-HUNTING IN EAST AFRICA 
CHAP. 
dinner, and we went out, between the courses, to find a hyena 
dead in front of the gun, it having acted perfectly. Another 
shot itself before I went to sleep. Before morning it went off 
a third time, but without result, as the bait had got loose. I 
have spent many much less contented Christmases. We gave 
our men a young bull, all to themselves, to celebrate the 
festival.” 
From here we moved farther round the base of the 
mountain towards the south-east, and ascended, before camp¬ 
ing, to a height of perhaps 8000 or 9000 feet. Our camp 
here was above all the settlements and slightly below the 
untouched forest, and commanded an extensive view over the 
country below. Between Jambeni and Kenia is a broad valley, 
fertile and abundantly watered. I saw a good deal at one 
time and another of this part, as well as that about the foot 
of Kenia on its eastern and north-eastern sides. The lower 
slopes were probably all forest once, but much has been cleared, 
and a large proportion of the land is cultivated by the natives, 
who are numerous here, the tribes being those of Mnyithu and 
Katheri. All these people are akin to those of Kikuyu. But 
there is also a clan of Wakw r avi (a branch of the Masai), living 
alongside of Katheri, and a community of Ndorobos, too ; thus 
three distinct races with different customs live side by side. 
The people of Katheri cultivate, and also own some stock ; the 
Wakwavi are purely pastoral ; while the Ndorobos (a very 
inferior sample of the race) live on what they can pick up in 
the forest or cadge from their neighbours, who tolerate them on 
the strength of an occasional tusk of ivory they may now and 
again get out of them. 
These Wakwavi, who still own considerable herds of cattle, 
live in great dread of the Masai of Ndoro, on the western side 
of Kenia. Like many other tribes with whom I have made 
friendly leagues at different times, they now wanted us, after 
becoming their “ brothers ” by their own desire, to aid them in 
a war on their enemies ; but this invitation we of course 
