246 
ELEPHANT-BUNTING IN EAST AFRICA 
CHAP. 
times of famine the aged and weakly succumb, and this 
doubtless tends to preserve the stamina of the race. The 
price of a wife among them is ten bee-tubs, as going concerns ; 
but Lesiat explained, when asked why, since he was so anxious 
for more progeny, he did not marry another (for they are not 
restricted in the number they may wed), that the girls can 
choose their own husbands and only marry young men. 
The Ndorobos of the present day are a mixed race. You 
see quite different types among them. Some are black, with 
negro characteristics, others comparatively light-coloured and 
have the better features and hair of the Masai. This is ex¬ 
plained by information I got in the course of interesting con¬ 
versations I had with Lesiat and others of themselves. 
Originally there were small, cattle-owning tribes in this 
country, akin to the Wakwavi and Masai, but weak and dis¬ 
united. The sites of some of their former kraals have been 
pointed out to me and are still discernible. The Wakwavi, 
who then frequented the pasture land west of the Lorogis (which 
are, in fact, the north-eastern extremity of the region commonly 
called Leikipia), where their former cattle-tracks can be even 
now plainly made out, raided all their cattle, and were subse¬ 
quently themselves driven out by invading Masai. Row-row’s 
people—now living under the eastern side of Kenia—are the 
remnants of the former, while the nearest Masai are to-day at the 
western base of that mountain. But the survivors of the petty 
tribes of this district, who had lost their live stock, joined the 
original Ndorobos, who from time immemorial had lived as 
these do to-day, and took to their mode of life. One old man 
(of genuine woolly-headed, negroid type) was pointed out to 
me as a specimen of the pure old Ndorobo stock. 
Since Abdulla and his men had left on their second trip to 
Mthara, ill luck had invariably attended me, with the result that 
either through unfavourable conditions or my own clumsiness, 
or a combination of both, I had not killed a single elephant. 
We had, indeed, picked up, during my week in the Lorogis, one 
