ELEPHANT HUNTING 
229 
lary^ Indian and native, were in neat uniforms and well 
set up, though often barefooted. Straight, slender Somalis 
with clear-cut features were in attendance on the horses. 
Native negroes, of many different tribes, flocked to the 
race-course and its neighborhood. The Swahilis, and those 
among the others who aspired toward civilization, were well 
clad, the men in half European costume, the women in 
flowing, parti-colored robes. But most of them were clad, 
or unclad, just as they always had been. Wakamba, with 
filed teeth, crouched in circles on the ground. Kikuyu 
passed, the men each with a blanket hung round the shoul¬ 
ders, and girdles of chains, and armlets and anklets of 
solid metal; the older women bent under burdens they 
carried on the back, half of them in addition with babies 
slung somewhere round them, while now and then an un¬ 
married girl would have her face painted with ochre and 
vermilion. A small party of Masai warriors kept close 
together, each clutching his shining, long-bladed war spear, 
their hair daubed red and twisted into strings. A large 
band of Kavirondo, stark naked, with shield and spear and 
head-dress of nodding plumes, held a dance near the race¬ 
track. As for the races themselves, they were carried on in 
the most sporting spirit, and only the Australian poet Pat¬ 
terson could adequately write of them. 
On August 4th I returned to Lake Naivasha, stopping 
on the way at Kijabe to lay the corner-stone of the new 
mission building. Mearns and Loring had stayed at 
Naivasha and had collected many birds and small mammals. 
That night they took me out on a springhaas hunt. Thanks 
to Kermit we had discovered that the way to get this cu¬ 
rious and purely nocturnal animal was by "'shining” it with 
