ELEPHANT HUNTING 
235 
rite of circumcision were stained a ghastly white, and their 
bodies fantastically painted. The warriors wore bead neck¬ 
laces and waist belts and armlets of brass and steel, and 
spurred anklets of monkey skin. Some wore head-dresses 
made out of a lion’s mane or from the long black and white 
fur of the Colobus monkey; others had plumes stuck in 
their red-daubed hair. They chanted in unison a deep- 
toned chorus, and danced ryhthmically in rings, while 
the drums throbbed and the horns blared; and they 
danced by us in column, springing and chanting. The 
women shrilled applause, and danced in groups by 
themselves. The Masai circled and swung in a panther¬ 
like dance of their own, and the measure, and their own 
fierce singing and calling, maddened them until two of their 
number, their eyes staring, their faces working, went into 
fits of berserker frenzy, and were disarmed at once to pre¬ 
vent mischief. Some of the tribesmen held wilder dances 
still in the evening, by the light of fires that blazed in a 
grove where their thatched huts stood. 
The second day after reaching Neri the clouds lifted 
and we dried our damp clothes and blankets. Through 
the bright sunlight we saw in front of us the high rock 
peaks of Kenia, and shining among them the fields of ever¬ 
lasting snow which feed her glaciers; for beautiful, lofty 
Kenia is one of the glacier-bearing mountains of the equator. 
Here Kermit and Tarlton went northward on a safari of 
their own, while Cuninghame, Heller, and I headed for 
Kenia itself. For two days we travelled through a well- 
peopled country. The fields of corn—always called mealies 
in Africa^—of beans, and sweet potatoes, with occasional 
plantations of bananas, touched one another in almost un- 
