July xi, tSS$ 
THE GRAPHIC 
41 
A JOURNEY TO MOUNT KILIMA-NJARO, AFRICA 
lit Jfour farts—flart lei 
NATURAL HISTORY NOTES 
DRAWN AND WRITTEN BY MR. H. H. JOHNSTON, F.R.G.S. 
1 ET ME BEGIN MY BRIEF OBSERVATIONS on the 
Natural History of the Kilima-njaro district by a descrip¬ 
tion of the races of man which inhabit this part of East- 
Central Africa. They belong mainlytotwo different stocks: 
one, the Masai, a well-marked African group, allied 
distantly to the Galla races in physical appearance 
and possibly in language ; the other, the agricultural 
people who form part of the great Bantu family 
which mainly composes the population of all Africa 
south of the Equator. 
The Masai are a weli-tnarked variety of African 
man, ranging like semi-nomads over the vast tract 
of plain country between.one or two degrees north of 
the Equator and 5 deg. 30 min. south. They cer¬ 
tainly had their origin northwards, and, in all pio- 
bability, merge into the races inhabiting the great 
unknown tract lying between the Nile and Galla- 
Land. The Masai primarily admit of two great 
divisions, the Masai proper and the so-called Wa- 
Kwavi or El-Oigob. These two peoples, who are of 
the same stock and speak almost identically the same 
language, are nevertheless in perpetual conflict.- The 
Wa-Kwavi, as they are always- called by the Swahili 
traders, are Masai who have, through loss of cattle and 
other reasons, Become settled agriculturists, and have 
adopted a peaceful and honest mode of living. The Masai 
proper still live a semi-nomad life, do not till the soil 
nor cultivate, keep huge herds of cattle and goats, and are 
bold and daring robbers. I call them semi-nomads be¬ 
cause each tribe ranges generally over a given district 
within certain limits. They also live in their quickly- 
constructed towns during the rainy months. A Masai 
town or village consists of a huge circle of low mud huts, 
surrounded by a thorn fence. In the middle of this 
enclosure the cattle are kept at night. Their huts are 
generally built as follows : First making a rough frame¬ 
work of pliant boughs, which are bent over and stuck in 
the ground at both ends, they plaster on this a mixture of 
mud and ox-dung, and, for further resistance to heavy fain, 
hides are thrown over the top, outside. The height of the 
dwellings barely exceeds four feet. There is a low, porch¬ 
like door. The only attempt at furniture is a hide laid 
across a row of sticks to serve as a couch at night. The 
shape of the lowly dwelling is always, as far as I have 
seen, rectangular, in that differing from the beehive shape 
-given to the houses of the Bantu tribes in this part of 
Africa. 
The Masai youth at the age of fourteen enters the clan of El- 
Moran, or the unmarried fighting men. His dress is picturesque, 
hut scanty, as may be seen by the drawing on the first page of this 
supplement. In ordinary times he will wear a leather cape about his 
-shoulders, or over one shoulder, a narrow leather girdle round the 
waist, in which to stick his knife and wooden club, and leather 
sandals on his feet. His hair will be combed out into long frizzles, 
artificially lengthened with strips of bark, and stiffened with clay 
and fat. 
The lobes of his ears are extraordinarily widened and distended, 
and through them is thrust a rounded plug of wood or ivory, or a 
ring of the same materials ; or the lower part of the lobe may be 
hung with fine iron chains, or stretched with a curious wooden 
instrument like a cotton-reel. When going to war, however, these 
simple adornments above described are considerably added to. The 
leather cape is removed, and its place is taken—firstly by a long piece 
of cloth, sewn down the middle with a coloured stripe; and secondly, 
by a thick carapace made of kite’s feathers, or, as in my sketch, by 
a cape made of the skins of the Colobus monkey. A cap of Colobus 
skin may also be worn on the head, or a striking head-dress made 
of ostrich feathers, and shaped roughly like an ellipse. The leather 
cape which ordinarily is worn round the shoulders will now be 
twisted round the waist like a belt, and in the folds of this are 
secured the knobkerry and the Seine, or sword. Sometimes a ring 
of goatskin, with the fur outside, or a strip of Colobus skin, will be 
worn round the ankles, and then, with a long-bladed spear and 
shield four feet high, the equipment of a Masai warrior is com¬ 
plete. 
The hair is often dressed Dy the men in the way I have described 
namely, drawn out into long locks, and stiffened with grease and 
clay, but a pigtail is frequently worn, also, both over the forehead 
and at the back of the head. The women usually shave their heads; 
wholly or in part, and bestow little care on that part of their person. 
On the- other hand, they are much 
more extensively clothed than the 
men, being enwrapped gene¬ 
rally from head to feet 
in ample garments of 
dressed leather. Their 
necks, wrists, and 
ankles are covered 
with massive coils of 
iron or copper wire, 
and beads are largely 
used to ornament the 
fringe of their clothing. 
A MASAI WARRIOR 
The Masai men rarely marry until they are over twenty-five, nor 
the women until twenty. But both sexes, “ avant de se ranger,” 
lead a very dissolute life before marriage. The married Masai 
is a changed being. From a bloodthirsty fiend he becomes a 
staid, courteous, and reasonable man, anxious to obtain and impart 
information, and as desirous of healing a breach and preventing 
bloodshed as before he loved to foment a quarrel and take part in 
a massacre. Whilst still an. unmarried man and a warrior he abjures 
all vegetable food, and strictly confines himself to a diet of milk and 
meat. Moreover, he must not mix these two things, but, before 
changing from one to another, must take a powerful purgative, so 
that, for instance, if he has been living on milk, and wishes to eat 
meat or drink blood, he must thoroughly clear his system before 
changing from one to the other. But after marriage, when he is no 
longer looked upon as a fighting man, his diet is unrestricted. He 
now seeks to obtain vegetable food from the humble races of 
cultivators who dwell in the vicinity of his settlement, or eagerly 
purchases honey with tusks of ivory. 
The Masai believe in a vague Supreme Being, whom they call 
“ Engai,” a word also meaning “ the sky,” or “ rain.” They often 
mention another and weaker spirit, whom they designate by a 
female appellation, “ En-aiterkob,” not necessarily implying that it is 
of that sex, but using the female article, “En,”to denote infe¬ 
riority or weakness. “ En-aiterkob ” seems to be a kind of earth 
spirit (“ En-Kob,” the Earth,” the World) in contradistinction to 
Engai, who is the heavens, the sky. 
The Masai keep large herds of cattle, goats, sheep, and donkeys, 
also a few dogs. Fowls they despise, and do not keep. The 
vultures and hyaenas around their encampments are strangely tame, 
and strangers cause much offence by killing them. 
Whenever the warrior Masai are on a journey thev are positively 
accompanied by flights of vultures and a few marabou storks. 
Wherever they stop to slaughter cattle, these scavengers descend 
and feast on the offal till they are so gorged that you may see a 
Masai pushing them away with his foot. The hyaenas that haunt 
the vicinity of their burial-places root up and devour the dead soon 
after their relatives have laid them in the soil, without in any way 
being checked or molested. 
The Masai language is a very interesting one, bearing, in my 
opinion, signs of an approach to the Galla tongue, and as this 
is a member of the Hamitic group, and distantly connected 
with the Semitic tongues (Arabic, &c.), this offers a very curious 
problem in Africa for consideration—namely, whether the Semitic 
languages spring from an African source. 
Masai has two genders, masculine and feminine, two numbers, 
expresses the plural principally by affixing “n” and more rarely 
“ k ” to the word,, conjugates its verbs by prefixes and suffixes, and 
uses /^-positions and not post-positions. It is a very copious, 
beautiful, and simple language. 
There is hope for the future of the Masai race. Its previous 
history has been that of most rising and invading populations, like 
the Huns and Turks and Goths of Europe. First, some tribe, or 
division of a tribe, has been forced into war in self-defence, and has 
won a victory over its assailants. Then it acquires a taste for 
fighting, and from being persecuted becomes the persecutor. It 
spreads its conquests and ravages far and wide, the fighting qualities 
descend from father to son in increasing intensity. Soon, how¬ 
ever, there are no weaker peoples left to subdue or to harry. The 
land is a wilderness, cultivation has ceased. The fighting tribe 
suffers from hunger. Then a section of them turns to the soil and 
commences a rude agriculture. This pursuit in time prospers, and 
the improved condition of the agriculturist attracts the envy and 
greed of their nomadic brothers. A civil war ensues, which, no 
matter what vicissitudes may happen, ends in the triumph of the 
tillers of the soil, for to defend their crops and granaries they 
construct fortifications and walled towns. Then with the victory of 
the settled authorities comes an opening for commerce. The lives 
of traders are safer among a hardworking colony of agriculturists 
than amid lawless rovers and cut-throats. So, in time, civilisation 
finds an opening into what was once a terra incognita on account of 
the fierceness of its inhabitants. So it has been, and is, with the 
MASAI CAMP 
Masai. The last few decades a perceptible alteration in their condi¬ 
tions of life has begun to appear. That section of them known as 
the Wa-Kwavi has taken to a settled mode of life. No longer do 
they rove about seeking whom they may rob and slay, but they dwell 
