TAITA TO KILIMA-NJAB 0. 
91 
my finger, which I was instructed to wear immediately 
as a sign of friendly peace, a similar bit being cut off 
and sent to Mandara for the same purpose. 3 The flesh 
of the goat was then handed over to my cook, to pre¬ 
pare for my next meal, and, as a matter of fact, it 
turned out delicious eating, for the slain animal was a 
plump young gelding, specially fattened for food. 
Being informed that Mandara would not pay me a 
visit until the afternoon,preferring that his guest should 
eat and refresh himself after his long journey, I had a 
little leisure to look about me, as far as the laughing, 
v 
staring crowds of Gaga people who thronged the en¬ 
campment would allow. We were here about 3500 
feet in altitude, relatively at the foot of the mountain, 
but yet with splendid views over the plains, which lay 
fifteen hundred feet below. All around were signs of 
agriculture of a high order, and though the people were 
naked, one could see they were anything but savages. 
There was nowhere a congeries of houses that could 
be called a town, but the whole country, where it was 
cultivated, was equally inhabited. Here and there the 
yellow thatch of a bee-hive hut peeped out from the 
green fronds of the banana groves. The fields were 
intersected with numerous runnels of water, diverted 
at different levels from the parent streams in the ravines 
above. The air was musical with the murmur of trick¬ 
ling rivulets and tinkling bells, for the flocks and herds 
were now being driven in from the pastures to the 
natives’ compounds, to be shut up from the afternoon 
heat. Wherever the ground was not in cultivation it 
was covered with brilliantly-coloured wild flowers— 
3 This practice is called by the Wa-caga “ Kisoho.” The skin is 
generally taken from the animal’s forehead, and the ceremony is 
equivalent to blood-brotherhood. 
