A TRIP TO TAVRjlTA . 
211 
to Taveita somehow, whether as slaves, traders, tramps, 
criminals, or refugees. You may hear about twenty 
African languages talked around you, and, by search¬ 
ing among the slave caravans which stop here for 
repose, a list of hundreds of East African tongues 
might be composed. 
Yet, though it is so hospitable to all comers, 
there is no lack of law and order. Taveita is ruled 
over by a senate of notables called the “ Wazee, 5 ’ 
or elders. These functionaries, though usually in 
the background, generally come forward when there is 
any dispute to be settled either between their fellow- 
citizens or foreign traders, and their authority is up¬ 
held by all the able-bodied male population of Taveita. 
It was from them that I obtained my cession of land, 
and after the fee was handed over and the agreement 
ratified, I had no more bother and no more asking 
for presents. At all times their gentle behaviour and 
kindly manners were charming. 
Although the settlement of Taveita contains in all 
perhaps some 6000 of every nationality, they are scat¬ 
tered so widely over the domain that one lot of huts 
is scarcely in view of another. Each family lives 
apart. At night, strange to say, lions, leopards, and 
hyenas parade the forest alleys, without check or 
hindrance. The hyenas dig up the newly-buried corpses 
and discuss them with horrid laughs, just outside the 
doors of the surviving relatives, who never intervene. 
The natives shut up their live-stock in houses similar 
to their own, and consequently do not lose many by 
the leopards ; but I, being ignorant of the rapacity 
of these brutes, lost at one time several sheep and goats, 
for the leopards would leap high palisades and jump 
back again, carrying away their victim. I set a trap, 
p 2 
