406 
THE KILIMANJARO EXPEDITION. 
This pursuit in time prospers, and the improved con¬ 
dition 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, civilization 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. The last few decades a perceptible 
alteration in their condition of life has begun to 
appear. That section of them known as the ¥a- 
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 within fixed limits, cultivate the 
soil, and encourage traders to settle in their midst. A 
bitter civil war has raged between them and their still 
nomadic cousins, at times a war of mutual extermina¬ 
tion, but somehow or other the settlements of the 
Wa-kwavi continue to increase and prosper, while not 
a few of the tribes of Masai who retain their pastoral 
habits and still scorn to till the soil are being con¬ 
fronted by a disagreeable alternative that they them¬ 
selves can recognize. They must either turn their 
spears into spades and their swords into reaping-hooks 
—or starve. The cattle disease which has lately raged 
among them throughout the length and breadth of the 
land, has played havoc with the herds on which their 
main sustenance depends. As to renewing their live¬ 
stock by raids on the tribes of the coast or the far 
