416 
THE KILIMANJARO EXPEDITION. 
five, nor the women until twenty. But both sexes, 
avant de se ranger , lead a very dissolute life 
before marriage, the young warriors and unmarried 
girls living together in free love. The married Masai 
is a changed being. From a lustful, 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 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 hone}^ 
with tusks of ivory. 
Marriage is little more than a question of purchase, 
and the amount of cows to be paid varies with the 
comparative wealth of the bridegroom and the bride’s 
father. This question also regulates the number of 
wives. They seldom, however, espouse less than two. 
Married people are generally called “ El-kieko,” and 
the husband is termed “ El-moruo.” 
When little children die, they are often buried within 
the village enclosure, or even beneath the floor of the 
mother’s dwelling. Grown-up persons are generally 
placed under a tree in a sitting posture with the knees 
