V 
ITS IMMUNITY FROM ATTACKS. Sr 
of plantain-leaves, each family occupying its own 
shamba (cultivation plot), on which as a rule there are 
only two huts, the parents and younger children using 
one, and the elder children and their families the 
other. Consequently the utmost an enemy could 
achieve would he to kill the first few they came across, 
while in the meantime the war-cry would be sounded 
and the entire male population, many of whom are 
armed with rifles, would have time to collect and shoot 
down, from secure ambushes, the rash invaders. The 
brave Masai, accustomed as they are to fight only in 
the open, and to rely entirely upon their long spears, 
short swords, and shields, would be very soon dis¬ 
posed of in an enclosed and, to them, strange country, 
every inch of which would be perfectly known to its 
defenders. 
Thus it comes about that Taveta remains a calm and 
peaceful Arcadia in the very centre of innumerable 
tribes of howling savages always fighting and robbing 
one another. Taveta is also the great head-centre of all 
the trade-routes which lead to the far interior, and the 
large caravans of ivory and slave traders make it a 
resting-place, to recruit and lay in stores of food, before 
starting on their arduous and dangerous travels through 
Masai-land. 
The W a-taveta are a more intelligent-looking race, 
and far more cleanly in their habits, than any of the 
tribes to be met on this way up from the coast; their 
features are comparatively regular and their counte¬ 
nances less repulsive, but they have the same habit of 
F 
