ortment they always behaved with the
utmost circumspection; nor did our boys ever attempt any familiarity.
The unobtrusive lounging presence in the background of two warriors
with long spears may have had something to do with this.

The Masai government is centred in an overlord or king. His orders
seemed to be implicitly obeyed. The present king I do not know, as the
old king, Lenani, had just died at an advanced age. In former days the
traveller on entering Masailand was met by a sub-chief. This man planted
his long spear upright in the ground, and the intending traveller flung
over it coils of the heavy wire. A very generous traveller who
completely covered the spear then had no more trouble. One less lavish
was likely to be held up for further impositions as he penetrated the
country. This tax was called the honga.

The Masai language is one of the most difficult of all the native
tongues. In fact, the white man is almost completely unable even to
pronounce many of the words. V., who is a "Masai-man," who knows them
intimately, and who possesses their confidence, does not pretend to talk
with them in their own tongue, but employs the universal Swahili.

XL.

THROUGH THE ENCHANTED FOREST.

We delayed at V.'s boma three days, waiting for C. to turn up. He
maintained a little force of Wakamba, as the Masai would not take
service. The Wakamba are a hunting tribe, using both the spear and the
poisoned arrow to kill their game. Their bows are short and powerful,
and the arrows exceedingly well fashioned. The poison is made from the
wood of a certain fat tree, with fruit like gigantic bologna sausages.
It is cut fine, boiled, and the product evaporated away until only a
black sticky substance remains. Into this the point of the arrow is
dipped; and the head is then protected until required by a narrow strip
of buckskin wound around and around it. I have never witnessed the
effects of this poison; but V. told me he had seen an eland die in
twenty-two minutes from so slight a wound in the shoulder that it ran
barely a hundred yards before stopping. The poison more or less loses
its efficiency, however, after the sticky, tarlike substance has dried
out.

I offered a half-rupee as a prize for an archery competition, for I was
curious to get a view of their marksmanship. The bull's-eye was a piece
of typewriter paper at thirty paces.[27] This they managed to puncture
only once out of fifteen tries, though they ne