CHAPTER XXXIV AMONG THE KIKUYUS AND THE NANDI SHORTLY after leaving Nairobi by train for Lake Victoria I came into the land of the Kikuyus, where i I stopped off for a while. Over a million of these " native people live in the country about two thou¬ sand feet above Nairobi. We could see their farms and villages everywhere as we rode by on the railway. In clearing the land they first burn off the trees and other vegetation, then work the ground until it is barren. After that they clear more land, letting the first tracts lie fallow until Nature revives them. Some of the Kikuyu farms are no bigger than a bed quilt; others cover a quarter of an acre, and some twice as much. The fields are not fenced, and now and then a rhino or hippo gets in and wallows, while near the woodlands the monkeys pull up the crops. The chief thing raised is Indian corn.

The dress of the Kikuyus consists mostly of grease, clay, and telegraph wire. The grease makes their brown skins shine, the red clay gives it a copper hue, and the telegraph wire loads their arms, necks, and ankles. The grease is usually mutton fat and the clay is the red earth found everywhere. The more rancid the fat the better they seem to like it. The average man or woman so smells to heaven that one can distinguish a native’s existence long before he sees him. They soak their hair with this tallow until under the tropical sun you can almost hear the stuff 277