THE GREAT RIFT VALLEY AND THE MASAI may be had for laziness and bad temper on the part of the wife; and in such cases a part of the marriage fee is some¬ times returned. A widow cannot marry again. If her husband dies, the relict goes back to her mother, or to her brother if her mother be dead.

As far as I can learn these Masai girls have a soft snap. They are required to do nothing until they are married.

Before that they play with the warriors, spending their time in dancing and singing and loafing about. The un¬ married girl often does not do her own cooking. This condition continues for a long time after marriage and up until all the babies of the family are fairly well grown. As soon as that is accomplished, however, the hard-work¬ ing period begins. Almost all the hard labour of the tribe is done by the older women, who collect the firewood, build the mud houses, and gather the cow manure with which their walls are smeared. When the villages are moved from place to place, these withered dames take the parts of donkeys and bullocks in carrying the burdens, and then erect the new huts.

These Masai are a nation of stock raisers and own herds of cattle, sheep, and goats, which they drive about from pasture to pasture in the Southern Reservation where the British Government has put them. The cattle are of the humped variety like the sacred cows of India, many of them being fat, sleek, and fine looking. Some of the animals are branded, and not a few have rude bells of iron so they may be traced if they stray. Most of the cattle are watched by half-naked boys, who drive them about with sticks. Morning and evening the cows are brought into the villages to be milked, and nearly every town of mud huts has its cow houses. The women 289