Our plan was to cruise for five days with
as light and mobile an outfit as possible, and then to return for fresh
supplies. Billy would take charge of the main camp during our absence.
As advisers, we left her Abba Ali, Memba Sasa, and Mohammed.
At noon we were still waiting. The possibility of doing a full day's
journey was gone, but we thought we might at least make a start. At one
o'clock, just as we had about given up hope, the Masai strolled in. They
were beautiful, tall, straight youths, finely formed, with proud
features and a most graceful carriage. In colour they were as though
made of copper bronze, with the same glitter of high lights from their
fine-textured skins. Even in this chilly climate they were nearly naked.
One carried a spear, the other a bow and arrow.
Joyously we uprose--and sat down again. We had provided an excellent
supply of provisions for our guides; but on looking over the lot they
discovered nothing--absolutely nothing--that met their ideas.
"What _do_ they want?" we asked Leyeye in despair.
"They say they will eat nothing but sheep," he reported.
We remembered old Naiokotuku's promise of sending us sheep, sneered
cynically at the faith of savages, and grimly set forth to see what we
could buy in the surrounding country. But we wronged the old man. Less
than a mile from camp we met men driving in as presents not one, but
_two_ sheep.
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