h the far from handsome
stranger, translated it into Swahili, and this was retranslated into
English for our benefit.

The stranger was a Ketosh. We didn't know what a Ketosh was, but it
sounded more like something in the imperative mood than anything
ethnological. It developed later in the day, however, that a Ketosh is a
member of the tribe of that name, and their habitat is on the southern
slopes of Elgon.

[Drawing: _Lady and Gentleman Ketosh_]

The Ketoshites, or Ketoshians, as the case may be, are a cattle- and
sheep-raising tribe. In other words, a tribe in which the women do all
the manual labor while the men folk sit on a hillside with a shield and
spear and watch the herds partake of nourishment. They are the standing
army.

[Drawing: _The Standing Army Sat Around All Day_]

We followed the man with the spear to a little village hard by. The
village, like all the numerous other ones that we came to in the next
few days, was inclosed in a zareba, or wall of tangled thorn branches
that encircled the village. Within the wall were a number of low houses,
six feet high, built of mud and wattle; and within the houses, spilling
over plentifully, were large numbers of children and babies and a few
women. A gateway of tangled boughs led into the inclosure, while in one
part of the village were the curious woven wickerwork granaries in which
the community store of kaffir corn is kept. There were no street signs
on the lamp posts, probably because there were no streets and no lamp
posts.

In the first village all the men were away, evidently waiting to see
whether our visit was a hostile or a peaceful one.

We soon established ourselves on a peace footing and after that the
warriors began to appear out of the tall grass in large numbers from all
points of the compass. They all carried spears and shields, neither of
which they would sell for love or money. At least they wouldn't for
money. We resolved not to try the other unless the worst came to the
worst and we had to fall back on it as a last desperate measure. I
suppose they didn't know how soon they might need their weapons, and we
heard that the sultan had just sent out a positive order forbidding them
to sell their means of defense.

[Photograph: By courtesy of W.D. Boyce. The Ketosh Are Gracefully
Nonchalant]

[Photograph: Little Shelters of Mud and Sticks]

[Photograph: A Family Party]

The first procedure when entering a district where the natives