l not do it for anything in the world."

At this Kali rose and folding his hands began to repeat incessantly:

"Luela! Luela! Luela!"

"What is 'Luela'?" Stas asked.

"A great boma for Wahima and Samburu women," the young negro replied.

And he began to relate extraordinary things. Now Fumba and Mamba had
been engaged in continual warfare with each other for a great many
years. They laid waste to the plantations of each other and carried
away cattle. But there was a locality on the southern shore of the
lake, called Luela, at which even during the fiercest war the women of
both nations assembled in the market-place with perfect safety. It was
a sacred place. The war raged only between men; no defeats or victories
affected the fate of the women, who in Luela, behind a clay enclosure
surrounding a spacious market-place, found an absolutely safe asylum.
Many of them sought shelter there during the time of hostilities, with
their children and goods. Others came from even distant villages with
smoked meat, beans, millet, manioc, and various other supplies. The
warriors were not allowed to fight a battle within a distance of Luela
which could be reached by the crowing of a rooster. They were likewise
not permitted to cross the clay rampart with which the market-place was
surrounded. They could only stand before the rampart and then the women
would give them supplies of food attached to long bamboo poles. This
was a very ancient custom and it never happened that either side
violated it. The victors also were always concerned that the way of the
defeated to Luela should be cut off and they did not permit them to
approach the sacred place within a distance which could be reached by a
rooster's crow.

"Oh, great master!" Kali begged, again embracing Stas' knees, "great
master, lead 'the bibi' to Luela, and you yourself take the King, take
Kali, take the rifle, take fiery snakes and rout the wicked Samburus."

Stas believed the young negro's narrative, for he had heard that in
many localities in Africa war does not include women. He remembered how
at one time in Port Said a certain young German missionary related that
in the vicinity of the gigantic mountain, Kilima-Njaro, the immensely
warlike Massai tribe sacredly observed this custom, by virtue of which
the women of the contending parties walked with perfect freedom in
certain market-places and were never subject to attack. The existence
of this custom on the shores of B