After the usual greetings--“Sabal kher” (“God bless thee”), and “Salaam aleikum,” questions are asked in the Swahili language: “Habari ghani?” (“What news?”) I now learn that the party of travellers set out some two years ago from Pangani on the coast to trade for ivory in the Masai country. I am surprised to hear the Arabs tell how, although theirs is one of the first caravans that have made the attempt, they have penetrated far into the inhospitable and perilous lands of the Masai. Their journey has been greatly delayed, for they have had to fight many battles with the Wachenzi, the aborigines of the districts through which they marched. “But Allah was with us, and the Unbelievers had the worst of it! Allah is great, and Mohammed is his prophet!”
Every one set busily to work. In the turn of a hand the camp was surrounded with a thorny zereba hedge, and made secure.
And now I had personal experience of what has passed, times without number, in the broad lands of the Masai;--armed detachments from the caravan started on raids for far-off districts. The timid Wandorobo, that strange subject tribe of the Masai, brought more and more ivory to the camp to sell it to the traders, after long and obstinate bargaining. It was remarkable how clever were the people of the caravan in dealing with these timid wild folk, and how well they knew how to gain their confidence.[9] This confidence, however, was not made use of in trade and barter for the advantage of the natives. But thanks to the methods and ways of managing the natives, as the traders understood them, we saw that the wild folk were quite satisfied, and this was the main point.
NATIVE SETTLEMENT WITH PALISADE AND ZEREBA (HEDGE) ON THE MIDDLE COURSE OF THE PANGANI RIVER. (PROTECTIVE CHARMS ARE PLACED OVER THE GATEWAY AND IN FRONT OF IT, IN THE FOREGROUND OF THE PICTURE.)]
But what patience is required in trade of this kind! A white man could never develop such Oriental patience. Again and again a tusk would be endlessly bargained over, till at last, often after days of chaffering, it passed into the possession of the caravan. The natives were of course bent on getting the tusks, sooner or later, into the camp. At the very outset they had sent in a most exact description of them, and then envoys from the caravan had to go and inspect them, often at a distance of several days’ march from the camp.