beef.

Of labour, then, about a Masai village, it follows that there is
practically none. The women build the manyattas; there is no cooking, no
tilling of the soil, no searching for wild fruits. The herd have to be
watched by day, and driven in at the fall of night; that is the task of
the boys and the youths who have not gone through with the quadriennial
circumcision ceremonies and become El-morani, or warriors. Therefore the
grown men are absolutely and completely gentlemen of leisure. In
civilization, the less men do the more important they are inclined to
think themselves. It is so here. Socially the Masai consider themselves
several cuts above anybody else in the country. As social superiority
lies mostly in thinking so hard enough--so that the inner belief
expresses itself in the outward attitude and manner--the Masai carry it
off. Their haughtiness is magnificent. Also they can look as unsmiling
and bored as anybody anywhere. Consequently they are either greatly
admired, or greatly hated and feared, as the case happens to be, by all
the other tribes. The Kikuyu young men frankly ape the customs and
ornaments of their powerful neighbours. Even the British Government
treats them very gingerly indeed, and allows these economically useless
savages a latitude the more agricultural tribes do not enjoy. Yet I
submit that any people whose property is in immense herds can more
easily be brought to terms than those who have nothing so valuable to
lose.

As a matter of fact the white man and the Masai have never had it out.
When the English, a few years since, were engaged in opening the country
they carried on quite a stoutly contested little war with the Wakamba.
These people put up so good a fight that the English anticipated a most
bitter struggle with the Masai, whose territory lay next beyond. To