quantities on the plains surrounding the Jombeni
range— mostly in the dried watercourses. The sand
or bits of stone impregnated with the iron are gathered
and carried to the mountains, where they are sold to
the smiths. There is no coal found upon the mountains
; so they use charcoal for smelting purposes. The
tools of the smith consist of a rude iron hammer,
pincers, and bellows, — the latter being clumsily made
from skins. In each district there are to be found
several smiths; these are kept busy from day to day,
welding spears, swords, arrow heads, and arrow tips.
The spears and swords are well made, but very poorly
tempered. They have no files, and their weapons are
sharpened by whetting upon a stone.
The women are very proficient in weaving bags.
The stitch which they use in weaving appears most
complicated, but an excellent article is the result of
their work. The bags are made in several sizes,—
some large enough to contain a bushel. The fibre
used in weaving is taken from the inner bark of a
tree growing upon the mountains.
The bows of the warriors consist of straight sticks,
the ends of which are not curved backward, as in the
so-called Asiatic bow. The arrows are not more than
two feet in length, but are very well made, — the tips
being carefully inserted and the ends skilfully feathered.
The natives reported that their plantations were
often visited by elephants and rhinoceroses. As a
safeguard against the inroads of these beasts, the
frontier of the country was skirted with deep pits, at
the bottoms of which sharp, poisoned sticks were
placed in an upright position.
The portion of the Jombeni range which we first
visited, and where we secured Motio, is the most covered
by forests, and therefore is the most recently settled
portion of the range. We found people engaged
in making clearings in the forest and founding new
settlements; which is evidence that the land already
under cultivation did not yield sufficient for the needs
of the growing tribe.
The language of the people throughout the Jombeni
range is much the same, and is akin to that spoken
by the dwellers on Mount Kenya. Probably, therefore,
the inhabitants of the Jombeni range are offshoots of
the Kikuyu who inhabit the slopes of Mount Kenya,
Naturally, then, it is to be supposed that they first entered
into possession of the portion of the range lying
nearest the home from which they had set out. Immigration
must have taken place many years ago; for
the Jombeni range, when I visited it, was but sparsely
covered with forests, and the principal forest lay at the
northern end of the range.
In the better portion of the Embe country, I found
that land was not only held by individual proprietors,
but that a certain amount of territory was held in
common by the inhabitants of one, and, in some cases,
of several villages. On these commons were pastured
the flocks of the people by whom the land was held.
It is to be supposed that" this condition of affairs
was arrived at in much the following manner. When
the first pioneers reached the country, each family
made a clearing for itself, and reserved some land in
the immediate neighbourhood to be used as pasture for
its flocks. As the population grew, and the land