In the meanwhile, I invited some of the principal witch doctors to come and live near me, and at intervals of about ten days I would get the natives round about to come up to my house to dance. These dances were always held during the daytime, and the women took no part in them. The Kikuyu are a very musical people, singing wherever they go, and the warriors would come to the dances in a body, singing as they marched along, and keeping as perfect time and step as a regiment of trained soldiers. First of all they would have a kind of march past, and then, falling out, would form a huge circle, with all the women and the old men on the outside. First one warrior and then another would dart out from the circle and go through some weird evolutions. Every man was fully armed as if going on the war-path, and the movements took the form of a fierce fight with an imaginary enemy, each man, as he jumped out of the circle, rushing round and spearing his imaginary foe. If the man was recognized as a great warrior, he was violently applauded by the onlookers, and, encouraged by the signs of approbation, would work himself up into a perfect frenzy; but if he was a man who had not distinguished himself in any way, or who was not popular among the tribesmen, his performance would be received in absolute silence. One peculiar point that struck me about these people was the absence of any kind of musical instrument, even the usual drum. All their songs and dances were absolutely unaccompanied by any of the usual weird noises that, with most savage tribes, represent a musical accompaniment, and the only musical instrument that I ever knew of their making was a kind of whistle, something after the fashion of those made by boys at home from elder stems, and, I imagine, merely a toy; certainly I never saw them used by any but boys, and only on rare occasions by the boys themselves. I do not include among musical instruments the war-horn, an instrument usually made from the horn of a bullock or the koodoo, and which is used simply as an alarm. One peculiar point about the applause on these occasions was that it was confined to the women, the men considering it beneath their dignity to make any demonstration, whether of approval or contempt. Although the women were not allowed to take any part in these dances themselves, they always appeared in full force as spectators, rigged out in their best go-to-meeting suits of skins, with their bodies plentifully smeared with grease, and wearing all their ornaments. When any favourite warrior had the floor, they expressed their approval by waving bunches of grass, and at the same time raising a musical chant of “lu-lu-lu-lu-lu.” This chant, by the way, was the common form of welcome among them, as, when my safaris returned from one of my trips to Naivasha with food, the women would all turn out as we approached a village and greet us with this cry, which was taken up from hill to hill as we went along.