On the 12th we reached the confines of the Kikuyu country, along which our further route to the Naivasha led. The evil reports of the knavish, hateful character of this people were repeated to us in a yet stronger form by the Kapté Masai, their immediate neighbours. But we had in the meantime received from another source a very different representation. Our two ladies had with them an Andorobbo girl whom they had taken into their service in Taveta. The Andorobbo are a race of hunters who, without settled residence, are to be met with throughout the whole of the enormous region between the Victoria Nyanza and the Zanzibar coast. Sakemba--as the girl of eighteen was called--belonged to a tribe of this race that hunted elephants in the districts at the foot of the Kenia to the north of Kikuyu. She had been stolen two years before by the Masai, who had sold her to a Swahili caravan, with which she had gone to Taveta. The girl had an invincible longing for her home--a rare thing among these races; and as it was known that my sister and Miss Ellen were awaiting a caravan that was going on to the Kenia, the girl appealed to them to buy her from her master and take her back to her home, where her relatives would gladly pay the cost in elephants' teeth. Touched by the importunity of the girl, Clara and Miss Fox bought her of her master, gave her her liberty, and engaged to take her with them. The girl was very intelligent, and was well-informed concerning the affairs of her native country. She had heard in Miveruni what evil reports the Masai gave of the Wa-Kikuyu, and she took the first opportunity of assuring her protectresses that the case was not nearly so bad as it was made to appear. The Masai and the Wa-Kikuyu were old foes, and, as they consequently did each other all the harm they could, they ascribed every conceivable vice to each other. It was true that the Wa Kikuyu would rather fight in ambush than in the open field, and they certainly were not so brave as the Masai; but they were treacherous and cruel only to their enemies, while those who had won their confidence could as safely rely upon them as upon the members of any other nation. The Andorobbo would much rather have dealings with the Wa-Kikuyu than with the Masai, because the former were much more peaceable and less overbearing than the latter. Our direct route to the Kenia lay through Kikuyu, whilst the route through Lykipia would have taken at least six days longer on account of the _détour_ we should have to make around the Aberdare range of hills.