The Valley was not entirely given up to wild life, though it seemed likely that it was only used by man as a pasture ground, and that he preferred the higher country, the hillocks on either side of the plain, for his habitations, out of the way of floods and swamps. But large herds of cattle browsed among antelopes and zebra and were watched over by herdsmen who displayed singularly little curiosity over this first invasion of the Happy Valley by the white man. The Stotts who had preceded Roger and Lucy seemed to have satisfied their curiosity, once and for all. These cattle-tenders were different in physical type to the ordinary Bantu Negro. They were tall; gracefully, slenderly built; and reminded Brentham of Somalis, though their head-hair was close-cropped. Such women as were met showed no sign of fear. They were clad in ample garments of dressed leather. But the men had all the gallant nakedness of the Masai—a skin cape over the shoulders, otherwise only ivory arm-rings and metal-chain necklaces. The Masai guides occasionally plucked handfuls of grass and exhibited them to the groups of herdsmen as a testimony to the peaceful intentions of the white man’s caravan. This voucher was further confirmed by the returning band of Masai who had escorted the Stotts to this Arcadia and were now returning to northern Nguru. They exchanged musical salutations with Roger’s guides and told them the "Sitoto" were camped in a village one day’s further journey to the north, near the shores of the lake. "That’s all right," said Roger, his mind greatly relieved. "Then let’s give our _safari_ a half-holiday and take things easy. We’ll pitch our camp on that knoll. How delightful is this short green turf after the miles and miles of burnt grass we’ve passed through. The spring has begun here a month earlier than in the lower-lying country. I expect the high mountains to the north have attracted the rains, though it’s only October. Have you noticed, also, since we entered this valley we’ve had no mosquitoes? I wonder why? Something p’raps they don’t like in the water, or not enough long grass?..." As soon as the camp was finished, the pastoral people brought them rich, sweet milk for sale, in tightly-woven grass receptacles, in calabashes, or clay pots. Sometimes this milk had a smoky taste from the rough methods by which the milk pots were cleansed. But it was as sweet as a nut and seemed to Lucy, who had long been deprived of milk, except doled out in small quantities for tea, incomparably delicious as a thirst-quencher. And these Egyptian-like people—so often showing a Pharaonic profile and speaking a language which Roger afterwards declared not very far removed from Gala—also traded in honey, honey flavoured with the scent of the acacia blossoms, appearing now as golden fluff on the awakening trees.