The chief’s name was Jugana-wa-Makura, and he had with him a friend, a neighbouring chief, named Bartier, and we were soon very friendly together. Makura brought his old mother to see me—a Masai woman, who wore a dress of skins, plentifully hung with iron-wire ornaments. The old lady was very friendly, shaking hands with me, and telling me that she had heard a lot about the white man, and that it had been her greatest wish to see one before she died. They gave me a lot of presents of sheep, and also food for my men, and though I did not allow myself to be taken off my guard by these professions, I found that they were absolutely genuine.
Both of these loyal chiefs, unfortunately, paid for their friendship to the white man with their lives. Some two years after this I came into the country with an expedition sent by the Government to punish the Kalyera for some outrages, and called on Jugana-wa-Makura and Bartier for the assistance of some of their warriors, which was readily given. After our expedition left the country the Kalyera ambushed both these chiefs and murdered them for having assisted the Government expedition. As is usually the custom in such cases, the criminals escaped scot-free, no steps ever being taken by the Government to find out and punish the murderers.
I had had great difficulty in obtaining milk from the previous Kikuyu we had met, as, being very superstitious, they thought that if I drank the milk the cow from which it came would die. I found that this superstitious objection to giving away the milk of their cows prevailed throughout the Kikuyu country. The people themselves use very little, if any, milk for food purposes, preferring to allow the calves to have it, and seldom or never milking the cows themselves, so that butter was unknown in my time among them, though they may now have been taught to go in for dairy-farming to some extent. They were at that time, however, perfectly convinced that to allow a stranger to drink any of their milk was a sure way of bringing disaster on the cow.
Owing to milking not being a general practice, the cows would never give their milk unless the calf was near by, so that if the calf died it was their practice to stuff the skin and place it by the cow when they went to get any milk.