THE past week has seen the arrival of the Ikoma archers, natives from the nearby village whom we invited over to visit us and show us their method of hunting.

They were delayed nearly three weeks by an important tribal ceremony. This apparently follows upon the rite of circumcision of the youths of a certain maturity, and as Hassani, our interpreter, explained:

"They pray to the bush, and go without food for many days, and they dream and see visions, and they are given a man's name."

This sounds much like some of the adolescent ceremonies of our American Indians.

At any rate, the Wassukuma are real archers. We had two delegations: one a scouting party sent out by the Sultani to report on the game conditions around his territory. These were bearers of an official document written in Swahili; the Sultani has a scribe. The message was to the effect that these men were his official representatives, sons of the elect of his kingdom; they were not hunting with the bow; and it was his royal request that they be permitted to pass through all alien domains.

Simson's principality is recognized as a co-equal province with which diplomatic etiquette is to be maintained with proper dignity.

We gave them bed and board and sent them off in due time with salutations and rare gifts to the Sultani of Ikoma.

The second contingent of archers came as a bodyguard to Masheki, the Crown Prince; and on the way they incidentally took a shot at two maned lions "en passant," just to show who was who.

So we have had the pick of the profession. White says that they are the best bowmen he has seen in Africa. Their bows are five feet six inches long, are very strong, pulling about eighty pounds when drawn the full length of their arrows. They shoot farther than any aboriginal bows that ever came under my notice.

Their arrows are well made, properly feathered shafts, measuring thirty inches to the fore shaft. This latter is a spindle of wood or a metal point, set loosely in the end of the shaft, and smeared heavily with poison.

From their description of the effect of this "dowa" apparently it is very similar to curare, or South American poison. Its action is very prompt; the animal runs a short distance, gets weak in the legs and stops breathing within quarter of an hour. They cut out a piece of flesh about the arrow and have no compunction about eating the rest. They gave me quite a quantity of this poison, which I hope to have analyzed later.

We offered a prize for the best long distance shot with bows. I entered the competitr'on. Young has gone to Nairobi with Simson to bring back the automobiles. White has a sprained wrist and can't shoot a bow at present. So I had to represent the European peoples by myself. Half a shilling and a small toy elephant constituted the first prize, a little carved monkey the second.