Not long ago the great plateau of Kenya Colony was inaccessible and unknown and its four million blacks were in continual war with one another. Now, besides the railway, it is being opened up with roads permitting the use of motor transport.
Each group of huts is usually surrounded by a thatched wall, making an inclosure into which cattle, sheep, and goats are driven at night. Some of the tribes are practically vegetarians, living mostly on corn, beans, sweet potatoes, millet, and milk.
“How many inhabitants have you?”
“We do not know. We can get some idea from the taxes, for most of the provinces have to pay so much per hut. In other places the natives have hardly been subdued, and of no province have we an accurate census. The number has been estimated at from two to four millions, but I believe it is nearer five millions, and possibly more.”
“How about your white settlers? Will this country ever be inhabited by Caucasians?”
“That, again, is difficult to say,” replied the conservative governor. “We have a few European settlers already, but whether we can make this colony a second South Africa remains to be seen. I have lived here for over twenty years, and I am not sure as to how much hard manual labour any white man can do in this latitude. It is true we are more than a mile above the sea, but nevertheless we are on the Equator, and the climate on the Equator is not suited to the white man. The only Europeans who will succeed here will be those who bring some money with them, and who will use the native labour in their work. I don’t think any settler should come to East Africa without as much as three thousand dollars, reckoning the amount in your money. He should have enough to buy his land, stock it, build his house, and then have something to go on. He should not start out with a very small tract. Much of the grazing land is now being divided up into tracts of five thousand acres. If a man takes the first thousand and pays for it, the other four thousand are held for him subject to certain improvements and developments upon the first thousand. After these are completed he may buy the remaining tract at the price of the first thousand acres.”
“I understand much of your land is being taken up in large holdings.”