Cairo to Kisumu

by Frank G. Carpenter

“That is so to a certain extent,” replied Mr. Jackson, “but we are now discouraging such allotments, and would rather have the land apportioned in tracts of from six hundred and forty acres to about five thousand acres each. If the land is for grazing the larger area is desirable. If it is for grain farming or dairying, it is better that it should be small. As to our large landholders, the British East African Company owns about five hundred square miles, Lord Delamere has about one hundred thousand acres, and Lord Hindlip a little less. There are a number of settlers who have twenty thousand acres or more.”

“How about your ranching possibilities? I understand that your stock growers expect to found a great meat industry here which will crowd our Chicago packers out of the markets of England.”

“I do not think there is room for alarm about that matter as yet,” replied the official. “This country is just in the making, and we know practically nothing about it. We realize that we have some of the richest grasses of the world—grasses which have supported vast herds of game, and upon which cattle, sheep, goats, and hogs will thrive. But we do not know whether we can conquer the diseases and insect pests which attack all the animals we have so far imported. We seem to have every disease to which cows, horses, or sheep are subject in other parts of the world, and I believe we have some peculiarly our own. We have ticks by the millions and flies by the myriads. So far, however, our experiments with cattle are turning out well, and we know that we can produce excellent beef and good butter. We hope to find our first market for our meats and dairy products in South Africa, and later on to ship such things to Europe. The creation of an industry of that kind, though, is a matter of gradual development. We shall have to arrange about proper transportation, which means cold-storage cars and cold-storage ships. We have not gone far enough as yet to be able to predict what we can do.”

“What other possibilities have you?” I asked.

“I think we may eventually be able to raise coffee, and we are already exploiting certain fibres which grow well between here and the coast. The plant which produces the Sansivera fibre is indigenous to this country and is being exploited by Americans who are working not far from the station of Voi, about one hundred miles from the Indian Ocean. I have no doubt we can raise sisal hemp, and know that we can grow ramie without cultivation.

“As to minerals, a great deal of prospecting has already been done, but the results have not been satisfactory. We know that we have gold, silver, and copper, but the deposits so far discovered have not been valuable enough to pay for their mining. This whole country is volcanic. We lie here in a basin surrounded by volcanoes. We have Mt. Kenya on the north, Kilimanjaro on the south, and Mt. Elgon away off to the northwest. The eruptions of these mountains have been so comparatively recent that some believe that they have buried the precious metals so deep down in the earth that we shall never get at them.”

“How about your timber?”

“We have fine forests, containing both hard and soft woods, among them a great deal of cedar such as is used for making cigar boxes and lead pencils. Most of such wood, however, is inland and at long distance from streams upon which it could be floated down to the sea. At present, our timber resources are practically inaccessible by railroad.”

Speaking of the possibilities of this East African colony, it may be one of the coffee lands of the future. Several plantations which have been set out not far from here are doing well. There is one coffee estate within five miles of Nairobi which belongs to the Catholic Mission of the Holy Ghost. Yesterday I rode out on horseback over the prairie to have a look at it. The way to the estate is through fenced fields, which are spotted here and there with the sheet-iron cottages of English settlers. As I rode on I saw many humped cattle grazing in the pastures. The grass is everywhere tall and thick, and the red soil, although not much cultivated as yet, seems rich.

Arriving at the plantation, I was met by Father Tom Burke and walked with him through his coffee plantation. It covers something like fifteen acres, and has now more than eight thousand trees in full bearing. The yield is so good that the plantation is supplying not only the town of Nairobi with all the coffee it needs, but is shipping several tons every year to Europe. Father Burke tells me that the coffee trees begin to bear at a year and a half, and that they are in full bearing within about four years. As the ripening season is long, the berries have to be picked many times. I saw blossoms and green and ripe berries on the same tree. In one place the natives were picking, at another they were hoeing the plants, while in a third place they were pulping the berries in a pulper turned by hand. The trees seem thrifty. Father Burke says that the young plants grow easily, and that where the birds carry the berries away and drop the seeds the plants will sprout up of themselves. There is a plantation near by of thirty thousand trees, and I am told that there is a fair prospect of a considerable coffee industry springing up.