Freeland: A Social Anticipation

by Theodor Hertzka

One of the principal tasks of the Freeland government, and one in which, as a rule, the ministries for art and science and for public works co-operated, was the thorough investigation and survey of our new home: first of the narrower district of the Kenia, and then of the neighbouring regions with which we were continually coming into closer relationship. The orographic and hydrographic systems of the whole country were determined; the soil and the climate were minutely examined. In doing this, both the higher scientific standpoint and that of prosaic utility were kept in view. For scientific purposes there was constructed an accurate map of the whole of the Masai and Kikuyu territories, showing most of the geographical details. All the more prominent eminences were measured and ascended, the Kenia not excepted.

The view from the Kenia is magnificent above measure; but, apart from the mountain itself and its glaciers, it offers little variety. In a circle, as far as the eye can reach, spreads a most fertile country, intersected by numerous watercourses, which nowhere, except in a great trough-like basin of about 1,900 square miles in extent in the north-west, give rise to swamps. The most striking feature of the whole region is the tableland falling away in a number of terraces, and broken by the shoulders of massive hills. The foot-hills proper of the Kenia begin with the highest terrace, where they form a girdle of varying breadth and height around the central mass of the mountain, which rises with a steep abrupt outline. This central mass, at a height of from 16,000 to 18,000 feet, bears a number of gigantic glacier-fields, from the midst of which the peak rises abruptly, flanked at some distance by a yet steeper, but small, horn.

A very different character marks the next in importance of the mountain-formations that belong to the district of Freeland--namely, the Aberdare range, about forty-five miles west of the Kenia, and stretching from north to south a distance of more than sixty miles, with an average breadth of twelve and a-half miles. The highest peak of this chain reaches nearly 15,000 feet above the sea; and while the Kenia everywhere bears an impress of grandeur, a ravishing loveliness is the great characteristic of the Aberdare landscapes. It is true that here also are not wanting colossal hills that produce an overwhelming impression, but the chief peculiarity is the charming variety of romantic billowy-outlined hills, intermingled with broad valleys, covered in part with luxuriant but not too dense forests, in part spreading out into emerald flowery pastures everywhere watered by numberless crystal-clear brooks and rivers, lakes and pools. This mountain-district of nearly 800 square miles resembles a magnificent park, from whose eminences the mighty snow-sea of the Kenia is visible to the east, and the emerald-and-sapphire sheen of the great Masai lakes--Naivasha, El-Meteita, and Nakuro--to the west. And this marvellously lovely landscape, which combines all the charms of Switzerland and India, bears in the bosom of its hills immense mineral treasures. Here, and not at the Kenia, as our geologists soon discovered, was the future seat of the Freeland industry, particularly of the metallurgic industry. Beds of coal which in extent and quality at least equalled the best of England, magnetite containing from fifty to seventy per cent. of iron, copper, lead, bismuth, antimony, sulphur in rich veins, a large bed of rock-salt on the western declivity just above the salt lake of Nakuro, and a number of other mineral treasures, were discovered in rapid succession, and the most accessible of them were at once taken advantage of. In particular, the newly opened copper-mines had a heavy demand made upon their resources when the telegraph was laid to the coast; the demand was still heavier as electricity became more and more largely used as a motive force.

For great changes had meantime taken place at the Kenia. New-comers continued to arrive in greater and greater numbers. At the close of the fourth year the population of Freeland had risen to 780,000 souls. A great part of Eden Vale had become a city of villas, which covered forty square miles and contained 58,000 dwelling-houses, whose 270,000 occupants devoted themselves to gardening, industrial, or intellectual pursuits. The population of the Dana plateau had risen to 140,000, who, besides cultivating what land was still available there for agriculture, gave by far the greater part of their attention to various kinds of industries. The main part of the agriculture had been transferred to a plain some 650 feet lower down, beyond the zone of forest. This lower plateau extended, with occasional breaks, round the whole of the mountain, and offered in its 3,000 square miles of fertile soil abundant agricultural ground for the immediate future.

Here some 240,000 acres were at first brought under the plough after they had--like all the cultivated ground in Freeland--been protected against the visits of wild animals by a strong timber fence. The smaller game, which could not be kept away from the seed by fencing, had respect for the dogs, of which many were bred and trained to keep watch at the fences as well as to guard the cattle. This protection was amply sufficient to keep away all the creatures that would have meddled with the seed, except the monkeys, some of which had occasionally to be shot when, in their nocturnal raids, they refused to be frightened away by the furious barking of the four-footed guardians.

Steam was still provisionally employed as motive power in agriculture; but provision was being made on a very large scale to substitute electric for steam force. The motive power for the electric dynamos was derived from the Dana river where, after being supplemented by two large streams from the hills just below the great waterfall, it was broken into a series of strong rapids and cataracts as it hurried down to the lower land. These rapids and cataracts were at the lower end of the tableland which, as indicative of the use we made of it, we named Cornland. It was these rapids and smaller cataracts, and not the great waterfall of 800 feet, that were utilised for agricultural purposes. These afforded a total fall of 870 feet; and, as the river here already had a great body of water, it was possible, by a well-arranged combination of turbines and electro-motors, to obtain a total force of from 500,000 to 600,000 horse-power. This was far more than could be required for the cultivation of the whole of Cornland even in the intensest manner. The provision made for the next year was calculated at 40,000 horse-power. Well-isolated strong copper wires were to convey the force generated by twenty gigantic turbines in two hundred dynamos to its several destinations, where it had to perform all the labours of agriculture, from ploughing to the threshing, dressing, and transport of the corn. For a network of electrical railways was also a part of this system of agricultural mechanism.

The great Dana cataract, with what was calculated to be a force of 124,000 horse-power, was utilised for the purposes of electric lighting in Eden Vale and in the town on the Dana plateau. For the time being, for the public lighting it sufficed to erect 5,000 contact-lamps a little more than 100 feet high, and each having a lighting power of 2,000 candles. These used up a force of 12,000 horse-power. For lighting dwelling-houses and isolated or night-working factories, 420,000 incandescent-lamps were employed. This required a force of 40,000 horse-power; so that the great cataract had to supply a force of 52,000 horse-power to the electro-motors. This was employed during the day as the motive power of a net of railways, with a total length of a little over 200 miles, which traversed the principal streets and roads in the Dana plateau and Eden Vale. In the evening and at night, when the electricity was used for lighting purposes, the railways had to be worked by dynamos of several thousand horse-power. In this way altogether nearly two-fifths of the available force was called into requisition at the close of the fifth year; the remaining three-fifths remained for the time unemployed, and formed a reserve for future needs.

The fourth and fifth years of Freeland were also marked by the construction of a net of canals and aqueducts, both for Eden Vale and for the Dana plateau. The canals served merely to carry the storm-water into the Dana; whilst the refuse-water and the sewage were carried away in cast-iron pipes by means of a system of pneumatic exhaust-tubes, and then disinfected and utilised as manure. The aqueducts were connected with the best springs in the upper hills, and possessed a provisional capacity of supplying 22,000,000 gallons daily, and were used for supplying a number of public wells, as well as all the private houses. By the addition of fresh sources this supply was in a short period doubled and trebled. At the same time all the streets were macadamised; so that the cleanliness and health of the young towns were duly cared for in all respects.

The board of education had made no less vigorous efforts. A public opinion had grown up that the youth of Freeland, without distinction of sex and without reference to future callings, ought to enjoy an education which, with the exception of the knowledge of Greek and Latin, should correspond to that obtainable, for example, in the six first classes in a German gymnasium. Accordingly, boys and girls were to attend school from the age of six to that of sixteen years, and, after acquiring the elements, were to be taught grammar, the history of literature, general history, the history of civilisation, physics, natural history, geometry, and algebra.

Not less importance was attached to physical education than to intellectual and moral. Indeed, it was a principle in Freeland that physical education should have precedence, since a healthy, harmoniously developed mind presupposed a healthy harmoniously developed body. Moreover, in the cultivation of the intellect less stress was laid upon the accumulation of knowledge than upon the stimulation of the young mind to independent thought; therefore nothing was more anxiously and carefully avoided than over-pressure of mental work. No child was to be engaged in mental work--home preparation included--longer than at most six hours a day; hence the hours of teaching of any mental subject were limited to three a day, whilst two other school hours were devoted daily to physical exercises--gymnastics, running, dancing, swimming, riding; and for boys, in addition, fencing, wrestling, and shooting. A further principle in Freeland education was that the children should not be forced into activity any more than the adults. We held that a properly directed logical system of education, not confined to the use of a too limited range of means, could scarcely fail to bring the pliable mind of childhood to a voluntary and eager fulfilment of reasonably allotted duties. And experience justified our opinion. Our mode of instruction had to be such as would make school exceedingly attractive; but, when this had been achieved, our boys and girls learnt in half the time as much, and that as thoroughly, as the physically and intellectually maltreated European boys and girls of the same age. For health's sake, the teaching was carried on out of doors as much as possible. With this in view, the schools were built either in large gardens or on the border of the forest, and the lessons in natural history were regularly, and other lessons frequently, given in connection with excursions into the neighbourhood. Consequently our school children presented a different appearance from that we had been accustomed to see in our old home, and especially in its great cities. Rosy faces and figures full of robust health, vigour, and the joy of living, self-reliance, and strong intelligence were betrayed by every mien and every movement. Thus were our children equipped for entering upon the serious duties of life.