It must be borne in mind that many great changes have taken place in the Kikuyu country, and in British East Africa generally, since the period, some ten years since, covered by this book. In the days when I started on my first contract for the conveyance of food to the troops engaged in the suppression of the Soudanese mutiny, the spot on which Nairobi, the present capital of the colony, stands was simply a patch of swampy ground on the edge of the plain which extends to the borders of the hilly Kikuyu country. Here the railway construction people pitched one of their settlements and put up a station, and from this has risen the town of some fifteen thousand inhabitants, of whom fully one thousand are white, a larger proportion than can be found in any settlement of the same age on the continent of Africa, while I may add that everything points to an increased rather than a diminished rate of progression!
Nairobi is no bush settlement, where one expects to “rough it” as part of the ordinary daily routine. On leaving the train one can engage a cab, or even a motor, to drive one to a good hotel; if you know any one in the town, you can be put up for an excellent club; while one’s commercial requirements are met by a fine post-office, banks of good standing, and stores where one may obtain anything that the most fastidious European or savage tastes can require.
Undoubtedly the colony of British East Africa has everything in its favour and, given ordinary luck, has a great future before it. The climate is everything that the European settler could desire. Being about six thousand feet above sea-level, the country is not subjected to the extremes of heat and wet which prevail in other parts of the continent, but has merely a good average rainfall, while the temperature seldom exceeds 75° in the shade, even in the hottest weather. The soil, particularly in the Kikuyu district, is extremely fertile, and will grow almost any European vegetable, and most European fruits, in addition to wheat, coffee, cocoa, tea, sugar, and tobacco, as well as cotton, rubber, sisal hemp, sansovera fibre, and, of course, on the coast, the ubiquitous cocoanut. On the whole, British East Africa presents as good an opportunity to the man of limited capital, with a capacity for work, as any spot to be found in the length and breadth of the British Empire. In addition to agriculture, such industries as cattle-farming, sheep-farming, pig-breeding, and ostrich-farming are already being carried on with great success. Under the wise administration of the present Governor, Sir Percy Girouard, the prospects of the country are improving by leaps and bounds. This is principally due to two important factors: the encouragement given by the Governor to capitalists willing to invest money in the colony; and his full and frank recognition, for the first time in the history of the colony, that the future of this valuable dependency lies in the hands of the settlers, rather than in those of the official caste.