BRITISH EAST AFRICA.

Evening Post, Volume LXXIX, Issue 89, 16 April 1910, Page 13

BRITISH EAST AFRICA.

A WOMAN'S IMPRESSIONS. ' Nairobi, the capital, which lie* about half-way between Mombasa, and Lake Victoria, is an interesting and uncommon place, with a population of about '600. On t>ho farms women have to turn t'h«ir hands to anything and everything, a« the natives are little more tthan raw savages ; indeed, most of thorn had never seen, white people before in the district where we had our farm. ThofO natives did not eeem much imprefsed with white men, but they were astonished at my hair and the way I was "tied in" (meaning my waist). Tho cattle of the country arc ewoet, [docile creatures, and scam little troubled with diseases of any kind, and tho cows milk well ; it is ft charming eound when a tioop of cattle go down from one of the native village* to atalt pan, a* each has an iron bell attached to its neck by a leather strap, and tho different tonea emitted from several hundred of these blend into a sweet, weird sound, suitable to this change land. Perhaps half-a-dozen email nativ* boys, riding on oxen, with humps as tall as the boys' bodies, will accompany the troop, and when returning at night these boys will shout, 6cr«am, and mrke all the noiso their lungr. are capable of to scare away the lions; they also for this purpose carry blazing torches till the cattle are safely in their "liomna" or kraals. Night after night lion* would come roaring and snithng round our house and cattle kraal, and as the former was built only of grass, at first one felt frightened. The cattle* ' "llamas" coneist of a stockade of poles 15fb high, interlaced securely with thorn-tree branches. TWO STRIKING FEATURES. Game of all kinds in troops of hundreds wandered over our farm, and the beautiful zobras used to come ami rub no&ea with our donkeys, vwhile at the same time they marked dawn the green 1 forage and returned again at night to sample it. This, latter weakness caused us some trouble. Two things which •triko one in British East Afiica are the teeming native population and the intense loneliness of tarin life. A white man Bees only occasional wiiite faces, and then nearly always the same ones from month to month, and a woman is still more cut oft' from companionship. Of black faces there are always plenty, and tihe women, gracefully draped, and with arm's and bosoms bare and beautifully moulded, move along with the carriage of queans. Th<*e aatives were perfectly naked, not even posseting the proverbial string of beads; but to fchoso we took into domestic eeivico we expounded the civilising doctrines of the- cake of t>oap and tihe shirt, and it "was surprising ; how readily they took to both. On my walks I was always accompanied by some male companion, armed with a rifle ; this i<> considered a necessary precaution an account of ' lions, leopards, and rhinos. The natives are perfectly peaceful, and un unprotected white woman is quito safe with them. In this country, unless a woman i& prepared to rough it and be lonely, she will find life at times hard to bear, for it is not everyone who feel« at home amongst savages and wild animals, and the rays of the sun are not to be trifled with; but againjit those drawbacks may be set a striking country, interesting natives, lovely wild animals, and beautiful trees and plant*. THE WHITE MAN AND DBOUGHT. Although the country round Nairobi is healthy, the altitude being about 6000 ft, tho continual summer becomes I trying, there being no sharp winter or 1 hopeful spring to break the monotony, and the only places one can go to for a change are South Africa or Europe, both often beyond the means of the fanner. When I was a child I used to hear the saying: "Where the white mtwi'R foot goes the water dries up," and I have noticed this result both in British East Africa and South Africa; tho beautiful papyrus »wamp» have in places become baked clay, and the former rush- ■ ing streams have in pome of the gorges degenerated to a mere trickle, and old settlers say that the regular rain seasons now and then give place to serious drought*, causing famine amongst the natives. The journey from Mombasa to Lake Victoria, about 000 miles, is one everchanging' scene of beauty, and is probably cno of the most interesting railway journeys in the world. The wene of fljder Haggard's novels, "Allan Quartermain" and "'The People of the Mist," is laid on Lake Navaisha, which is a few hours along the line from .Nairobi to Uganda. This lake, the first of the series, is tea miles wicfo and seventeen milea long, and much, more- in-

teresting than even these books lead one to suppose. Touganot, the biggest ex tinct crater in the world, and numerous smaller ones, surround tho lake, and many of them still emit jets of steam, and the noise of rushing underground waters can be heard. One fanner had a rather startling experience in this respect; he was sinking a well close to the lake to obtain fresh water, and when it was down 15ft the bottom iell ' away into the darknej?6, and a strong blast of air camo rushing up, accompanied with the roar of a waterfall down below. The water of rome of these lakes is so impregnated with soda that fish cannot live in it, nor will ani'inal.s drink it, and on© .lake emits a sulphurous pmell, strong enough to be noticeable miles away. GRAND SCENERY. The scenery from Nairobi to Uganda is grand; tho line crosses over a high range of mountains covered with cedar trees, the wood of which is used for the locomotive, there being no coal in the country. Owiiig to the altitude the temperature at night reaches freezing point, and one £cc& the stupendous snow-clad mountains of Kenia- and Kilimanjaro. Konia, the highest, is 19,000 ft high, one single mountain, white from base to summit, with dark cedar trees surrounding it on one Fide, and on the other bamboo forests. Kilimanjaro, though not quite co high, equals it in beauty and grandeur. — Transvaal Weekly.