A KENYA COMEDY

Evening Star, Issue 21933, 21 January 1935, Page 12

A KENYA COMEDY

: HUMOURS OF BUILDING A RAILWAY Constructing a railway through the wilds, like the Khyber or the Turk-Sib, can be an epic; building one in Kenya is apparently a comedy. The first indication a. landowner may have that the line is coming through his farm—Mrs Eve Bache/tlie wife of a settler, reveals in ‘ The Youngest Lion ’—is the arrival of a surveyor with a party of boys, cutting a wide track through his growing maize or wheat, for which he receives no compensation because it is, not a “ permanent crop.” He will next see large drains cut which precipitate volumes of storm water through what remains of his ground, sweeping away more tracts of maize and good soil. The railway makes a narrow, inadequate fire-break along each side of the line; but unless owners of adjacent land double this for the whole distance —an expensive undertaking—the railway will accept no responsibility for grass fires or other damage to property caused by sparks from the wood fuel of engines;

PLAYING WITH EXPLOSIVES. ', When construction begins the owner will have to tolerate a big railway camp on his farm. His private roads are cub to pieces by heavy wagons, his private bridges broken down. He will encounter the gangs all sitting down or standing still, while an Indian headman ‘ parades up and down, saying fiercely, Fanya kasi; Fanya kasi!” (get on 1 witlr your work), nobody taking the least notice of him; or the boys will be working, so close together that if more than one swings his jembe at -a time continual accidents must result. However careful the engineers may be, nothing will teach a native that explosives are dangerous; he will steal detonators and have little explosions on his own account—and very startling they are, declares Mrs Bache. when they are near one’s house. Finished holes ready for the charge are filled with a tuft of grass; occasionally a charge fails to explode: the next dav a native makes the joyful discovery of a hole already made, and in pretending to enlarge it explodes the charge with danger to himself and others in the vicinity. It was not considered necessary to hoist a red flag or issue warn-, ings during blasting operations; even in road construction one would -he motoring gaily along when, without any warning, in front of one several large boulders would fly into the air with terrific explosions. One never knew when it was safe to proceed;.nor did the boys, when they came back, ever remember how many charges there were to go off and how many had failed to explode 1

DOING IT WITH ONE RIFLE. , Fanners and their boys, daring railway construction (Mrs Baehe adds) were in constant danger of getting shot, for anyone in the gangs who could raise a rifle would go out poaching. Her kitchen boy. gardener,, and headman nearly formed the bag of a labour inspector who was blazing at a reed buck close to the huts, and firing straight at our house; and on« afternoon, on hearing a barrage* starting, Charles (Mrs Bache’s husband) went out with some boys and captured a young man of foreign extraction with a rifle, but no license, and firing in every direction, oblivious of natives, their cattle, or their huts. Incidentally, the whole business is an expensive one because the Government gives out the work to contractors, they to sub-contractors, and these, sometimes, to sub-sub-contractors, all of whom manage to make a handsome profit. Mrs Bache’s account of a settler’s Ufa is bracingly unconventional; she demolishes many popular legends about Kenya. .