KENYA GOLD RUSH

King Country Chronicle, Volume XXVI, Issue 3446, 22 March 1932, Page 2

KENYA GOLD RUSH

EUROPEANS SEEK LUCK.

HARVEST FOR NATIVES.

Considerable interest has been aroused in Kenya Colony in the recent discoveries of gold at Kakamega, and although they are not to be compared with the great finds in the past in the Klondike and Australian fields, there is reason to believe that the alluvial deposits are more extensive than was at first surmised

Kakamega lies 20 miles north of Kisumu, the railhead on the northeastern, shore of Lake Victoria. The workings have been confined to rivulets feeding the River Yala, says the Nairobi correspondent of the London Morning Post, and it would be hard to guess that the hot valleys even now shelter 400 European prospectors and their attendant natives. Prospectors' licenses cost only a few shillings, and there is a tax of 10s. levied on each claim staked. Little wonder that many farmers, tired of growing maize to feed the locusts have turned their eyes to Kakamega and set out in their lorries for the goldfields by way of Eldoret and Kisumu.

It is thought that richer deposits, and even nuggets, will be discovered when the workings have been further developed. At present the new prospector stakes his claim on a certain stream and spends the first few days clearing the rich alluvial deposit from the gold streak, which may be one or two feet below the surface. Then, having constructed his channel for washing, he begins operations in earnest. The gold streak may be two or three feet thick, but below that the bed of the stream yields nothing. The happy-go-lucky prospector on his arrival is moved to mirth rather than anger by the keenness and chicanery of the local peasantry, vying among themselves to guide the "bwani" to the richest gold deposits, each man emboldened by the prospect of a lucrative trade in vegetable?--, eggs and milk, paying more regard to the position of his family hearth than any minor consideration of "yellow stuff" and the points of the compass. Perhaps the optimistic prospector — and what man in Kenya is not an optimist?—will eventualy become discouraged and better prices for produce will persuade him to return to his farm.

Certain it is that the Kavirondo natives, at present rejoicing in an abundance of goats and cattle, but, as always, grinningly impassive to everything—even to famine—will be quite unperturbed if these good things are suddenly denied them, and will resort to their ready philosophy: "Mzungus (Europeans) come, Mzungus go, but we go on for ever."