NAIROBI.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 9303, 1 August 1908, Page 2

NAIROBI.

GREAT BRITAIN'S NEW METROPOLIS IN EAST AFRICA.

(By F. G. CARPENTER, in th* " Chicago Tribune."

Have you ever heard of Nairobi ? It is the metropolis of this far-away colony, and the place which the English think is to be one of the greatest cities of Africa. They are already speaking of it as a Chicago m embryo, and are prophesying that it will have a vast white population. The town ia not half a dozen years old. Three years ago it had hardly a house. loday streets have been laid, out over an area about ten miles in circumference; hundreds of buildings of tin, wood and stone have been erected, and the place has almost 15,000 inhabitants. Nairobi lies in the very heart of British East Africa. It is little more than half-way inland .from the coast on the road to Lake Victoria, and, as the crow flies, about 100 miles from Mount Kenia, which kisses the clouds at an altitude of 18,000 or 19,000 feet off to the northward. I can see Mount Kenia from here on a bright day, and some distance down the railroad, when the sun is just right, one can get a glimpse of the two peaks of Kilimanjaro, which lies to the southeast, in the German- possessions, a distance of 150 miles or more. Nairobi is situated at the western end of great plains wliich rise to an altitude of 5000 or more feet above the sea. They are so high that the equatorial sun is conquered by the altitude, and white men- can live and work uoon them the year round. The country is, in fact, a white man's country, and with care the people of our race can thrive upon thousands of square miles of it. I struck these plains after a twentyhours' ride from the Indian Ocean by railroad. This country, js an empire in its undeveloped possibilities, and the English do right in putting a high value upon it. THE TOWN OF NAIROBI. This letter is to be devoted to the tin town of Nairobi. I should say galvanised iron for. that is the chief building material. There are no sawmills or planing mills here worthy of mention, the forests have not been exploited, and about the only lumber available is that which is brought from our country and Norway and landed at Mombasa. *Tbe ocean freight rates are boavy, and in addition there is the cost of bringing the lumber here by railroad. As a result the most of the buildings are of galvanised iron, which comes here in sheets from England and Belgium. Almost all the buildings are of iron, which is put up just as it comes from the factory, giving the whole town in a silvery-grey colour. The post office is of iron, the depot has an iron roof, and the same is true of the Governor's offices. Many of the houses have iron ceilings and iron walls, and the chief retail business section is a collection of one-storey iron booths, open at the front, in wliich Hindoos stand or sit surrounded by their goods. My hotel is half iron. The Government Treasury, near-by, consisting of a shed not more than fifteen feet square, is of tin and has a tin roof. I. could chop it to pieces with a butcher's knife ; and the only sign of safety about it is the negro policeman % who,- gun in hand, stands outside guarding the door. The office of the land surveyor is of tin, and so are the police headquarters and the house in which the supreme court is held. The more fancy dwellings are now being painted and some stone and brick buildings are rising. The Nairobi of to-day is largely cow pastures. It is a city of magnificent distances. Every place of importance seems 'several miles from any other place of the same character, and • the patches between are often grazing ground. The houses are of one and two storeys, and they are scattered along wide streets which run for an indefinite distance out into the prairie. ! The chief ways of getting about are on foot, on horseback or in jinrikshas, the latter being by far the most popular. Tne jinrikshas are much like those used in Japan, save that they are larger and wider. lam told they are made in America. They are pushed and pulled by black Africans, two to each vehicle. One man goes in the shafts and the other pushes behind. They are clad in a single cotton cloth which back and forth as they run, exposing their nakedness. The streets are unpaved and they are frequently" masses of dust. Along many of them 'eucalyptus trees have been planted, have grown rapidly, and the roads are now shaded by their dreary foliage., the leaves of which hang down as though they were mourning. AMONG THE BLACK AFRICANS. I have given the total population of Nairobi as 15,000. I doubt whether it has 1000 whites. Of the remainder about one-third are East Indians and the others are the queerest Africans you can imagine. I speak of them first, because they are everywhere. You stumble over them on the street; they wait upon you in the hotels; they carry burdens for you, and they clog your footsteps when you go outside town. Many of the natives wear dirty, greasy cloths, not more . than a yard wide and two yards long. They hang /them about their shoulders and let them fall down on each side, so that they flap this way and that in the breeze. Some wear breech cloths, and some do not, and not a few are bare to the xraist. In tip eai j morning when the air is still sharp many of these people are clad in red flannel blankets, and they go stalking along with their legs bare to the thigh. I have already spoken of the ear plugs. Some have the holes in the lobes of their ears so stretched that I can put ray fist through them. The loops are ©o long that when a man takes out his ear plug he hangs the loop of skin over the top of his ear to prevent it catching on to something and tearing. The loop looks just like a leather strap about as wide as one's little finger nail. I have handled many of them. EAST INDIAN TRADERS. I find the retail business of Nairobi done by East Indians. This was also the case at Mombasa, and I am told it is so in every settlement on this part of the continent. The Hindoos have made their way along every travelled route, and their little stores may be found in every large African village. They hove trading stations upon Lakes Victoria and Tanganyika. 'Xhey are very enterprising, and as they live upon almost nothing they can undersell the whites. They handle cotton of bright colours and of the most gorgeous patterns. They sell wire for jewellery, and all sorts of kuick-knacks that the African wants. They deal also in European goods, and one can buy of them almost anything from a needle to a sewing machine. Here in Nairobi there is one long street which is devoted to the Hindoo market. The stores are all open at the front, and the men squat in them with their gay goods piled about them. These Indians dress in a quaint costume, not unlike that of the English clergyman, who wears a long black coat buttoned up to the throat. The

only difference is that the Hindoo 6 trousers may be of bright coloured calico, cut very tight, and his head may be covered with a flat skull cap of velvet, embroidered in gold. Moreover, his feet are usually bare. THE WHITE POPULATION. This is a British city, notwithstanding its African, and Asiatic inhabitants, and the ruling classes are the English. They are divided up into castes, almost as much ac are the East Indians. The Government officials rank at the head. They are the swells of the town. They dress well and spend a great deal of time out of office hours playing tennis and golf, which, strange to say, have already been introduced into this part of the Dark Continent. They also ride about on horseback and in carriages, and upon very low salaries manage to make a good show. Allied to them are the sportsmen and the noble visitors from abroad. We have a scattering element of dukes, lords and second sons of noble families who have come out here to invest or to hunt big game. They are usually men of means, for the prices of large tract© ! of land are high, and it also costs considerable money to fit out a game shooting expedition. ! In addition there are land speculators, who are chiefly young men from England or South Africa. They dress m riding clothes, big helmet hat 6, and top boots. They dash about the country on ponies, and are especially in evidence around the bars of the hotels. NAIROBI NEWSPAPERS. It seems strange to have newspapers away out here under the shadow of Mount Kenia, within half a day's ride on horseback of lion and rhinoceros hunting. Nevertheless, Nairobi has three weeklies. They are all banking on the future of the town and all claim to be prosperous. They are gocd-sized journals selling at from two to three nannae, or about three-ponce each. They have reeular telegrams from the Reuter agency, which gives them the big news of the world, and they furnish fuß reports of the local cricket, polo, tennis and golf matches. This week's " Star" reports the meeting of the East African Turf Club, and in the " Globe Trotter " I see the story of a cricket match which was held last Saturday between the Government clerks and the townspeople. As to the advertisements, the. most of them come from the local merchants and some are odd to an extreme. On© in the "Globe Trotter" of to-day is signed by a well known American circus company and states that it wants to buy a white rhinoceros, a giant hog, some wild dogs and a white tailed mongoose and bongo. Another advertisement is that of the Homestead dairy, showing the improvements made along farming lines, and others state that certain merohants will outfit hunters for shooting, mere are many land sales advertised, and also machinery, American waggons and. all 6orts of agricultural implements. One of these newspapers of Nairobi is edited by an American. It isTsnown as the "Globe Trotter," end has a good circulation. The editor's name is David Garrick Longworth, but I am not sure that he is a relative of the President's son-in-law. Ho is certainly enterprising,* and partakes of our President's character in his love for wild game. He came out here originally to buy lions, giraffes and rhinoceroses for Earnum and Bailey'sncircus, and he still takes a whaok at the wild beasts during the intervals of his editorial writings. Mr Longworth has done some newspaper work in the United States, and was editing a newspaper at Cairo, Egypt, just before lie came here. Another paper of note is the " Star ' of East Africa. This is owned by Mr Low, the brother of Mr A. Maurice Low, the well-known Washington correspondent of the Boston "Globe." The " Star " is very American in its methods, and it delights in sensations. Last week it published a supplement consisting of a pamphlet of sixty-four pages, on the outside of which was printed in large type the words, "What the British Government is Doing for British East Africa." Upon opening the pamphlet the other pages were found to be blank. HOTELS IN AFRICA. Nairobi has three hotels, the Norfolk, the Stanley and the Masonic, and the accommodations in them are comfortable. lam stopping at the Norfolk at the upper end of the town. It is a low, one-storey building, with a wide porch in front, separated from the dirt street by a picket fence, and shaded by eucalyptus trees, through which the wind seems to be over sighing and moaning. The charges ere 3dol 33 cents a day, including meals, but I have to have my own servant to make my bed and tend my errands. I have a room at the back with a fine view of the stable, and a German sportsman next door, who has a little cub lion about as big as a Newfoundland dog, tied in a box outside his window. During a part of the day he lets the baby lion out, and ties him by a rope to one of the pillars of the poroh. The animal seems harmless, but his teeth are sharp, and he is entirely too playful to suit mo. Besides, he roars at night. The horses here are fairly good, but the charges for them are high. When I ride out on horseback it costs me Idol 65 cents an hour, and the carriage rates are still more. The best way to get about is in. the jinrikshas, using negroes as beasts of burden. For a long rid© over the plains horses are necessary.. AMERICAN TRADE. As to the heavy hauling of this part of East Africa, it is mostly done by the sacred cattle of India. I mean the clean-cut animals with great humps on their backs. They are fine-looking, and are apparently well bred. Some of these beasts are hitched to American waggons brought out here from Wisconsin, I saw such a team hauling a Kentucky plough through the Btreets of Nairobi yesterday. Indeed, I find that American goods are slowly making their way into these wilds. American axes, sewing machines and American sowers and planters are sold by the East Indians. The drug stores carry our patent medicines, and every market has more or less American cottons. The wood-cutters are using American axes, but they complain of the flat or oval holes made for the handles. They say that a round hole would be better, as the natives who do the wood cutting are clumsy and the handles 6nap off at the axe. If round holes were used heavier handles could be put in and the natives could make them themselves. RAILROAD AND TELEGRAPH CENTRE. Nairobi promises to become one of the railroad centres of this part of the world. It is the chief station between the Indian Ocean and Lake Victoria, and a road is now proposed from here to Mount Kenia. isj and by that may connect with the German road from. Tanga to Kilimanjaro. The country through which the Uganda railway goes is among the poorest in the colony, and the Mount Kenia road will open up a rich agricultural region, which is thickly populated by tribes more than ordinarily industrious. The railroad shops are here, and the employees have a large collection of tin cottages for their homes. The headquarters of the railroad, wh»re* all the chief officers stay, are one-story tin buildings, and the telegraphic offices ore connected with thenu Both railroads and telegraphs are run by t«e Government. • The telegraphic rates are comparatively low. Away out here in the wiuls of Africa one can send messages far more cheaply *han in the United States. I can send eight words from here to Uganda for 33 cents, and I can telegraph to London about as cheaply as you can telegraph from New lorJs to San Francisco. This is so, notwithstanding the difficulty which the linemen bay© to keep tht> wire** in shape.. I have already told you how the natives steal the wire from the poles and : maka bracelets, an-

klets and earrings of it. They can uee it for trading, and in some districts it will pas 3 as money. During the Nandi rebellion, forty odd miles- of wire were carried away and never recovered and iii one ot thw provinces adioiniii^ Ugan-d-a, above Lake Victoria, the natives are so crazy attfe. tht? copper wire there used that it i» almost impossible to keep the lines up. Another serious danger to the telegraph system is the big game. The giraffes reach up and play with the brackets and pull tlie wire this way and that. At Naivisha, the hippopotami have once or twice butted down the poles, and I understand they have been doing considerable damage to the lines along the coast near the Tana River. In the heart of Uganda the monkeys have a way of swinging on the wires and twisting them together, wirieh stops fc_e tiansmission of many messages, so that, indeed, the way of the lineman is hard. , _____