16 THE LAND OF THE LION 
The road, or more properly, track, for as yet there are 
no roads in the country (if a few miles of gravelled roadway 
near Nairobi be excepted) winds between rolling hills 
and dense spurs of encroaching forest, twenty-two miles 
to Eldama Ravine Boma. There is a government station, 
and a district commissioner holds his court, ruling the neigh- 
bouring tribes. The country you pass through for all 
these twenty-two miles, is exceedingly rich and capable 
of raising almost any crop and of supporting great herds 
of cattle. Yet not one single settler’s shamba * is visible 
for all the long way. You ask why? And the answer 
is of a sort one hears far too frequently in the Protectorate: 
“Oh, all this is So-and-So’s concession.” 
Twenty-two miles of splendid land, near the railroad, 
too, locked up and refused to settlers, just because 
someone with a “‘pull at home” asked, and someone in 
authority gave, what he did not know anything about. 
Real settlers are naturally discouraged by such a policy. 
As I have mentioned this concession, near the railroad, 
I may as well, since it is a flagrant case of governmental 
unwisdom and lack of foresight, state what I learned about 
it later on. 
Not only is this rich district between Londiani and 
Eldama Ravine held back from settlers, but you may 
ride more than forty miles after leaving Eldama Ravine, 
through a country perhaps the very finest and certainly 
the healthiest in East Africa, and look as far as you can 
on either side of your way without seeing a head of cattle, 
or one sod turned for purposes of agriculture. All has been 
““concessed” to a group of individuals as a forest concession. 
Now, it is true you are passing through the great Mau 
forest region. Hundreds of square miles of the finest 
timber borders your pathway. Let Government give away 
the mighty Mau forest if it must, or does not know any 
*African word for farm. 
