FOREWORD. 



TuRi, B.E.A 

 February, rgi 7 



Dear Leslie, 



You ask me to write a "foreword" to your book on farming 

 and planting in B.E.A. 



Much water and some ink has flowed under the bridges 

 since Newland first called across the Continent to me to come 

 and take a hand in the sowing; and yet there is but half a 

 generation linking then and now. 



1 can see the scene of our arrival sharp outlined in the 

 sunlight and near as though it were but yesterday. The 

 tucked up little train of that time crawling across the Plains 

 and still an object of wonder to the swarming game— the tardy 

 arrival at the great Metropolis of Tomorrow, NAIROBI, then 

 the home of frogs innumerable and Tommy Wood— the Station 

 too, do you remember it? A mud patch distinguishable only 

 from the enveloping mudlands by virtue of :he decrepit tin 

 shed, proudly holding aloft a kitchen clock ! All the world 

 was there, true to the old time Nairobi tradition, to meet 

 the train. "All the world" was then four strong and— 

 Newland, as ever radiating optimism. 



Jolly times they were : eggs one hundred for a rupee 

 (payable by chit); land for the asking, if you could only find 

 it; bureaucracy as yet merely stirred to a mild curiosity; the 

 great mind of Sir Charles Elliot willing the new era; and the 

 great soul of dear old Bowker coaxing into being the advance 

 guard of our future hosts. Then and thenceforward in all the 

 varied doings and happenings which have made to-day, your 

 firm has played an intimate and constructive part. 



To-;day our dreams of yesterday are already substantive 

 fact entrenched in the redoubt of Trade Returns. 



