will only be made possible by the scientific handling 

 and control of native labour. When this problem has 

 been solved, it is not too much to assume that the 

 surplus products from the district will constitute no 

 small proportion of the exports from East Africa. 



W. MacLellan Wilson. 



THE SOLAI VALLEY. 



DISCOVERY 

 BY THOMPSON, 



THE VALLEY 

 IN T883. 



TJNTIL the year 1883 the Solai Valley, in common 

 ^"^ with the rest of Masailand, remained completely a 

 terra incognita. In that year it was traversed by 

 Joseph Thompson — the first knight-errant to lift the 

 veil from the then mysterious territory of the 

 haughty Masai. Shortly afterwards, when help was 

 being sent to Emin Pasha, the importance of the 

 Masailand route to the headquarters of the Nile 

 came into prominence, and General Gordon's estimate 

 of it as the true route has now been amply proved 

 by the construction and success of the Uganda Rail- 

 way, which has opened up to civilisation the rich 

 territory of the healthy highlands of British East 

 Africa that include the Solai Valley. 



Since 1SS3 the Solai Valley has emerged from a 

 land of inviting mystery for the explorer, a paradise 

 for game and a happy grazing ground for an indolent 

 nomadic tribe, to a tolerably well settled outpost of 

 our great Empire. Here it was that Thompson was 

 probably referring to when in speaking of East 

 Africa he said "the colonist will find new countries 

 of promise." We can picture to ourselves the Solai 

 Valley as he saw it. The rainy season would be well 

 begun when he passed through park-like land of 

 short verdant grass bespread with the umbrageous 

 albizzia, the ever-green acacia and the silvery 

 leleshwa; broken by numerous crystal-clear streams — 

 a land where the elephant, rhino, buffalo and 

 lion still held sway, and the only human 

 population consisted of natives whom he con- 

 sidered were of low development. Could he recross 

 "that bourne from which no traveller returns" 

 and revisit this part of Africa, the intrepid explorer 

 would bless the day he wrote that letter to 

 the Times thirty years ago, pointing out that 



96 



