BRITISH EAST AFRICA 273 



Mr. Duncan Carson, of Sydney, wrote lately in The Pastoral 

 Review as follows : — 



" Paying a visit to British East Africa for the second time, 

 one cannot fail to be struck by two facts — one, the marvellous 

 increase in the values paid for land, the other the want of justi- 

 fication for such an advance, the exception being land suitable 

 for coffee. With this crop, returns from the few plantations 



Mr. McGregor, Manager of The Naivasha Stud 

 Farm, B. E.A., and Serval Cat 



which are bearing, it is stated, show profits of over £40 per 

 acre, so high values for the land are justifiable. 



" On the occasion of my first visit what struck me as curious 

 was the great amount of faith held by practically all the settlers 

 in the future of the country, and the extremely rare cases where 

 they (the settlers) were attempting to justify this faith by buck- 

 ing in in raising stock or crops to show the returns the land was 

 capable of producing. 



" Strange as this may appear, this remains one of the curiosi- 

 ties of the position. Many of the settlers, both young and 

 middle-aged, appear as if they took up the land with the ex- 



