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THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. [October i, 1888. 
battled and almost defeated the sturdy adventurers o 1 
the Elizabethan age when they strove to lay hold 
on the New World, that we begin to appreciate 
those appliances of material civilisation whose praise 
was so eloquently sounded by Sir Frederick firam- 
well a few days ago. It may be that the 
difficulties which the new Company will encounter 
in the first beginnings of its enterprise will be 
as great as, or even greater than, those which 
tried the endurance of the first colonists of Virginia. 
But we now enter upon the struggle with resources 
infinitely more potent. It is not wise to boast 
at the beginning of a great enterprise, still less 
to be over-confident of immediate and brilliant 
success. The fortunes of the new Company will 
probably undergo many vicissitudes. But, if the 
reports of those who have seen the promised land 
are even approximately true, there can be little 
doubt that the founders of the British East Africa 
Company have set their hands to a work big with 
the fate of many generations of the English race. 
Among the native products of the districts ad- 
joining the Zanzibar coast regions are indiarubber, 
of at least two species, copal, hides, grain, 
orchilla, oil-seeds, copra. The Somali country has 
great commercial capacity. Although the islands 
of Zanzibar and Pemba are cultivated in the rudest 
possible manner, they furnish a large proportion of 
the clove supply of the world. Quite recently tobacco 
of the best quality has been grown by the German 
planters. The forests are full of springs and deep de- 
posits of alluvial soil which affect even the natives. 
The Taveta forest is 15 miles by three, and when it is 
cleared the fertility of the soil will be almost 
inexhaustible. All travellers speak in glowing terms 
of the fertility of the pleateau (2,500 ft.) to the 
west and south west of Taveta, around Kilimanjaro; 
not only are there abundant native products, but 
anything will grow one chooses to plant. Germany 
has here 2,000 square miles of the very best land. 
The natives are great bee farmers, the district 
yielding about 1 00 tons of honey and wax annually. 
As to the southern portion of the Taveta plateau, 
very favourable reports are given of its agricultural 
possibilities, It has an altitude of 2,500 ft., rising 
gradually for 100 miles towards the north-west. The 
plateau is about 50 miles wide. Though not parti- 
cularly well watered, as is shown by the absence of 
large trees, it is covered with pasture. The region 
is reported to be to all appearance well adapted 
for wheat culture. It has the necessary elevation, 
a soil suited for the purpose, rain sufficient to 
mature two crops of fine grass annually. Still, the 
real capacity of the great southern plain, and an 
even more extensive one to the north, must be 
practically tested by those familiar with Indian 
modes of culture ; those who know the facts are 
confident of the result. 
The south Masai plain has a very large area 
available for cultivation. The climate is colder 
than the Taveta plain, the temperature ranging 
from 52deg. to 72deg., only rising to 80deg. in 
the hottest part of the day. Of course, it should 
be remembered that all thpse conclusions are based 
on very limited observations, and much yet re- 
mains to be done before a satisfactory knowledge 
of the country and of its capacities has been ob- 
tained. The country, so far as these high plains 
or plateaus are concerned, is stated to be " one 
of the moat salubrious in the tropics — probably in 
the world ; " — capable of becoming a permanent 
: ' ■l,!]r-rrjf:iit of British colonial.:-: and a new centre 
of trade. This, it must be admitted, is a strong 
statement to make, but it can bo easily tented, and 
no doubt boon will be. 
There ja, however, a far more extensive plateau 
to the north of this, possessing to a high de- 
gree all the essential conditions of soil and 
climate suited for wheat culture, Mr. Thomson, 
indeed, describes the climate as very similar to 
that of Europe. The plateau begins at the south 
end of the Mau encampment and strikes away 
north-west to the Victoria Nyanza. It has an 
average height of from 3,000 ft. to 4,000 ft., with 
a greater and more regular rainfall than the 
southern plain, but is not too wet for wheat. 
It is more wooded than the Masai plain, and has 
a population of robust and independent agricultural 
tribes, able to hold their own against the Masai. It 
is admitted by those who have visited and studied 
the country that there would be no difficulty in 
making a railway to the plateau over a distance of 
300 miles through the heart of the Masai country. 
But it is premature to discuss such a pro- 
ject. The country is reported to be admirably 
adapted for the construction and cheap main- 
tenance of a railway. It may no doubt be some 
time before the region is ripe for extensive 
railway construction, but if wheat culture is to 
be carried out on an extensive scale a rail- 
way will become necessary. There would be a 
few preliminary difficulties in the coast region, 
after which it would be comparatively plain 
sailing. It would bring what is believed to be 
a wheat country of great extent within less than 
a day's journey of Mombassa. Ivory alone, of 
wheh no doubt a fair supply now exists, may 
soon be difficult to obtain, though the company 
will take stringent measures to prevent the dim- 
inution of the present supply. Besides wheat, the 
country is capable of producing tea, chocolate, 
coffee, vanilla, pepper, tobacco, opium, carob beans, 
cinchona, wines ; while among native products 
there are Indian corn, hides, rubber, cotton, copal 
gums, wax, honey, aloes, fibres, oil seeds, orchilla. 
Manufactured goods of various kinds could be in- 
troduced and exchanged for these products at a 
very handsome profit and yet with perfect satis- 
faction to the natives. 
A recent report refers to the region in the follow- 
ing glowing terms : — 
All the mixed beauties and grandeur of the Alps, the 
vastness of the Himalayas, are there blended with the 
delioacy and softness of the finest parts of our English 
lake scenery, with a harmony so perfect that once seen 
it can never be forgotten even by the least impression- 
able. To whichever aspect the spectator may turn, 
the eye is enchained by the almost ideal loveliness 
both of the foreground and ever varying distance ; 
the shadow of each passing cloud, as it floats across 
the splendid suow-clad peaks of Kiboo and Kimawenzi, 
which stand out isolated in the sky nearly four miles 
above, brings with it a constant change of hue over hill 
and plain, lake and stream, as well as over the ever- 
green tropical foliage which lends its charm to every 
feature of the more permanent landscape. This ex- 
quisite picturesqueness is probably caused party by the 
extreme purity of the air, but principally by the pre- 
sence at one spot of so great a variety of scene, each 
perfect of its kind, and all within the spectator's range 
at the same moment, every detail, moreover, being sub- 
ject at short intervals to an entire change of light and 
.shade, while to the harmony of each prospect an in- 
describable grandeur is added by the perfect contour of 
the isolated cone which crowns, the whole. The eye 
may tire of the daily prospect of the everlasting snow 
walls and peaks of Northern India, or of the less vast 
but more varying mount and vale, gorge and precipice 
of the Swiss Alps, but here even the natives carrying 
the loads of the expedition seemed never to lose their 
interest in the scenery, and, after camping for a month 
amid it, Europeans will still sit, without wearying, 
gazing for hours on the splendid peaks, precipices, and 
craters of this mountain, and on the evergreen but ever 
varying vegetation which clothes its slopes, 
