Kenya Colony

Inhabitants.

The African races include representatives of various stocks, as the country forms a borderland between the Negro and Hamitic peoples, and contains many tribes of doubtful affinities. The Bantu division of the negroes is represented chiefly in the south, the principal tribes being the Wakamba, Wakikuyu and Wanyika. By the eastern shores of Victoria Nyanza dwell the Kavirondo (q.v.), a race formerly remarkable for their com plete nudity. Nilotic tribes, including the Nandi (q.v.), Lumbwa, Suk and Turkana, are found in the north-west. Of Hamitic strain are the Masai (q.v.), a race of cattle-rearers speaking a Nilotic language. A branch of the Masai, which has adopted the settled life of agriculturists, is known as the Wakuafi. The Galla section of the Hamites is represented, among others, by Borani living south of the Goro escarpment (though the true Boran countries are Liban and Dirri in Abyssinian territory), while Somali occupy the country between the Tana and Juba rivers. Of the Somali tribes the Herti dwell near the coast and are more or less station ary. Farther inland is the nomadic tribe of Ogaden Somali. The Gurre, another Somali tribe, occupy the country south of the lower Daua. Primitive hunting tribes are the Wandorobo in the central and southern districts, and scattered tribes of small stat ure, such as the Midgan and Watta, in other regions. These seem to be survivals of aboriginal tribes of a Bushman or pigmy character, and it has been shown that this part of Africa has been the home of man from remotest antiquity. Remains of a very primitive form of Homo sapiens have been found, and evi dence of the existence c. 2000 B.C. of a Stone age people who were probably in contact with the civilization of Egypt or Meso potamia.

On the coast are to be found the Swahili (q.v.), a Bantu people mixed with Arab and other blood (whose language Ki-Swahili is largely understood throughout the country). The Arab inhabi tants, practically confined to the coast, are of ancient settlement in East Africa, and many have a marked strain of negro blood. Indians have also been long settled on the coast, but the great increase in their numbers dates from the British occupation. The Europeans, nearly all of British or South African origin, have mostly settled in the country since 1902, in which year the whole white population was about 400 (traders, officials and mission aries).

Towns and Communications.

Nairobi, the capital, and Mombasa, the port, are separately noticed. On the mainland, nearly opposite Mombasa, is the settlement of freed slaves named Freretown, after Sir Bartle Frere. Freretown (called by the natives Kisaoni) is the headquarters in East Africa of the Church Missionary Society. It was the residence of the bishop of the diocese of Mombasa, but the bishop's seat has been moved to Nairobi. Lamu (pop. 6,5oo), on the island of the same name, 150 m. N.E. of Mombasa, is an ancient settlement and the head quarters of the coast Arabs. Here are some Persian and Portu guese ruins, and a large Arab city is buried beneath the sands. Other towns on the coast are Malindi (pop. about 3,000), Patta and Kipini. At Malindi, the "Melind" of Paradise Lost, is the pillar erected by Vasco da Gama when he visited the port in 1498. The harbour is very shallow. Of towns founded by the white settlers (besides Nairobi), Naivasha, 64 m. N.N.W. of Nairobi, lies in the Rift valley close to Lake Naivasha, and is 6,23o ft. above the sea. It is the centre of a European agricul tural settlement (white pop., 1926, 428). Nakuru (white pop., 1,206; Asiatic, 912) ; 57 m. by rail N.W. of Naivasha, and finely situated on the shores of a salt lake, is the headquarters of the Kenya Farmers Association. At Eldoret (white pop., 700), on the Uasin Gishu plateau, is a settlement of Dutch-speaking South Africans. Kisumu (white pop., 544), is a port on Lake Victoria,

with railway and steamer services; up to 1928 it was the entrepot for the trade of Uganda. Fifteen miles N. of Nairobi is Kikuyu, a noted missionary station; Limuru (7,34o ft. high), io m. N. of Kikuyu, has a reputation as a health resort. Other towns founded by the white settlers are Gilgal, Kitale, Thika (centre of the coffee plantations) and Nyeri.

With the outside world and for commercial purposes, commu nications are almost entirely through Mombasa, with its spacious harbour at Kilindini. It can accommodate ships of the largest size, and is served by many steamship lines with direct and regular services to and from Europe, South Africa, India and other countries. Kenya and Uganda form a unit for transport services. State owned, the railway, harbours and allied services have, since 1921, possessed financial autonomy, and since 1926 have been under a high commissioner of transport (the governor of Kenya). There is one trunk railway, which, starting from Mombasa, runs north-west through the southern part of Kenya and eastern Uganda to the Nile, near its source. Originally the line went to Kisumu on Lake Victoria, whence a steamer service gave connec tion with Uganda. This was long known as the Uganda railway, and was begun at a time when it was not suspected that any part of Kenya could become "a white man's country." A preliminary survey was executed in 1892, and work was begun in 1896. The distance by rail from Mombasa to Kisumu is 584 m. The line is of metre (3.28 ft.) gauge, the Sudan, and South and Central African lines being of 3 ft. 6 in. gauge. Essentially a mountain line, it has gradients of one in so and one in 6o. From Mombasa it crosses to the mainland by a bridge half a mile long, and as cends the plateau till it reaches the edge of the Rift valley, 346 m. from its starting point, at the Kikuyu escarpment, where it is 7,600 ft. above the sea. It then descends across ravines bridged by viaducts to the valley floor, dropping to a level of 6,or 1 ft., and next ascending the opposite (Mau) escarpment to the sum mit, 8,321 ft. above sea-level. In the remaining ioo m. to Kisumu the level sinks to 3,738 ft., the altitude of Lake Victoria. The railway was built by the British Government at a cost of £5,331,000, or about £9,500 per mile. The first locomotive reached Victoria Nyanza (Lake Victoria) on Dec. 26, 1901; and the per manent way was practically completed by March 1903, when Sir George Whitehouse, the engineer who had been in charge of the construction from the beginning, resigned his post. The railway, by doing away with the carriage of goods by men, gave the final death-blow to the slave trade in that part of East Africa. It also facilitated the continued occupation and development of Uganda, which was, previous to its construction, an almost im possible task, owing to the prohibitive cost of the carriage of goods from the coast. Not only were the two avowed objects of the railway—the destruction of the slave trade and the securing of the British position in Uganda—attained; it was found that the line passed through a region which was suitable for coloniza tion by whites. For several years the existing line served all the needs of the settlers. In 1911-12 a branch line (91 m.) was built to the Magadi soda lake, and a line (32 m.) was built from Nairobi to the Thika river (towards Mt. Kenya). In 1915-16, for mili tary purposes, a railway-92 m. long—was built from Voi via Taveta to Kahe in (then) German East Africa. It linked the Uganda railway to the Tanga railway. This Voi-Kahe line was bought by the Uganda railway in 1923 and reconditioned.