myself visited South Africa, but pictures and descriptions leave on one the impression that it is an arid and yellow country. East Africa, on the other hand, is, as a rule, a green country, and offers a rich spread of grass. Severe drought is rare, and, it would seem, always partial The famine of 1897 was formidable because there were no means of communication to combat it; but had the Uganda Railway then been in existence it might have been easily overcome.
The settlement of Europeans in these districts is now proceeding rapidly, but experienced some difficulties in the beginning. The plan proposed in 1904 by the Foreign Office, which then administered the Protectorates, was to make the portion of the Rift Valley lying along the railway a native reserve, in which no private European might hold land, though a tract of 500 miles in the same territory was riven to a syndicate. This arrangement would have been disastrous, for it would have excluded Europeans from some of the best land in the country, which had for them a peculiar value on account of its accessibility and nearness to the railway, whereas the nomadic tribe of the Masai, in whose favour the reservation was to be created, could not in any way utilize the advantages of the railway, and had no desire for access to it. I am glad, however, to say that this policy has been reversed. It is recognised that the welfare of the country requires that the land of the Rift Valley should be developed by Europeans, and the Masai have been induced to trek to a reservation on the Laikipia escarpment at some distance from the line.
One important native question appears to be thus settled, and there is hope that the others will not give much trouble. By a happy combination of circumstances, the lands which are most appreciated by natives are not those most coveted by Europeans, so that there is room for both races. There are, however, two desiderata for a successful settlement of the native question. The first is that British officials should make a more strenuous attempt to learn native languages. There
