LIFE IN KENYA

Hokitika Guardian, 1 September 1931, Page 3

LIFE IN KENYA

AUCKLANDER’S IMPRESSIONS. COOD, UNDEVELOPED LAND. NIT UNLIKE NEW ZEALAND Rain that was so heavy that it Knock ed foliage off trees is mentioned by Mr L. G. Chambers in a letter to a relative in Auckland. Mr Chambers is rn old Grammar School boy and left New Z aland some months ago to take up an appointment with the Lands and Survey Department in Kenya Colony. Durban impressed Mr Chambers as a city of surprises and disappointment Afrikanders think a lot of Durban, and something wonderful. Slum condition there, are very evident, but there are many fine buildings. It was the off season in Durban when Mr Chambers arrived, but a few ricksha boys were about in their turkey feathers and ostrich plumes. The boys have to he List in weight to obtain a license, and even then they find that their work takes a great deal out of them'. “Mozambiorie is the fG +: “ c+ b I ever hope to see,” writes Mr Chambers in describing bis voyage up the A r.can coast. Dar-es-Salaairi, the next port of call, makes the traveller forget the squalor of Mozambique. The' buildings are snow white, palms are everywhere and to the visitor the port appears as a very picturesque little place. The port was otice a German possession, arid during the war the Germans tried -to block the harbour by sinking a small floating clock, the British engineers succeeded in shifting the dock to one side. Tt was while l he was in Dnr-es-Salaam that Mr Chambers was caught in a torrent 1 al downpour. For five minutes the water came down by the bucketful, and then it stopped as suddenly,ns it bad begun. “Tlie only way to experience anything Miniler would be a stand in the way of a six-inch centrifugal pump working full bore*” writes Mr Chambers in describing his experience. MODERN WHARVES. Modern wharves and cargo handling gear were to lie seen at Zanzibar. Here the New Zealander was most stuck, bv the palace and tli'e narrow streets which seemed to wind like snakes al’ over the town. At Mombasa, where Air Chambers disembarked, the weather was terribly hot. It was while having lunch jvith the district surveyor, that Mr Chambers saw his first mongoose “ ltw-b be describes as “a cunning we D fellow as sharp as a needle.” The animal salt- in the lap of the lady of the house, who fed it on green peas.

At 4 p.in. on the day of his arrival ait Mombasa, Mr Chambers boarded the train for Nairobi the capital. The journey was one of less than 330 miles, but it occupied eighteen hours. Kigoni, gazelle, ostrich and guinea fowl were seen on the way up,- as the railway line forms one boundary to a large game reserve. For miles and miles there was nothing to see but grass, with no signs of habitation. Nairobi, to Mr Chambers appeared as a town that had been built in the ■ wrong place. It had grown round a railway depot, but a place a .few miles further inland was the most popular residential area. In speaking of Nakura, a place both hotter and higher than Nairobi, Mr Chambers said that it overlooked a lake jwhich contained 17 per cent soda. Thousands of flamingo were to be seen about the lake. From Nakura Mr Chambers went to Molo, .which impressed him as being not unlike New Zealand. Good undeveloped land could be bought for £2 an acre, and labour which was not too reliable cost 12s a month, plus 21b of ground maize a day. The climate was comparatively cool, but it was dangerous to venture out of doors without a hat.