An interesting “by-product” of the construction of the Uganda road has been the development of the native labourer. Twenty years ago the saying was: “Native labour is of little value, no dependence can be placed upon it, and even famine fails to force the tribesmen to seek work.” To-day that opinion has yielded to the belief that, if he is properly trained and educated to it, the native can supply labour, skilled and unskilled, for all manufacturing and industrial enterprises of Kenya Colony. Remarkable progress in industrial education is shown by the nine thousand African workers on the Uganda line. CHAPTER XXXI THE CAPITAL OF KENYA COLONY Nairobi is the capital and administrative centre of Kenya Colony, one of the most interesting and prosperous of Great Britain’s African possessions. It lies three hundred and twenty-seven miles from the sea in the very heart of British East Africa, about halfway between the Indian Ocean and Lake Victoria. It is situated on a plateau at an altitude higher than Denver, with mountains in sight far above any we have in Colorado. When the sun is just right at Nairobi, I can get a glimpse here of Mt. Kilimanjaro and I can plainly see the peak of Mt. Kenya. Kilimanjaro is about a hundred and fifty miles distant and Kenya, as the crow flies, not more than one hundred miles. It is from Mt. Kenya that Kenya Colony is named. Mt. Kenya is one of the giants of the African continent, and is only three thousand feet lower than our own Mt. McKinley. It is a dead volcano and is supposed to have once been three thousand feet higher than it is now. The great peak, seamed with no less than fifteen glaciers, is a mass of rocks covered with snow, but the lower slopes are heavily wooded with forests of cedar, camphor, and bamboo. Above the woods are pastures fit for sheep, while in and below them are all sorts of wild game, including lions and elephants, and even rhinoceroses and hippopotami. In some respects Nairobi reminds one of our frontier towns of the West. The high plain upon which it is situated has a climate in which white men can live and work the year around, and farms are springing up almost everywhere.