“I do not think there is room for alarm about that matter as yet,” replied the official. “This country is just in the making, and we know practically nothing about it. We realize that we have some of the richest grasses of the world—grasses which have supported vast herds of game, and upon which cattle, sheep, goats, and hogs will thrive. But we do not know whether we can conquer the diseases and insect pests which attack all the animals we have so far imported. We seem to have every disease to which cows, horses, or sheep are subject in other parts of the world, and I believe we have some peculiarly our own. We have ticks by the millions and flies by the myriads. So far, however, our experiments with cattle are turning out well, and we know that we can produce excellent beef and good butter. We hope to find our first market for our meats and dairy products in South Africa, and later on to ship such things to Europe. The creation of an industry of that kind, though, is a matter of gradual development. We shall have to arrange about proper transportation, which means cold-storage cars and cold-storage ships. We have not gone far enough as yet to be able to predict what we can do.” “What other possibilities have you?” I asked. “I think we may eventually be able to raise coffee, and we are already exploiting certain fibres which grow well between here and the coast. The plant which produces the Sansivera fibre is indigenous to this country and is being exploited by Americans who are working not far from the station of Voi, about one hundred miles from the Indian Ocean. I have no doubt we can raise sisal hemp, and know that we can grow ramie without cultivation. “As to minerals, a great deal of prospecting has already been done, but the results have not been satisfactory. We know that we have gold, silver, and copper, but the deposits so far discovered have not been valuable enough to pay for their mining. This whole country is volcanic. We lie here in a basin surrounded by volcanoes. We have Mt. Kenya on the north, Kilimanjaro on the south, and Mt. Elgon away off to the northwest. The eruptions of these mountains have been so comparatively recent that some believe that they have buried the precious metals so deep down in the earth that we shall never get at them.” “How about your timber?” “We have fine forests, containing both hard and soft woods, among them a great deal of cedar such as is used for making cigar boxes and lead pencils. Most of such wood, however, is inland and at long distance from streams upon which it could be floated down to the sea. At present, our timber resources are practically inaccessible by railroad.”