I had now sent away altogether 58 of our own people, 200 Swahili men, and
181 saddle and draught beasts, besides having lost nine of the latter by
death during the journey. I had, therefore, now with me at the Kenia 149
whites, 80 Swahili, and 475 beasts, besides the dogs and the elephants. In
addition to the above, we were offered the services of several hundred of
the Wa-Kikuyu, who had followed us. Of these latter I retained 150 of the
most capable; the others, in charge of five of ourselves, I sent back at
once to their home, with the commission to purchase and send on to the
Kenia 800 strong draught oxen, 150 cows, 400 oxen for slaughter, and
several thousand hundredweight of various kinds of corn and food. Having
attended to these things, I allotted and gave out to the most suitable
hands the many different kinds of work which had first to be done. One of
our workmen had charge of the forge and smithy, another the saw-mill, with,
of course, the requisite assistance. A special section was told off for the
tree-felling, and another section had to get ready and complete the
agricultural implements. One of the engineers who remained at the Kenia was
appointed, with one hundred blacks under him, to construct the requisite
means of communication in the settlement--particularly to build bridges
over the Dana.
On the 5th of July we shifted our settlement to Eden Vale. The ground was
exactly measured, and on the shores of the lake the future town was marked
out, with its streets, open spaces, public buildings, and places of
recreation. In this projected town we allowed space for 25,000 family
houses, each with a considerable garden; and this covered thirteen square
miles. Outside of the building area--which could be afterwards enlarged at
pleasure--2,500 acres were selected for temporary cultivation, and
irrigated with a network of small canals; as soon as possible it was to be
fenced in to protect it against the incursions of the numberless wild
animals that swarmed around it, as well as from our domestic animals which,
though shut up at night in a strong pen, were allowed during the day, when
they were not in use, to pasture in the open country under the care of some
of the Swahili men and the dogs.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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