Kenya, the Land and Mau Mau

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AFRICA was the continent least known to the American public until World War II took many Americans there. Soon after the war Americans began to hear of political crises at the south and north of the continent; and later the curtain lifted dramatically upon tropical Africa, west and east. Now there are stories of political trouble in no less than seven areas of Africa, to say nothing of developments in the other countries and colonies of the continent that have risen to prominence as sources of raw materials urgently needed by the North Atlantic world. At each center of political crisis violence has occurred, but nowhere has it broken out so abruptly and continued with such virulence as in Kenya, one of four British East African dependencies.

Kenya belongs to a world that has no counterpart anywhere in the United States, Canada or Europe. It bestrides the Equator, and except for a narrow strip of coastland, stands high above sea level. Its low latitude and its high altitude cancel each other, to produce a climate neither hot nor cold, but comfortably temperate. To reinforce its climatic superiority, much of its soil is the productive residue of volcanic flows, in contrast to the characteristically infertile soils of the tropics. As a further amenity, the land has rare beauty, with magnificent volcanic peaks, inviting lakes, forested slopes and expanses of grassland where big game roves.

Not all of Kenya is equally desirable. The barren desert of the north is scantily peopled by nomads. The coastal strip is hot and humid. The most populous parts are low highlands, 3,500 to 5,000 feet above sea level, where African farmers have tilled the soil for several centuries. Europeans make careers there, but only in the towns, and on retirement they return to their homeland or move to higher elevations in Kenya. Those high highlands were rather scantily occupied by Africans when Europeans appeared and found the country inviting to permanent settlement. At altitudes above 5,000 feet white people need make no concessions to climate...