THE CAPITAL OF KENYA COLONY 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.

The city is comparatively new. Fifteen or more years ago it had hardly a house. To-day streets have been laid out over an area ten miles in circumference and hundreds of buildings of tin, wood, and stone have been erected. The chief building material is galvanized iron, which is so prevalent that Nairobi has been nicknamed the “tin city.” There are no saw mills or planing mills worth mentioning, as the forests have not been exploited, and about the only lumber available is that brought from the United States and Norway and landed at Mombasa. The ocean freight rates are heavy, and in addition there is the cost of bringing the lumber to Nairobi by railroad. Hence the galvanized iron, which comes here in sheets from England and Belgium. Almost all the buildings are of iron, put up just as it comes from the factory, giving the whole town a silver-gray colour. The post office is of iron, the depot has an iron roof, and the same is true of the governor’s offices. Many of the houses have iron ceilings and iron walls, and the chief retail business section is a collection of one-story iron booths, open at the front, in which Hindus stand or sit surrounded by their goods. My hotel is half iron. The government treasury near by, a shed not over fifteen feet square, is of tin and has a tin roof. I could chop it to pieces with a butcher knife; and the only sign of policing about it is the Negro who, gun in hand, stands outside guarding the door. The office of the land survevor is of tin, and so are the police head-253