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Title: Freeland
       A Social Anticipation

Author: Theodor Hertzka

Release Date: February, 2006 [EBook #9866]
[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]
[This file was first posted on October 25, 2003]

Edition: 10

Language: English

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FREELAND ***




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and PG Distributed Proofreaders




FREELAND

A SOCIAL ANTICIPATION


BY


DR. THEODOR HERTZKA

TRANSLATED BY
ARTHUR RANSOM


1891




TRANSLATOR'S NOTE


This book contains a translation of _Freiland; ein sociales Zukunftsbild_,
by Dr. THEODOR HERTZKA, a Viennese economist. The first German edition
appeared early in 1890, and was rapidly followed by three editions in an
abridged form. This translation is made from the unabridged edition, with a
few emendations from the subsequent editions.

The author has long been known as an eminent representative of those
Austrian Economists who belong to what is known on the Continent as the
Manchester School as distinguished from the Historical School. In 1872 he
became economic editor of the _Neue Freie Presse_; and in 1874 he with
others founded the Society of Austrian National Economists. In 1880 he
published _Die Gesetze der Handels-und Sozialpolitik_; and in 1886 _Die
Gesetze der Sozialentwickelung_. At various times he has published works
which have made him an authority upon currency questions. In 1889 he
founded, and he still edits, the weekly _Zeitschrift fuer Staats-und
Volkswirthschaft_.

How the author was led to modify some of his earlier views will be found
detailed in the introduction of the present work.

The publication of _Freiland_ immediately called forth in Austria and
Germany a desire to put the author's views in practice. In many of the
larger towns and cities a number of persons belonging to all classes of
society organised local societies for this purpose, and these local
societies have now been united into an International Freeland Society. At
the first plenary meeting of the Vienna _Freilandverein_ in March last, it
was announced that a suitable tract of land in British East Africa, between
Mount Kenia and the coast, had already been placed at the disposal of the
Society; and a hope was expressed that the actual formation of a Freeland
Colony would not be long delayed. It is anticipated that the English
edition of _Freiland_ will bring a considerable number of English-speaking
members into the Society; and it is intended soon to make an application to
the British authorities for a guarantee of non-interference by the
Government with the development of Freeland institutions.

Any of the readers of this book who wish for further information concerning
the Freeland movement, may apply either to Dr. HERTZKA in Vienna, or to the
Translator.

A.R.

ST. LOYES, BEDFORD: _June_, 1891.




AUTHOR'S PREFACE


The economic and social order of the modern world exhibits a strange
enigma, which only a prosperous thoughtlessness can regard with
indifference or, indeed, without a shudder. We have made such splendid
advances in art and science that the unlimited forces of nature have been
brought into subjection, and only await our command to perform for us all
our disagreeable and onerous tasks, and to wring from the soil and prepare
for use whatever man, the master of the world, may need. As a consequence,
a moderate amount of labour ought to produce inexhaustible abundance for
everyone born of woman; and yet all these glorious achievements have
not--as Stuart Mill forcibly says--been able to mitigate one human woe.
And, what is more, the ever-increasing facility of producing an abundance
has proved a curse to multitudes who lack necessaries because there exists
no demand for the many good and useful things which they are able to
produce. The industrial activity of the present day is a ceaseless confused
struggle with the various symptoms of the dreadful evil known as
'over-production.' Protective duties, cartels and trusts, guild agitations,
strikes--all these are but the desperate resistance offered by the classes
engaged in production to the inexorable consequences of the apparently so
absurd, but none the less real, phenomenon that increasing facility in the
production of wealth brings ruin and misery in its train.

That science stands helpless and perplexed before this enigma, that no beam
of light has yet penetrated and dispelled the gloom of this--the
social--problem, though that problem has exercised the minds of the noblest
and best of to-day, is in part due to the fact that the solution has been
sought in a wrong direction.

Let us see, for example, what Stuart Mill says upon this subject: 'I looked
forward ... to a future' ... whose views (and institutions) ... shall be
'so firmly grounded in reason and in the true exigencies of life that they
shall not, like all former and present creeds, religious, ethical, and
political, require to be periodically thrown off and replaced by others.'
[Footnote: _Autobiography_, p. 166.]

Yet more plainly does Laveleye express himself in the same sense at the
close of his book 'De la Propriete': 'There is an order of human affairs
_which is the best ... God knows it and wills it_. Man must discover and
introduce it.'

It is therefore an _absolutely best, eternal order_ which both are waiting
for; although, when we look more closely, we find that both ought to know
they are striving after the impossible. For Mill, a few lines before the
above remarkable passage, points out that all human things are in a state
of constant flux; and upon this he bases his conviction that existing
institutions can be only transitory. Therefore, upon calm reflection, he
would be compelled to admit that the same would hold in the future, and
that consequently unchangeable human institutions will never exist. And
just so must we suppose that Laveleye, with his '_God_ knows it and wills
it,' would have to admit that it could _not_ be man's task either to
discover or to introduce the absolutely best order known only to God. He is
quite correct in saying that if there be really an absolutely best order,
God alone knows it; but since it cannot be the office of science to wait
upon Divine revelation, and since such an absolutely best order could be
introduced by God alone and not by men, and therefore the revelation of the
Divine will would not help us in the least, so it must logically follow,
from the admission that the knowing and the willing of the absolutely good
appertain to God, that man has not to strive after this absolutely good,
but after the _relatively best_, which alone is intelligible to and
attainable by him.

And thus it is in fact. The solution of the social problem is not to be
sought in the discovery of an _absolutely good_ order of society, but in
that of the _relatively best_--that is, of such an order of human
institutions as best corresponds to the contemporary conditions of human
existence. The existing arrangements of society call for improvement, not
because they are out of harmony with our longing for an absolutely good
state of things, but because it can be shown to be possible to replace them
by others more in accordance with the contemporary conditions of human
existence. Darwin's law of evolution in nature teaches us that when the
actual social arrangements have ceased to be the relatively best--that is,
those which best correspond to the contemporary conditions of human
existence--their abandonment is not only possible but simply inevitable.
For in the struggle for existence that which is out of date not only _may_
but _must_ give place to that which is more in harmony with the actual
conditions. And this law also teaches us that all the characters of any
organic being whatever are the results of that being's struggle for
existence in the conditions in which it finds itself. If, now, we bring
together these various hints offered us by the doctrine of evolution, we
see the following to be the only path along which the investigation of the
social problem can be pursued so as to reach the goal:

First, we must inquire and establish under what particular conditions of
existence the actual social arrangements were evolved.

Next we must find out whether these same conditions of existence still
subsist, or whether others have taken their place.

If others have taken their place, it must be clearly shown whether the new
conditions of existence are compatible with the old arrangements; and, if
not, what alterations of the latter are required.

The new arrangements thus discovered must and will contain that which we
are justified in looking for as the 'solution of the social problem.'

When I applied this strictly scientific method of investigation to the
social problem, I arrived four years ago at the following conclusions, to
the exposition of which I devoted my book on 'The Laws of Social
Evolution,' [Footnote: _Die Gesetze der Sozialentwickelung_ Leipzig, 1886.]
published at that time:

The actual social arrangements are the necessary result of the human
struggle for existence when the productiveness of labour was such that a
single worker could produce, by the labour of his own hands, more than was
indispensable to the sustenance of his animal nature, but not enough to
enable him to satisfy his higher needs. With only this moderate degree of
productiveness of labour, the exploitage of man by man was the only way by
which it was possible to ensure to _individuals_ wealth and leisure, those
fundamental essentials to higher culture. But as soon as the productiveness
of labour reaches the point at which it is sufficient to satisfy also the
highest requirements of every worker, the exploitage of man by man not only
ceases to be a necessity of civilisation, but becomes an obstacle to
further progress by hindering men from making full use of the industrial
capacity to which they have attained.

For, as under the domination of exploitage the masses have no right to more
of what they produce than is necessary for their bare subsistence, demand
is cramped by limitations which are quite independent of the possible
amount of production. Things for which there is no demand are valueless,
and therefore will not be produced; consequently, under the exploiting
system, society does not produce that amount of wealth which the progress
of science and technical art has made possible, but only that infinitely
smaller amount which suffices for the bare subsistence of the masses and
the luxury of the few. Society wishes to employ the whole of the surplus of
the productive power in the creation of instruments of labour--that is, it
wishes to convert it into capital; but this is impossible, since the
quantity of utilisable capital is strictly dependent upon the quantity of
commodities to be produced by the aid of this capital. The utilisation of
all the proceeds of such highly productive labour is therefore dependent
upon the creation of a new social order which shall guarantee to every
worker the enjoyment of the full proceeds of his own work. And since
impartial investigation further shows that this new order is not merely
indispensable to further progress in civilisation, but is also thoroughly
in harmony with the natural and acquired characteristics of human society,
and consequently is met by no inherent and permanent obstacle, it is
evident that in the natural process of human evolution this new order must
necessarily come into being.

When I placed this conclusion before the public four years ago, I assumed,
as something self-evident, that I was announcing a doctrine which was not
by any means an isolated novelty; and I distinctly said so in the preface
to the 'Laws of Social Evolution.' I fully understood that there must be
some connecting bridge between the so-called classical economics and the
newly discovered truths; and I was convinced that in a not distant future
either others or myself would discover this bridge. But in expounding the
consequences springing from the above-mentioned general principles, I at
first allowed an error to escape my notice. That ground-rent and
undertaker's profit--that is, the payment which the landowner demands for
the use of his land, and the claim of the so-called work-giver to the
produce of the worker's labour--are incompatible with the claim of the
worker to the produce of his own labour, and that consequently in the
course of social evolution ground-rent and undertaker's profit must become
obsolete and must be given up--this I perceived; but with respect to the
interest of capital I adhered to the classical-orthodox view that this was
a postulate of progress which would survive all the phases of evolution.

As palliation of my error I may mention that it was the opponents of
capital themselves--and Marx in particular--who confirmed me in it, or,
more correctly, who prevented me from distinctly perceiving the basis upon
which interest essentially rests. To tear oneself away from long-cherished
views is in itself extremely difficult; and when, moreover, the men who
attack the old views base their attack point after point upon error, it
becomes only too easy to mistake the weakness of the attack for
impregnability in the thing attacked. Thus it happened with me. Because I
saw that what had been hitherto advanced against capital and interest was
altogether untenable, I felt myself absolved from the task of again and
independently inquiring whether there were no better, no really valid,
arguments against the absolute and permanent necessity of interest. Thus,
though interest is, in reality, as little compatible with associated labour
carried on upon the principle of perfect economic justice as are
ground-rent and the undertaker's profit, I was prevented by this
fundamental error from arriving at satisfactory views concerning the
constitution and character of the future forms of organisation based upon
the principle of free organisation. _That_ and _wherefore_ economic freedom
and justice must eventually be practically realised, I had shown; on the
other hand, _how_ this phase of evolution was to be brought about I was not
able to make fully clear. Yet I did not ascribe this inability to any error
of mine in thinking the subject out, but believed it to reside in the
nature of the subject itself. I reasoned that institutions the practical
shaping of which belongs to the future could not be known in detail before
they were evolved. Just as those former generations, which knew nothing of
the modern joint-stock company, could not possibly form an exact and
perfect idea of the nature and working of this institution even if they had
conceived the principle upon which it is based, so I held it to be
impossible to-day to possess a clear and connected idea of those future
economic forms which cannot be evolved until the principle of the free
association of labour has found its practical realisation.

I was slow in discovering the above-mentioned connection of my doctrine of
social evolution with the orthodox system of economy. The most
clear-sighted minds of three centuries have been at work upon that system;
and if a new doctrine is to win acceptance, it is absolutely necessary that
its propounder should not merely refute the old doctrine and expose its
errors, but should trace back and lay open to its remotest source the
particular process of thought which led these heroes of our science into
their errors. It is not enough to show _that_ and _wherefore_ their theses
were false; it must also be made clear _how_ and _wherefore_ those thinkers
arrived at their false theses, what it was that forced them--despite all
their sagacity--to hold such theses as correct though they are simply
absurd when viewed in the light of truth. I pondered in vain over this
enigma, until suddenly, like a ray of sunlight, there shot into the
darkness of my doubt the discovery that in its essence my work was nothing
but the necessary outcome of what others had achieved--that my theory was
in no way out of harmony with the numerous theories of my predecessors, but
that rather, when thoroughly understood, it was the very truth after which
all the other economists had been searching, and upon the track of
which--and this I held to be decisive--I had been thrown, not by my own
sagacity, but solely by the mental labours of my great predecessors. In
other words, _the solution of the social problem offered by me is the very
solution of the economic problem which the science of political economy has
been incessantly seeking from its first rise down to the present day_.

But, I hear it asked, does political economy possess such a problem--one
whose solution it has merely attempted but not arrived at? For it is
remarkable that in our science the widest diversity of opinions co-exists
with the most dogmatic orthodoxy. Very few draw from the existence of the
numberless antagonistic opinions the self-evident conclusion that those
opinions are erroneous, or at least unproved; and none are willing to admit
that--like their opponents--they are merely seeking the truth, and are not
in possession of it. So prevalent is this tenacity of opinion which puts
faith in the place of knowledge that the fact that every science owes its
origin to a problem is altogether forgotten. This problem may afterwards
find its solution, and therewith the science will have achieved its
purpose; but without a problem there is no investigation--consequently,
though there may be knowledge, there will be no science. Clear and simple
cognisances do not stimulate the human mind to that painstaking,
comprehensive effort which is the necessary antecedent of science; in
brief, a science can arise only when things are under consideration which
are not intelligible directly and without profound reflection--things,
therefore, which contain a problem.

Thus, political economy must have had its problem, its enigma, out of the
attempts to solve which it had its rise. This problem is nothing else but
the question '_Why do we not become richer in proportion to our increasing
capacity of producing wealth?_' To this question a satisfactory answer can
no more be given to-day than could be given three centuries ago--at the
time, that is, when the problem first arose in view, not of a previously
existing phenomenon to which the human mind had then had its attention
drawn for the first time, but of a phenomenon which was then making its
first appearance.

With unimportant and transient exceptions (which, it may be incidentally
remarked, are easily explicable from what follows) antiquity and the Middle
Ages had no political economy. This was not because the men of those times
were not sharp-sighted enough to discover the sources of wealth, but
because to them there was nothing enigmatical about those sources of
wealth. The nations became richer the more progress they made in the art of
producing; and this was so self-evident and clear that, very rightly, no
one thought it necessary to waste words about it. It was not until the end
of the sixteenth and the beginning of the seventeenth centuries of our era,
therefore scarcely three hundred years ago, that political economy as a
distinct science arose.

It is impossible for the unprejudiced eye to escape seeing what the first
political economists sought for--what the problem was with which they
busied themselves. They stood face to face with the enigmatical fact that
increasing capacity of production is not necessarily accompanied or
followed by an increase of wealth; and they sought to explain this fact.
Why this remarkable fact then first made its appearance will be clearly
seen from what follows; it is unquestionable _that_ it then appeared, for
the whole system of these first political economists, the so-called
Mercantilists, had no other aim than to demonstrate that the increase of
wealth depends not, as everybody had until then very naturally believed,
upon increasing productiveness of labour, but upon something else, that
something else being, in the opinion of the Mercantilists, money.
Notwithstanding what may be called the tangible absurdity of this doctrine,
it remained unquestioned for generations; nay, to be candid, most men still
cling to it--a fact which would be inconceivable did not the doctrine offer
a very simple and plausible explanation of the enigmatical phenomenon that
increasing capacity of production does not necessarily bring with it a
corresponding increase of wealth.

But it is equally impossible for the inquiring human mind to remain
permanently blind to the fact that money and wealth are two very different
things, and that therefore some other solution must be looked for of the
problem, the existence of which is not to be denied. The Physiocrats found
this second explanation in the assertion that the soil was the source and
origin of all wealth, whilst human labour, however highly developed it
might be, could add nothing to what was drawn from the soil, because labour
itself consumed what it produced. This may look like the first application
of the subsequently discovered natural law of the conservation of force;
and--notwithstanding its obvious absurdity--it was seriously believed in
because it professed to explain what seemed otherwise inexplicable. Between
the labourer's means of subsistence, the amount of labour employed, and the
product, there is by no means that quantitative relation which is to be
found in the conversion of one physical force into another. Human labour
produces more or less in proportion as it is better or worse applied; for
production does not consist in converting labour into things that have a
value, but in using labour to produce such things out of natural objects. A
child can understand this, yet the acutest thinkers of the eighteenth
century denied it with the approval of the best of their contemporaries and
of not the worst of their epigones, because they could not otherwise
explain the strange problem of human economics.

Then arose that giant of our science, one of the greatest minds of which
humanity can boast--Adam Smith. He restored the ancient wisdom of our
ancestors, and also clearly and irrefutably demonstrated what they had only
instinctively recognised--namely, that the increase of wealth depends upon
the productiveness of human labour. But while he threw round this truth the
enduring ramparts of his logic and of his sound understanding, he
altogether failed to see that the actual facts directly contradicted his
doctrine. He saw that wealth did _not_ increase step by step with the
increased productiveness of labour; but he believed he had discovered the
cause of this in the mercantilistic and physiocratic sins of the past. In
his day the historical sense was not sufficiently developed to save him
from the error of confounding the--erroneous--explanations of an existing
evil with its causes. Hence he believed that the course of economic events
would necessarily correspond fully with the restored laws of a sound
understanding--that is, that wealth would necessarily increase step by step
with the capacity of producing it, if only production were freed from the
legislative restraints and fiscal fetters which cramped it.

But even this delusion could not long prevail. Ricardo was the first of the
moderns who perceived that wealth did not increase in proportion to
industrial capacity, even when production and trade were, as Smith
demanded, freed from State interference and injury. He hit upon the
expedient of finding the cause of this incongruity in the nature of labour
itself. Since labour is the only source of value, he said, it cannot
increase value. A thing is worth as much as the quantity of labour put into
it; consequently, when with increasing productiveness of labour the amount
of labour necessary to the production of a thing is diminished, then the
value of that thing diminishes also. Hence no increase in the
productiveness of labour can increase the total sum of values. This,
however, is a fundamental mistake, for what depends upon the amount of
labour is merely the _relative_ value of things--the exchange relation in
which they stand to other things. This is so self-evident that Ricardo
himself cannot avoid expressly stating that he is speaking of merely the
'relative' value of things; nevertheless, this relative value--which,
strictly speaking, is nothing but a value relation, the relation of
values--is treated by him as if it were absolute value.

And yet Ricardo's error is a not less important step in the evolution of
doctrine than those of his previously mentioned predecessors. It signifies
the revival of the original problem of political economy, which had been
lost sight of since Adam Smith; and Ricardo's follower, Marx, is in a
certain sense right when, with bitter scorn, he denounces as 'vulgar
economists' those who, persistently clinging to Smith's optimism, see in
the _productiveness_ of labour the measure of the increase of _actual_
wealth. For all that was brought against Ricardo by his opponents was known
by him as well as or better than by them; only he knew what had escaped
their notice, or what they saw no obligation to take note of in their
theory--namely, that the actual facts directly contradicted the doctrine.
It by no means escaped Ricardo that his attempted reconciliation of the
theory with the great problem of economics was absurd; and Marx has most
clearly shown the absurdity of it. The latter speaks of the alleged
dependence of value, not upon the productiveness of labour, but upon the
effort put forth by the labourer, as the 'fetishism' of industry; this
relation, being unnatural, contrary to the nature of things, ought
therefore--and this, again, is Marx's contribution to the progress of the
science--to be referred back to an unnatural ultimate cause residing, not
in the nature of things, but in human arrangements. And in looking for this
ultimate cause, he, like his great predecessors, comes extremely near to
the truth, but, after all, glides past without seeing it.

On this road, which leads to truth past so many errors, the last stage is
the hypothesis set up by the so-called Historical School of political
economy--the hypothesis, namely, that there exists in the nature of things
a gulf between economic theory and practice, which makes it quite
conceivable that the principles that are correct _in thesi_ do not coincide
with the real course of industrial life. The existence of the problem is
thereby more fully established than ever, but its solution is placed
outside of the domain of theoretical cognisance. For the Historical School
is perfectly correct in maintaining that the abstractions of the current
economic doctrine are practically useless, and that this is true not only
of some of them, but of all. The real human economy does _not_ obey those
laws which the theorists have abstractedly deduced from economic phenomena.
Hence it is only possible either that the human economy is by its very
nature unfitted to become the object of scientific abstraction and
cognisance, or that the abstractions hitherto made have been
erroneous--erroneous, that is, not in the sense of being actually out of
harmony with phenomena from which they are correctly and logically deduced,
but in the sense of being theoretically erroneous, deduced according to
wrong principles, and therefore useless both _in abstracto_ and _in
concreto_.

Of these alternatives only the second can, in reality, be correct. There is
absolutely no reasonable ground for supposing that the laws which regulate
the economic activity of men should be beyond human cognisance; and still
less ground is there for assuming that such laws do not exist at all. We
must therefore suppose that the science which seeks to discover these laws
has hitherto failed to attain its object simply because it has been upon
the wrong road--that is, that the principles of political economy are
erroneous because, in deducing them from the economic phenomena, some fact
has been overlooked, some mistake in reasoning has been committed. There
_must_ be a correct solution of the problem of political economy; and the
solution of the social problem derived from the theory of social evolution
offers at once the key to the other.

The correct answer to the question, 'Why are we not richer in proportion to
the increase in our productive capacity?' is this: _Because wealth does not
consist in what can be produced, but in what is actually produced; the
actual production, however, depends not merely upon the amount of
productive power, but also upon the extent of what is required, not merely
upon the possible supply, but also upon the possible demand: the current
social arrangements, however, prevent the demand from increasing to the
same extent as the productive capacity._ In other words: We do not produce
that wealth which our present capacity makes it possible for us to produce,
but only so much as we have use for; and this use depends, not upon our
capacity of producing, but upon our capacity of consuming.

It is now plain why the economic problem of the disparity between the
possible and the actual increase of wealth is of so comparatively recent a
date. Antiquity and the middle ages knew nothing of this problem, because
human labour was not then productive enough to do more than provide and
maintain the means of production after covering the consumption of the
masses and the possessors of property. There was in those ages a demand for
all the things which labour was then able to produce; full employment could
be made of any increase of capacity to create wealth; no one could for a
moment be in doubt as to the purpose which the increased power of producing
had served; there was no economic problem to call into existence a special
science of political economy. Then came the Renaissance; the human mind
awoke out of its thousand years of hibernation; the great inventions and
discoveries rapidly followed one upon another; division of labour and the
mobilisation of capital gave a powerful impulse to production; and now, for
the first time, the productiveness of labour became so great, and the
impossibility of using as much as labour could produce became so evident,
that men were compelled to face the perplexing fact which finds expression
in the economic problem.

That three centuries should have had to elapse before the solution could be
found, is in perfect harmony with the other fact that it was reserved for
these last generations to give us complete control over the forces of
nature, and to render it possible for us to _make use_ of the knowledge we
have acquired. For so long as human production was in the main dependent
upon the capacity and strength of human muscles, aided by the muscles of a
few domestic animals, more might certainly be produced than would be
consumed by the luxury of a few after the bare subsistence of the masses
had been provided for; but to afford to _all_ men an abundance without
excessive labour needed the results of the substitution of the
inexhaustible forces of nature for muscular energy. Until this substitution
had become possible, it would have availed mankind little to have attained
to a knowledge of the ultimate ground of the hindrance to the full
utilisation of the then existing powers of production.

For in order that the exploitage of man by man might be put an end to, it
was necessary that the amount of producible wealth should not merely exceed
the consumption of the few wealthy persons, but should be sufficient to
satisfy the higher human needs of all. Economic equity, if it is not to
bring about a stagnation in civilisation, assumes that the man who has to
depend upon the earnings of his own labour is in a position to enjoy a
considerable amount of wealth at the cost of moderate effort. This has
become possible only during the last few generations; and herein is to be
sought the reason why the great economists of the seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries were not able to rise to an unprejudiced critical
examination of the true nature and the necessary consequences of the
exploiting system of industry. _They_ were compelled to regard exploitage
as a cruel but eternally unavoidable condition of the progress of
civilisation; for when they lived it was and it always had been a necessity
of civilisation, and they could not justly be expected to anticipate such a
fundamental revolution in the conditions of human existence as must
necessarily precede the passage from exploitage to economic equity.

So long as the exploitage of man by man was considered a necessary and
eternal institution, there existed no motive to prompt men to subject it to
a closer critical investigation; and in the absence of such an
investigation its influence upon the nature and extent of demand could not
be discovered. The old economists were therefore _compelled_ to believe it
chimerical to think of demand as falling short of production; for they
said, quite correctly, that man produces only to consume. Here, with them,
the question of demand was done with, and every possibility of the
discovery of the true connection cut off. Their successors, on the other
hand, who have all been witnesses of the undreamt-of increase of the
productiveness of labour, have hitherto been prevented, by their otherwise
well-justified respect for the authority of the founders of our science,
from adequately estimating the economic importance of this revolution in
the conditions of labour. The classical system of economics is based upon a
conception of the world which takes in all the affairs of life, is
self-consistent, and is supported by all the past teachings of the great
forms of civilisation; and if we would estimate the enormous force with
which this doctrine holds us bound, we must remember that even those who
were the first to recognise its incongruity with existing facts were unable
to free themselves from its power. They persisted in believing in it,
though they perceived its incompatibility with the facts, and knew
therefore that it was false.

This glance at the historical evolution of economic doctrine opens the way
to the rectification of all the errors of which the different schools of
political economy have--even in their quest after truth--been guilty. It is
seen that the great inquirers and thinkers of past centuries, in their vast
work of investigation and analysis of economic facts, approached so very
near to the full and complete cognisance of the true connection of all
phenomena, that it needed but a little more labour in order to construct a
thoroughly harmonious definitive economic theory based upon the solution,
at last discovered, of the long vexed problem.

I zealously threw myself into this task, and had proceeded with it a
considerable way--to the close of a thick first volume, containing a new
treatment of the theory of value; but when at work on the classical theory
of capital, I made a discovery which at once threw a ray of light into the
obscurity that had until then made the practical realisation of the forms
of social organisation impossible. _I perceived that capitalism stops the
growth of wealth, not_--as Marx has it--_by stimulating 'production for the
market,' but by preventing the consumption of the surplus produce; and that
interest, though not unjust, will nevertheless in a condition of economic
justice become superfluous and objectless._ These two fundamental truths
will be found treated in detail in chapters xxiv. and xviii.; but I cannot
refrain here from doing justice to the manes of Marx, by acknowledging
unreservedly his service in having been the first to proclaim--though he
misunderstood it and argued illogically--the connection between the problem
of value and modern capitalism.

I consider the theoretical and practical importance of these new truths to
be incalculable. Not merely do they at once give to the theory of social
evolution the unity and harmony of a definitive whole, but, what is more,
they show the way to an immediate practical realisation of the principles
formulated by this theory. If it is possible for the community to provide
the capital for production with out thereby doing injury to either the
principle of perfect individual freedom or to that of justice, _if interest
can be dispensed with without introducing communistic control in its stead,
then there no longer stands any positive obstacle in the way of the
establishment of the free social order_.

My intense delight at making this discovery robbed me of the calm necessary
to the prosecution of the abstract investigations upon which I was engaged.
Before my mind's eye arose scenes which the reader will find in the
following pages--tangible, living pictures of a commonwealth based upon the
most perfect freedom and equity, and which needs nothing to convert it into
a reality but the will of a number of resolute men. It happened to me as it
may have happened to Bacon of Verulam when his studies for the 'Novum
Organon' were interrupted by the vision of his 'Nova Atlantis'--with this
difference, however, that his prophetic glance saw the land of social
freedom and justice when centuries of bondage still separated him from it,
whilst I see it when mankind is already actually equipped ready to step
over its threshold. Like him, I felt an irresistible impulse vividly to
depict what agitated my mind. Thus, putting aside for awhile the abstract
and systematic treatise which I had begun, I wrote this book, which can
justly be called 'a political romance,' though it differs from all its
predecessors of that category in introducing no unknown and mysterious
human powers and characteristics, but throughout keeps to the firm ground
of the soberest reality. The scene of the occurrences described by me is no
imaginary fairy-land, but a part of our planet well-known to modern
geography, which I describe exactly as its discoverers and explorers have
done. The men who appear in my narrative are endowed with no supernatural
properties and virtues, but are spirit of our spirit, flesh of our flesh;
and the motive prompting their economic activity is neither public spirit
nor universal philanthropy, but an ordinary and commonplace self-interest.
Everything in my 'Freeland' is severely real, only one fiction underlies
the whole narrative, namely, that a sufficient number of men possessing a
modicum of capacity and strength have actually been found ready to take the
step that shall deliver them from the bondage of the exploiting system of
economics, and conduct them into the enjoyment of a system of social equity
and freedom. Let this one assumption be but realised--and that it will be,
sooner or later, I have no doubt, though perhaps not exactly as I have
represented--then will 'Freeland' have become a reality, and the
deliverance of mankind will have been accomplished. For the age of bondage
is past; that control over the forces of nature which the founder of modern
natural science, in his 'Nova Atlantis,' predicted as the end of human
misery has now been actually acquired. We are prevented from enjoying the
fruits of this acquisition, from making full use of the discoveries and
inventions of the great intellects of our race, by nothing but the
phlegmatic faculty of persistence in old habits which still keeps laws and
institutions in force when the conditions that gave rise to them have long
since disappeared.

As this book professes to offer, in narrative form, a picture of the actual
social life of the future, it follows as a matter of course that it will be
exposed, in all its essential features, to the severest professional
criticism. To this criticism I submit it, with this observation, that, if
my work is to be regarded as a failure, or as the offspring of frivolous
fancy, it must be demonstrated that men gifted with a normal average
understanding would in any material point arrive at results other than
those described by me if they were organised according to the principles
which I have expounded; or that those principles contain anything which a
sound understanding would not accept as a self-evident postulate of justice
as well as of an enlightened self-interest.

I do not imagine that the establishment of the future social order must
necessarily be effected exactly in the way described in the following
pages. But I certainly think that this would be the best and the simplest
way, because it would most speedily and easily lead to the desired result.
If economic freedom and justice are to obtain in human society, they must
be seriously _determined upon_; and it seems easier to unite a few
thousands in such a determination than numberless millions, most of whom
are not accustomed to accept the new--let it be ever so clear and
self-evident--until it has been embodied in fact.

Nor would I be understood to mean that, supposing there could be found a
sufficient number of resolute men to carry out the work of social
emancipation, Equatorial Africa must be chosen as the scene of the
undertaking. I was led, by reasons stated in the book, to fix upon the
remarkable hill country of Central Africa; but similar results could be
achieved in many other parts of our planet. I must ask the reader to
believe that, in making choice of the scene, I was not influenced by a
desire to give the reins to my fancy; on the contrary, the descriptions of
the little-known mountains and lakes of Central Africa adhere in all points
to sober reality. Any one who doubts this may compare my narrative with the
accounts given by Speke, Grant, Livingstone, Baker, Stanley, Emin Pacha,
Thomson, Johnston, Fischer--in short, by all who have visited these
paradisiacal regions.

Just a few words in conclusion, in justification of the romantic
accessories introduced into the exposition of so serious a subject. I might
appeal to the example of my illustrious predecessors, of whom I have
already mentioned Bacon, the clearest, the acutest, the soberest thinker of
all times. But I feel bound to confess that I had a double purpose. In the
first place, I hoped by means of vivid and striking pictures to make the
difficult questions which form the essential theme of the book acceptable
to a wider circle of readers than I could have expected to reach by a dry
systematic treatment. In the second place, I wished, by means of the
concrete form thus given to a part of my abstractions, to refute by
anticipation the criticism that those abstractions, though correct _in
thesi_, were nevertheless inapplicable _in praxi_. Whether I have succeeded
in these two objects remains to be proved.

THEODOR HERTZKA.

VIENNA: _October_ 1889.




FREELAND

A SOCIAL ANTICIPATION




_BOOK I_




CHAPTER I


In July 18 ... the following appeared in the leading journals of Europe and
America:

'INTERNATIONAL FREE SOCIETY'

'A number of men from all parts of the civilised world have united for the
purpose of making a practical attempt to solve the social problem.

'They seek this solution in the establishment of a community on the basis
of perfect liberty and economic justice--that is, of a community which,
while it preserves the unqualified right of every individual to control his
own actions, secures to every worker the full and uncurtailed enjoyment of
the fruits of his labour.

'For the site of such a community a large tract of land shall be procured
in a territory at present unappropriated, but fertile and well adapted for
colonisation.

'The Free Society shall recognise no exclusive right of property in the
land occupied by them, either on the part of an individual or of the
collective community.

'For the cultivation of the land, as well as for productive purposes
generally, self-governing associations shall be formed, each of which shall
share its profits among its members in proportion to their several
contributions to the common labour of the association. Anyone shall have
the right to belong to any association and to leave it when he pleases.

'The capital for production shall be furnished to the producers without
interest out of the revenue of the community, but it must be re-imbursed by
the producers.

'All persons who are incapable of labour, and women, shall have a right to
a competent allowance for maintenance out of the revenue of the community.

'The public revenue necessary for the above purposes, as well as for other
public expenses, shall be provided by a tax levied upon the net income of
the total production.

'The International Free Society already possesses a number of members and
an amount of capital sufficient for the commencement of its work upon a
moderate scale. As, however, it is thought, on the one hand, that the
Society's success will necessarily be in proportion to the amount of means
at its disposal, and, on the other hand, that opportunity should be given
to others who may sympathise with the movement to join in the undertaking,
the Society hereby announces that inquiries or communications of any kind
may be addressed to the office of the Society at the Hague. The
International Free Society will hold a public meeting at the Hague, on the
20th of October next, at which the definitive resolutions prior to the
beginning of the work will be passed.

'For the Executive Committee of the International Free Society,

'KARL STRAHL.

'THE HAGUE, _July_ 18 ...'

This announcement produced no little sensation throughout the world. Any
suspicion of mystification or of fraud was averted by the name of the
acting representative of the Executive Committee. Dr. Strahl was not merely
a man of good social position, but was widely known as one of the first
political economists of Germany. The strange project, therefore, could not
but be seriously received, and the journals of the most diverse party
tendencies at once gave it their fullest attention.

Long before the 20th of October there was not a journal on either side of
the Atlantic which had not assumed a definite attitude towards the question
whether the realisation of the plans of the Free Society belonged to the
domain of the possible or to that of the Utopian. The Society itself,
however, kept aloof from the battle of the journals. It was evidently not
the intention of the Society to win over its opponents by theoretical
evidence; it would attract to itself voluntary sympathisers and then
proceed to action.

As the 20th of October drew near, it became evident that the largest public
hall in the Hague would not accommodate the number of members, guests, and
persons moved by curiosity who wished to attend. Hence it was found
necessary to limit the number of at least the last category of the
audience; and this was done by admitting gratis the guests who came from a
distance, while those who belonged to the place were charged twenty Dutch
guldens. (The proceeds of these tickets were given to the local hospital.)
Nevertheless, on the morning of the 20th of October the place of
assembly--capable of seating two thousand persons--was filled to the last
corner.

Amid the breathless attention of the audience, the President--Dr.
Strahl--rose to open the meeting. The unexpectedly large number of fresh
members and the large amount of contributions which had been received
showed that, even before facts had had time to speak, the importance of the
projected undertaking of the International Free Society was fully
recognised by thousands in all parts of the habitable globe without
distinction of sex or of condition. 'The conviction that the community to
the establishment of which we are about to proceed'--thus began the
speaker--'is destined to attack poverty and misery at the root, and
together with these to annihilate all that wretchedness and all those vices
which are to be regarded as the evil results of misery--this conviction
finds expression not simply in the words, but also in the actions, of the
greater part of our members, in the lofty self-denying enthusiasm with
which they--each one according to his power--have contributed towards the
realisation of the common aim. When we sent out our appeal we numbered but
eighty-four, the funds at our disposal amounted to only 11,400L; to-day the
Society consists of 5,650 members, and its funds amount to 205,620L.' (Here
the speaker was interrupted by applause that lasted several minutes.) 'Of
course, such a sum could not have been collected from only those most
wretched of the wretched whom we are accustomed to think of as exclusively
interested in the solution of the social problem. This will be still more
evident when the list of our members is examined in detail. That list
shows, with irresistible force, that disgust and horror at the social
condition of the people have by degrees taken possession of even those who
apparently derive benefit from the privations of their disinherited
fellow-men. For--and I would lay special emphasis upon this--those
well-to-do and rich persons, some of whose names appear as contributors of
thousands of pounds to our funds, have with few exceptions joined us not
merely as helpers, but also as seekers of help; they wish to found the new
community not merely for their suffering brethren, but also for themselves.
And from this, more than from anything else, do we derive our firm
conviction of the success of our work.'

Long-continued and enthusiastic applause again interrupted the President.
When quiet was once more restored, Dr. Strahl thus concluded his short
address:

'In carrying out our programme, a hitherto unappropriated large tract of
land will have to be acquired for the founding of an independent community.
The question now is, what part of the earth shall we choose for such a
purpose? For obvious reasons we cannot look for territory to any part of
Europe; and everywhere in Asia, at least in those parts in which Caucasian
races could flourish, we should be continually coming into collision with
ancient forms of law and society. We might expect that the several
governments in America and Australia would readily grant us land and
freedom of action; but even there our young community would scarcely be
able to enjoy that undisturbed quiet and security against antagonistic
interference which would be at first a necessary condition of rapid and
uninterrupted success. Thus there remains only Africa, the oldest yet the
last-explored part of the world. The equatorial portion of its interior is
virtually unappropriated; we find there not merely the practically
unlimited extent and absence of disturbing influences necessary for our
development, but--if the selection be wisely made--the most favourable
conditions of climate and soil imaginable. Vast highlands, which unite in
themselves the advantages of the tropics and of our Alpine regions, there
await settlement. Communication with these hilly districts situated far in
the interior of the Dark Continent is certainly difficult; but that is a
condition necessary to us at first. We therefore propose to you that we
should fix our new home in the interior of Equatorial Africa. And we are
thinking particularly of the mountain district of Kenia, the territory to
the east of the Victoria Nyanza, between latitude 1 deg. S. and 1 deg. N., and
longitude 34 deg.-88 deg. E. It is there that we expect to find the most suitable
district for our purpose. Does the meeting approve of this choice?'

Unanimous assent was expressed, and loud cries were enthusiastically
uttered of 'Forwards! To-day rather than to-morrow!' It was unmistakably
evident that the majority wished to make a beginning at once. The President
then resumed:

'Such haste is not practicable, my friends. The new home must first be
found and acquired; and that is a difficult and dangerous undertaking. The
way leads through deserts and inhospitable forests; conflicts with inimical
wild races will probably be inevitable; and all this demands strong
men--not women, children, and old men. The provisioning and protection of
an emigrant train of many thousand persons through such regions must be
organised. In short, it is absolutely necessary that a number of selected
pioneers should precede the general company. When the pioneers have
accomplished their task, the rest can follow.

'To make all requisite provision with the greatest possible vigour,
foresight, and speed, the directorate must be harmonious and fully informed
as to our aims. Hitherto the business of the Society has been in the hands
of a committee of ten; but as the membership has so largely increased, and
will increase still more largely, it might appear desirable to elect a
fresh executive, or at least to add to the numbers of the present one from
the new members. Yet we cannot recommend you to adopt such a course, for
the reason that the new members do not know each other, and could not
become sufficiently well acquainted with each other soon enough to prevent
the election from being anything but a game of chance. We rather ask from
you a confirmation of our authority, with the power of increasing our
numbers by co-option from among you as our judgment may suggest. And we ask
for this authorisation--which can be at any time withdrawn by your
resolution in a full meeting--for the period of two years. At the
expiration of this period we shall--we are fully convinced--not only have
fixed upon a new home, but have lived in it long enough to have learnt a
great deal about it.'

This proposition was unanimously adopted.

The President announced that all the communications of the executive
committee to the members would be published both in the newspapers and by
means of circulars. He then closed the meeting, which broke up in the
highest spirits.

The first act of the executive committee was to appoint two persons with
full powers to organise and take command of the pioneer expedition to
Central Africa. These two leaders of the expedition were so to divide their
duties that one of them was to organise and command the expedition until a
suitable territory was selected and occupied, and the other was to take in
hand the organisation of the colony. The one was to be, as it were, the
conductor, and the other the statesman of the expeditionary corps. For the
former duty the committee chose the well-known African traveller Thomas
Johnston, who had repeatedly traversed the region between Kilimanjaro and
Kenia, the so-called Masailand. Johnston was a junior member of the
Society, and was co-opted upon the committee upon his nomination as leader
of the pioneer expedition. To take charge of the expedition after its
arrival at the locality chosen, the committee nominated a young engineer,
Henry Ney, who, as the most intimate friend of the founder and intellectual
leader of the Society--Dr. Strahl--was held to be the most fitting person
to represent him during the first period of the founding of the community.

Dr. Strahl himself originally intended to accompany the pioneers and
personally to direct the first work of organisation in the new home, but
the other members of the committee urged strong objections. They could not
permit the man upon whose further labours the prosperous development of the
Society so largely depended to expose himself to dangers from which he was
the more likely to suffer harm because his health was delicate. And, after
mature reflection, he himself admitted that for the next few months his
presence would be more needed in Europe than in Central Africa. In a word,
Dr. Strahl consented to wait and to follow the pioneers with the main body
of members; and Henry Ney went with the expedition as his substitute.




CHAPTER II


The account--contained in this and the next five chapters--of the
preparations for and the successful completion of the African expedition,
as well as of the initial work of settling and cultivating the highlands of
Kenia, is taken from the journal of Dr. Strahl's friend:

My appointment as provisional substitute for our revered leader at first
filled me with alarm. The reflection that upon me depended in no small
degree the successful commencement of a work which we all had come to
regard as the most important and far-reaching in its consequences of any in
the history of human development, produced in me a sensation of giddiness.
But my despondency did not last long. I had no right to refuse a
responsibility which my colleagues had declared me to be the most fitted to
bear; and when my fatherly friend Strahl asked me whether I thought failure
possible on the supposition that those who were committed to my leadership
were fired with the same zeal as myself, and whether I had any reason to
question this supposition, then my courage revived, and in place of my
previous timidity I felt an unshakable conviction of the success of the
work, a conviction which I never lost for a moment.

The preparatory measures for the organisation of the pioneer expedition
were discussed and decided upon by the whole committee of the International
Free Society. The first thing to determine was the number of the
expedition. The expedition must not be too small, since the race among whom
we proposed to settle--the nomadic Masai, between the Kilima and the Kenia
mountains--was the most warlike in Equatorial Africa, and could be kept in
check only by presenting a strong and imposing appearance. On the other
hand, if the expedition were too numerous it would be exposed to the risk
of being hampered by the difficulty of obtaining supplies. It was
unanimously agreed to fix the number of pioneers at two hundred of the
sturdiest members of the Society, the best able to endure fatigue and
privation and to face danger, and every one of whom gave evidence of
possessing that degree of general intelligence which would qualify him to
assume, in case of need, the whole responsibility of the mission.

In pursuance of this resolve, the committee applied to the branch
associations--which had been formed wherever members of the Society
lived--for lists of those persons willing to join the expedition, to whose
health, vigorous constitution, and intelligence the respective branch
associations could certify. At the same time a full statement was to be
sent of the special knowledge, experience, and capabilities of the several
candidates. In the course of a few weeks offers were received from 870
strongly recommended members. Of these a hundred, whose qualifications
appeared to the committee to be in all points eminently satisfactory, were
at once chosen. This select hundred included four naturalists (two of whom
were geologists), three physicians, eight engineers, four representatives
of other branches of technical knowledge, and six scientifically trained
agriculturists and foresters; further, thirty artisans such as would make
the expedition able to meet all emergencies; and, finally, forty-five men
who were exceptionally good marksmen or remarkable for physical strength.
The selection of the other hundred pioneers was entrusted to the branch
associations, which were to choose one pioneer out of every seven or eight
of those whose names they had sent. The chosen men were asked to meet as
speedily as possible in Alexandria, which was fixed upon as the provisional
rendezvous of the expedition; money for their travelling expenses was
voted--which, it may be noted in passing, was declined with thanks by about
half of the pioneers.

Thus passed the month of November. In the meantime the committee had not
been idle. The equipment of the expedition was fully and exhaustively
discussed, the details decided upon, and all requisites carefully provided.
Each of the two hundred members was furnished with six complete sets of
underclothing of light elastic woollen material--the so-called Jaeger
clothing; a lighter and a heavier woollen outer suit; two pair of
waterproof and two pair of lighter boots; two cork helmets, and one
waterproof overcoat. In weapons every member received a repeating-rifle of
the best construction for twelve shots, a pocket revolver, and an American
bowie-knife. In addition, there were provided a hundred sporting guns of
different calibres, from the elephant-guns, which shot two-ounce explosive
bullets, to the lightest fowling-pieces; and of course the necessary
ammunition was not forgotten.

At this point the weightiest questions for discussion were whether the
expedition should be a mounted one, and whether the baggage should be
transported from the Zanzibar coast by porters, called _pagazis_, or by
beasts of burden. Johnston's first intention was to purchase only eighty
horses and asses for the conveyance of the heavier baggage, and for the use
of any who might be sick or fatigued; and to hire 800 _pagazis_ in Zanzibar
and Mombasa as porters of the remainder of the baggage, which he estimated
at about 400 cwt. But he gave up this plan at once when he discovered what
my requirements were. He had made provision merely for six months'
maintenance of the expedition, and for articles of barter with the natives.
I required, above all, that the expedition should take with it implements,
machinery (in parts), and such other things as would place us in a
position, when we had arrived at our goal, as speedily as possible to begin
a rational system of agriculture and to engage in the production of what
would be necessary for the use of the many thousand colonists who would
follow us. We needed a number of agricultural implements, or, at least, of
those parts of them which could not be manufactured without complicated and
tedious preparation; similar materials for a field-forge and smithy, as
well as for a flour-mill and a saw-mill; further, seeds of all kinds and
saplings in large quantities, as well as many materials which we could not
reckon upon being able to produce at once in the interior of Africa.
Finally, I pointed out that, in order to make the way safe for the caravans
that would follow us, it would be advisable to form friendly alliances,
particularly with the warlike Masai, for which purpose larger and more
valuable stores of presents would be required than had been provided.

Johnston made no objection to all this. He estimated that the necessary
amount of baggage would thus be doubled, perhaps trebled, and that the
1,600 or 2,400 _pagazis_ that would be required would make the expedition
too cumbrous. Dr. Strahl proposed that transportation by _pagazis_ should
be relinquished altogether, and that beasts of burden should be used
exclusively. He knew well that in the low lands of Equatorial Africa the
tsetse-fly and the bad water were particularly fatal to horses; but these
difficulties were not to be anticipated on our route, which would soon take
us to the high land where the animals would be safe. And the difficulty due
to the peculiar character of the roads in Central Africa could be easily
overcome. These roads possess--as he had learnt from Johnston's
descriptions, among others--where they pass through thickets or bush, a
breadth of scarcely two feet, and are too narrow for pack-horses, which
have often to be unloaded at such places, and the transportation of the
luggage has to be effected by porters. This last expedient would either be
impossible or would involve an incalculable loss of time in the case of a
caravan possessing only beasts of burden with a proportionately small
number of drivers and attendants. But he thought that the roads could
everywhere be made passable for even beasts of burden by means of an
adequate number of well-equipped _eclaireurs_, or advance-guard. Johnston
was of the same opinion: if he were furnished with a hundred natives--whom
he would get from the population on the coast--supplied with axes and
fascine-knives, he would undertake to lead a caravan of beasts of burden to
the Kenia without any delay worth mentioning.

When this question was settled, Dr. Strahl again brought forward the idea
of mounting the 200 pioneers themselves. He had a double end in view. In
the first place--and it was this in part that had led him to make the
previous proposition--it would be necessary to provide for the introduction
and acclimatisation of beasts of burden and draught in the future home,
where there were already cattle, sheep, and goats, but neither horses,
asses, nor camels; and he held that it would be best for the expedition to
take with them at once as large a number as possible of these useful
animals. Moreover, he thought that we could travel much faster if we were
mounted. In the next place, he attached great importance to the careful
selection of animals--whether beasts of burden or for the saddle--suitable
for breeding purposes particularly in the case of the horses, since the
character of the future stock would depend entirely upon that of those
first introduced. This also was agreed to; only Johnston feared that the
expenses of the expedition would be too heavily increased. According to his
original plan, the expenses would not exceed 12,000L; but the alterations
would about quadruple the cost. This was not questioned; and Johnston's
estimate was subsequently found to be correct, for the expedition actually
consumed 52,500L. But it was unanimously urged that the funds which had
been placed so copiously at their disposal, and which were still rapidly
pouring in, could not be more usefully applied than in expediting the
journey as much as possible, and in establishing the new community upon as
sound a foundation as the means allowed.

The detailed consideration of the requisite material was then proceeded
with. When everything had been reckoned, and the total weight estimated, it
was found that we should have to transport a total burden of about 1,200
cwt., as follows:

    150 cwt. of various kinds of meat and drink;
    120  "   "  travelling materials (including fifty waterproof tents for
                four men each);
    160  "   "  various kinds of seed and other agricultural materials;
    220  "   "  implements, machinery, and tools;
    400  "   "  articles of barter and presents;
    120  "   "  ammunition and explosives.

At Johnston's special request, in addition to the above, four light steel
mortars for shell were ordered of Krupp, in Essen. His object was not to
use these murderous weapons seriously against any foe; but he reckoned
that, should occasion occur, peace could be more easily preserved by means
of the terror which they would excite. At the last moment there came to
hand 300 Werndl rifles, together with the needful cartridges--very good
breechloaders which we bought cheaply of the Austrian Government, to use
partly as a reserve and partly to arm some of the negroes who were to be
hired at Zanzibar.

The baggage was to be borne by 100 sumpter-horses, 200 asses and mules, and
80 camels. Since we also needed 200 saddle-horses, with a small reserve for
accidents, it was resolved to buy in all 320 horses, 210 asses, and 85
camels, the horses to be bought, some in Egypt and some in Arabia, the
camels in Egypt, and the asses in Zanzibar.

All the necessary purchases were at once made. Our authorised agents
procured everything at the first source; buyers were sent to Yemen in
Arabia and to Zanzibar for horses and asses. When all this was done or
arranged, Johnston and I--we had meantime contracted a close
friendship--started for Alexandria.

But, before I describe our action there, I must mention an incident which
occurred in the committee. A young American lady had determined to join the
expedition. She was rich, beautiful, and eccentric, an enthusiastic admirer
of our principles, and evidently not accustomed to consider it possible
that her wishes should be seriously opposed. She had contributed very
largely to the funds of the Society, and had made up her mind to be one of
the first to set foot in the new African home. I must confess that I was
sorry for the noble girl, who was devoured by an eager longing for
adventure and painfully felt as a slight the anxious solicitude exhibited
by the committee on account of her sex. But nothing could be clone; we had
refused several women wishful to accompany their husbands who had been
chosen as pioneers, and we could make no exceptions. When the young lady
found that her appeals failed to move us men of the committee, she turned
to our female relatives, whom she speedily discovered; but she met with
little success among them. She was cordially and affectionately received by
the ladies, for she was very charming in her enthusiasm; but that was only
another reason, in the eyes of the women, for concluding that the men had
been right in refusing to allow such a delicate creature to share in the
dangers and privations of the journey of exploration. She was petted and
treated like a spoilt child that longed for the impossible, until Miss
Ellen Fox was fairly beside herself.

She suddenly calmed down; and this occurred in a striking manner
immediately after she became acquainted with another lady who also, though
for other reasons, wished to join our expedition. This other lady was my
sister Clara. While the former was prompted to go to Africa by her zeal for
our principles, the latter was fired with the same desire by detestation
and dread of those same principles. My sister (twelve years my senior, and
still unmarried, because she had not been able to find a man who satisfied
her ideal of personal distinction and lofty character) was one of the
best--in her inmost heart one of the noblest--of women, but full of
immovable prejudices with which I had been continually coming into contact
for the twenty-six years of my life. She was not cold-hearted--her hand was
always open to those who needed help; but she had an invincible contempt
for everything that did not belong to the so-called higher, cultured
classes. When for the first time the social question was explained to her
by me, she was seized with horror at the idea that reasonable men should
believe that she and her kitchen maid were endowed with equal rights by
nature. Finding that all efforts to convert her were in vain, I long
refrained from telling her anything of my relations with Dr. Strahl, or of
the, founding of the Free Society and the _role_ which I played in it. I
wished to spare her as long as possible the sorrow of knowing of my going
astray; for I love this sister dearly, and am idolised by her in return.
For many long years the one passion of her life was her anxious solicitude
about me. We lived together, and she always treated me as a small boy whose
bringing up was her business. That I could exist more than at most two or
three days away from her protection, without becoming the victim of my
childish inexperience and of the wickedness of evil men, always seemed to
her an utter impossibility. Imagine, then, the unutterable terror of my
protectress when I was eventually compelled to disclose to her not only
that I was a member of a socialistic society, had not only devoted the
whole of my modest fortune to the objects of that society, but had actually
been selected as leader of 200 Socialists into the interior of Africa! It
was some days before she could grasp and believe the monstrous fact; then
followed entreaties, tears, desperate reproaches, and expostulations. I
might let the fellows have my money--over which, however, she felt that she
should have kept better guard--but, for heaven's sake, could I not stay
like an honest man at home? She consulted our family physician as to my
responsibility for my actions; but she came back worse than she went, for
he was one of our Society--indeed, a member of the expedition. At last,
when all else had failed, she announced that, if I persisted in rushing to
my ruin, she would accompany me. When I explained to her that this could
not be, as there were to be no women in the expedition, she brought her
heaviest artillery to bear upon me; she reminded me of our deceased mother,
who, on her deathbed, had commissioned my sister never to leave me--a
testamentary injunction to which I ought religiously to submit. As I still
remained obdurate, daring for the first time in my life to remark that our
good mother had plainly committed me to my sister's care only during the
period of my childhood, she fell into hopeless despondency, out of which
nothing could rouse her. In vain did I use endearing terms; in vain did I
assure her that among our 200 pioneers there would certainly be some
excellent fellows between whom and myself there would exist kindly human
relations; in vain did I promise her that she should follow me in about six
months' time: it was all of no avail. She looked upon me as lost; and as
the day of my departure drew near I became exceedingly anxious to find some
means of allaying my sister's touching but foolish sorrow.

Just then Miss Ellen visited my sister. I was called away by business, and
had to leave them together alone; when I returned I found Clara wonderfully
comforted. She no longer wailed and moaned, and was even able to speak of
the dreadful subject without tears. It was plain that Miss Ellen's
exaltation of feeling had wrought soothingly upon her childish anguish; and
I inwardly blessed the charming American for it, the more so that from that
moment the latter no longer troubled us with her importunities. She had
gone away suddenly, and I most heartily congratulated myself on having thus
got rid of a double difficulty.

On the 3rd of December Johnston and I reached Alexandria, where we found
most of our fellow-pioneers awaiting us. Twenty-three wore still missing,
some of whom were coming from great distances, and others had been hindered
by unforeseen contingencies. Johnston set to work at once with the
equipment, exercising, end organisation of the troop. For these purposes we
left the city, and encamped about six miles off, on the shore of Lake
Mareotis. The provisioning was undertaken by a commissariat of six members
under my superintendence; each man received full rations and--unless it was
expressly declined--2L per month in cash. The same amount was paid during
the whole of the time occupied by the expedition--of course not in the form
of cash, which would have been useless in Equatorial Africa, but in goods
at cost price for use or barter. After such articles as clothing and arms
had been unpacked, the exercises began. Eight hours a day were spent in
manoeuvring, marching, swimming, riding, fencing, and target-practice.
Later on Johnston organised longer marches, extending over several days, as
far as Ghizeh and past the Pyramids to Cairo. In the meantime we got to
know each other. Johnston appointed his inferior officers, to whom, as to
him, military obedience was to be rendered--a necessity which was readily
recognised by all without exception. This may appear strange to some, in
view of the fact that we were going forth to found a community in which
absolute social equality and unlimited individual liberty were to prevail.
But we all understood that the ultimate object of our undertaking, and the
expedition which was to lead to that object, were two different things.
During the whole journey there did not occur one case of insubordination;
while, on the other hand, on the side of the officers not one instance of
unnecessary or rude assumption of authority was noticed.

When the time to go on to Zanzibar came, we were a completely trained
picked body of men. In manoeuvring we could compete with any corps of
Guards--naturally only in those exercises which give dexterity and agility
in face of a foe, and not in the parade march and the military salutes. In
these last respects we were and remained as ignorant as Hottentots. But we
could, without serious inconvenience, march or sit in the saddle, with only
brief halts, for twenty-four hours at a stretch; our quick firing yielded a
very respectable number of hits at a distance of eleven hundred yards; and
our grenade firing was not to be despised. We were quite as skilful with a
small battery of Congreve rockets which Johnston had had sent after us from
Trieste, on the advice of an Egyptian officer who had served in the
Soudan--a native of Austria, and a frequent witness of our practising at
Alexandria. The language of command, as well as that of our general
intercourse, was English. As many as 35 per cent. of us were English and
American, whilst the next numerous nationality--the German--was represented
by only about 23 per cent. Moreover, all but about forty-five of us
understood and spoke English more or less perfectly, and these forty-five
learnt to speak it tolerably well during our stay in Alexandria.

On the 30th of March we embarked on the 'Aurora,' a fine screw steamer of
3,000 tons, which the committee had chartered of the English P. and O.
Company, and which, after it had, at Liverpool, Marseilles, and Genoa,
taken on board the wares ordered for us, reached Alexandria on the 22nd of
March. The embarkation and providing accommodation for 200 horses and 60
camels, which had been bought in Egypt, occupied several days; but we were
in no hurry, as, on account of the rainy season, the journey into the
interior of Africa could not be begun before May. We reckoned that the
passage from Alexandria to Zanzibar--the halt in Aden, for taking on board
more horses and camels, included--would not exceed twenty days. We had
therefore fully two weeks left for Zanzibar and for the passage across to
Mombasa, whence we intended to take the road to the Kilimanjaro and the
Kenia, and where, on account of the danger from the fever which was alleged
to prevail on the coast, we did not purpose remaining a day longer than was
necessary.

Our programme was successfully carried out. At Aden we met our agents with
120 superb Yemen horses, and 25 camels of equally excellent breed. Here
also were embarked 115 asses, which--like the camels--had been procured in
Arabia instead of Zanzibar or Egypt. On the 16th of April the 'Aurora'
dropped anchor in the harbour of Zanzibar.

Half the population of the island came out to greet us. Our fame had gone
before us, and, as it seemed, no ill fame; for the European colonists--who
during the last few years had increased to nearly 200--and the Arabians,
Hindoos, and negroes, vied with each other in friendliness and welcome.
Naturally, the first person to receive us was our Zanzibar representative,
who hastened to give us the agreeable assurance that he had exactly
performed his commission, and that, in view of the prevailing public
sentiment respecting us, there would be no difficulty whatever in engaging
the number of natives we required. The English, French, German, Italian,
and American consuls welcomed us most cordially; as did also the
representatives of the great European and American houses of business, who
were all most zealous in pressing their hospitality upon us. Finally
appeared the prime minister of the Sultan, who claimed the whole 200 of us
as his guests. In order to avoid giving offence in any quarter, we left
ourselves at the disposal of the consuls, who distributed us among the
friendly competitors in a way most agreeable to everyone. Johnston and
sixteen officers--myself being one of the company--were allotted to the
Sultan, who placed his whole palace, except that part devoted to his harem,
at our disposal, and entertained us in a truly princely manner. Yet,
ungrateful as it may seem, I must say that we seventeen elect had every
reason to envy those of our colleagues who were entertained less
splendidly, but very comfortably, in the bosom of European families. Our
host did only too much for us: the ten days of our residence in Zanzibar
were crowded with an endless series of banquets, serenades, Bayadere
dances, and the like; and this was the less agreeable as we really found
more to be done than we had expected. A great quantity of articles for
barter had to be bought and packed; and we had to engage no fewer than 280
Swahili men--coast dwellers--as attendants, drivers, and other workmen,
besides the requisite number of guides and interpreters. In all this both
the consuls and the Sultan's officials rendered us excellent service; and
as the negroes had a very favourable opinion of our expedition, in which
they anticipated neither excessive labour nor great danger, since we had a
great number of beasts and were well armed, we had a choice of the best men
that Zanzibar could afford for our purpose. But all this had to be attended
to, and during the whole of the ten days Johnston was sorely puzzled how to
execute his commission and yet do justice to the attentions of the Sultan.

At last, in spite of everything, the work was accomplished, and, as the
issue showed, well accomplished--certainly not so much through any special
care and skill on our part as through the good will shown to us on all
sides. The merchants, European and Indian, supplied us with the best goods
at the lowest prices, without giving us much trouble in selection; and the
Swahili exercised among themselves a kind of ostracism by whipping out of
the market any disreputable or useless colleagues. In this last respect, so
fortunate were we in our selection that, during the whole course of the
expedition, we were spared all those struggles with the laziness or
obstinacy of the natives which are generally the lot of such caravans; in
fact we had not a single case of desertion--an unheard-of circumstance in
the history of African expeditions.

On the 26th of April we left Zanzibar in the 'Aurora,' and reached Mombasa
safely the next morning. We had sent on, in charge of ten of our men, the
whole of our beasts and the greater part of our baggage in the 'Aurora' a
week before, together with a number of the attendants who had been engaged
in Zanzibar. We found all these in good condition, and for the most part
recovered from the ill-effects of the sea voyage. In order to muster the
people we had engaged, and at the same time to allot to each his duty, we
pitched a camp outside of Mombasa in a little palm-grove that commanded a
beautiful view of the sea. To every two led horses or camels, and to every
four asses, a driver and an attendant were allotted. This gave employment
to 145 of the 280 Swahili; 85 more were selected to carry the lighter and
more fragile articles, or such things as must be always readily accessible;
and the remaining 100--including, of course, the guides and two
interpreters--served as _eclaireurs_. By the 2nd of May everything was
ready, the burdens distributed, and every man had his place assigned; the
journey into the interior could be at once begun.

As, however, we could not start until we had received the European mails,
due in Zanzibar on the 3rd or 4th, by which we were to receive the last
news of our friends and any further instructions the committee wished to
give us, we had several days of leisure, which we were able to employ in
viewing the country around Mombasa.

The place itself is situated upon a small island at the mouth of a river,
which here spreads out into a considerable bay, with several dense
mangrove-swamps upon its banks. Hence residence on the coast and in Mombasa
itself is not conducive to health, and by no means desirable for a length
of time. But a few miles inland there are gently undulating hills, clothed
with fine clumps of cocoa-palms growing on ground covered with an
emerald-green sward. Among the trees are scattered the garden-encircled
huts of the Wa-Nyika, who inhabit this coast. These hills afford a healthy
residence during the rainy season; but it would be dangerous for a European
to live here the year through, as the prevailing temperature in the hot
months--from October to January--would in time be injurious to him. In May,
however, when the heavy rains that fall from February to April have
thoroughly cooled the soil and the air, the heat is by no means
disagreeable.

The French packet-ship was a day behind, and did not arrive at Zanzibar
until late in the night of the 4th; but, thanks to the courtesy of the
captain, we received our letters a day earlier than we had expected them.
The captain, learning at Aden that we were awaiting our letters at Mombasa,
when off that place hailed an Arabian dhow and sent us by that our
packages, which we consequently received on the same morning; we should
otherwise have had to wait for them until the evening of the next day. Of
the news thus brought us only two items need be mentioned: first, the
intimation that the committee had instructed our agent in Zanzibar to keep
up constant communication with Mombasa during the whole period of our
journey, and for that purpose to have in readiness several despatch-boats
and a swift-sailing cutter; and, secondly, the information that on the 18th
of April, the day of despatching the mails, the membership of the Society
had reached 8,460, with funds amounting to nearly 400,000L.

Together with our letters there came another little surprise for us from
home. The dhow brought us a pack of not less than thirty-two dogs, in
charge of two keepers, who were the bearers of greetings to us from their
master, Lord Clinton. His lordship, a warm espouser of our principles and a
great lover of dogs, had sent us this present from York, believing that it
would be very useful to us both on our journey and after we had arrived at
our destination. The dogs were splendid creatures--a dozen mastiffs and
twenty sheep-dogs of that long-legged and long-haired breed which looks
like a cross between the greyhound and the St. Bernard. The smallest of the
mastiffs was above twenty-seven inches high at the loins; the sheep-dogs
not much smaller; and they all proved themselves to be well-trained and
well-mannered creatures. They met with a cordial welcome from us all. The
two keepers told us that they were perfectly indifferent to our plans and
principles, for they 'knew nothing at all about such matters;' but, if we
would allow them, they would gladly accompany us along with their
four-footed friends. As they looked like strong, healthy, and, in spite of
their simplicity, very decent fellows, and as they professed to be
tolerably expert in riding and shooting and experienced in the training and
treatment of different kinds of animals, we were pleased to take them with
us. A cordial letter of thanks was returned to Lord Clinton; and when our
mails had been sent off to Zanzibar, and all arrangements for the morrow
completed, we retired to rest for the last time previous to our departure
for the dark interior of the African world.




CHAPTER III


On the 5th of May we were woke by the horns and drums of the Kirangozis
(leaders of the caravan) at three o'clock, according to arrangement. The
large camp-fires, which had been prepared overnight, were lighted, and
breakfast--tea or coffee, with eggs and cold meat for us whites, a soup of
meat and vegetables for the Swahili--was cooked; and by the light of the
same fires preparations were made for starting. The advance-guard,
consisting of the hundred _eclaireurs_ and twenty lightly laden packhorses,
accompanied by thirty mounted pioneers, started an hour after we awoke. The
duty of the advance-guard was, with axe, billhook, and pick, so to clear
the way where it led through jungle and thicket as to make it passable for
our sumpter beasts with the larger baggage; to bridge, as well as they were
able, over watercourses; and to prepare the next camping-place for the main
body. In order to do this, the advance-guard had to precede us several
hours, or even several days, according to the character of the country. We
learnt from our guides that no great difficulties were to be anticipated at
the outset, so at first our advance-guard had no need to be more than a few
hours ahead.

It was eight o'clock when the main body was in order. In the front were 150
of us whites, headed by Johnston and myself; then followed in a long line
first the led horses, then the asses, and finally the camels; twenty whites
brought up the rear. Thus, at last, we left our camp with the sun already
shining hotly upon us; and, throwing back a last glance at Mombasa lying
picturesquely behind us, we bade farewell to the sea foaming below, whose
dull roar could be distinctly heard despite a distance of four or five
miles. To the sound of horns and drums we scaled the steep though not very
high hills that separated us from the so-called desert which lay between us
and the interior. The region, which we soon reached, evidently deserves the
name of desert only in the hot season; now, when the three months' rainy
season was scarcely over, we found the landscape park-like. Rich, though
not very high, grass alternated with groves of mimosa and dwarf palm and
with clumps of acacia. When, after a march of two hours, we had left the
last of the coast hills behind us, the grass became more luxuriant and the
trees more numerous, and taller; antelopes showed themselves in the
distance, but they were very shy and were soon scared away by the dogs,
which were not yet broken of the habit of useless hunting. About eleven
o'clock we halted for rest and refreshment in the shade of a palm-grove
which a dense mass of climbing plants had converted into a stately giant
canopy. All--men and beasts--were exhausted, though we had been scarcely
three hours on the march; the previous running and racing about in camp for
four hours had been the reverse of refreshing to us, and after ten o'clock
the heat had become most oppressive. Johnston comforted us by saying that
it would be better in future. In the first place, we should henceforth be
less time in getting ready to march, and should therefore start earlier--if
it depended upon him, soon after four--doing the greatest part of the way
in the cool of the morning, and halting at nine, or at the latest at ten.
Moreover, the district we were now going through was the hottest, if not
the most difficult, we should have to travel over; when we had once got
into the higher regions we should be troubled by excessive heat only
exceptionally.

Reinvigorated by this encouragement, and more still by a generous meal--the
bulk of which consisted of two fat oxen bought on the way--and by the rest
in the shade of the dense liana-canopy, we started again at four o'clock,
and, after a trying march of nearly five hours, reached the camping-place
prepared by our advance-guard in the neighbourhood of a Wa-Kamba village
between Mkwale and Mkinga. We did not come up with the advance-guard at
all; they had rested here about noon, but had gone on several hours before
we arrived, in order to keep ahead of us. However, they had left our supper
in charge of one of their number--eleven antelopes of different kinds,
which their huntsmen had shot by the way. The Swahili who had been left
with this welcome gift, and who mounted his Arab horse to overtake his
companions as soon as he had delivered his message, told us that they had
unexpectedly come upon a large herd of these charming beasts, among which
the white huntsmen had committed great havoc. Five antelopes had furnished
his company with their midday meal, as many had been taken away for their
evening meal, and the rest--among which, as he remarked, not without a
little envy, were the fattest animals--had been left for us. This attention
on the part of our companions who were ahead of us was received by us all
the more gratefully as, in the Wa-Kamba villages which we had passed
through since our midday halt, we had found no beasts for sale, except a
few lean goats, which we had refused in hopes of getting something better;
and we had been less fortunate in the chase than our advance-guard. Nothing
but a few insignificant birds had come within reach of our sportsmen, and
so we had already given up any hope of having fresh meat when the
unexpected present furnished us with a dainty meal, the value of which only
those can rightly estimate who have left an exhausting march behind them,
and have the prospect of nothing but vegetables and preserved meats before
them.

On the morning of the next day, mindful of the inconvenience experienced by
us the day before, we began our march as early as half-past four. At first
the country was quite open; but in a couple of hours we reached the Duruma
country, where our advance-guard had had hot work. For more than half a
mile the path lay through thorny hush of the most horrible kind, which
would have been absolutely impassable by our sumpter beasts but for the
hatchets and billhooks of our brave _eclaireurs_. Thanks, however, to the
ample clearance they had made, we were quickly through. Towards eight
o'clock the way got better again; and this alternation was repeated until,
on the evening of the third day, we left Durumaland behind us and entered
upon the great desert that stretches thence almost without a break as far
as Teita. We once got very near to our advance-guard; I gave my steed the
spur, in order to see the men at their work, but they made it their
ambition to prevent us from getting quite close to them. With eager haste
they plied knife and hatchet in the thick thorny bush, until a passage was
made for us; and they then at once hurried forward without waiting for the
main column, the head of which was within a mile and a quarter of them.

Nothing noteworthy occurred during these days. We left our camp about
half-past four each morning, made our first halt about nine, resumed our
march again before five in the afternoon, and camped between eight and nine
in the evening. The provisioning in Durumaland was difficult; but we
succeeded in procuring from the pastoral and agricultural inhabitants
sufficient vegetables and flesh food, and of the latter a supply large
enough to last us until we had passed through the Duruma desert. The soil
seems to possess a great natural fertility, but its best portions are
uncultivated and neglected, since the inhabitants seldom venture out of
their jungle-thickets on account of the incessant inroads of the Masai. We
heard everywhere of the evil deeds of these marauders, who had only a few
weeks before fallen upon a tribe, slain the men, and driven off the women,
children, and cattle, and were said to be again on the war-path in search
of new booty. Our assurance that we would shortly free their district, as
well as the districts of all the tribes with whom we had contracted or
expected to contract alliance, from this scourge, was received by the
Wa-Duruma with great incredulity; for the Sultan of Zanzibar himself had
failed to prevent the Masai from extending their raids and levying
contributions even as far as Mombasa and Pangani. Nevertheless, our promise
spread rapidly far and near.

On the morning of the fourth day of our journey, just as we were preparing
to enter upon the desert, we learnt from some natives, who hurried by
breathless with alarm and anxiety, that a strong body of Masai had in the
night made a large capture of slaves and cattle, and were now on their way
to attack us. Thereupon we altered our arrangements. As the position we
occupied was a good one, we left our baggage and the drivers in camp, and
got ourselves ready for action. The guns were mounted and horsed, and the
rockets prepared; the former were placed in the middle, and the latter in
the two wings of the long line into which we formed ourselves. This was the
work of scarcely ten minutes, and in less than another quarter of an hour
we saw about six hundred Masai approaching at a rapid pace. We let them
come on unmolested until they were about 1,100 yards off. Then the trumpets
brayed, and our whole line galloped briskly to meet them. The Masai stopped
short when they saw the strange sight of a line of cavalry bearing down
upon them. We slackened our pace and went on slowly until we were a little
over a hundred yards from them. Then we halted, and Johnston, who is
tolerably fluent in the Masai dialect, rode a few steps farther and asked
them in a loud voice what they wanted. There was a short consultation among
the Masai, and then one of them came forward and asked whether we would pay
tribute or fight. 'Is this your country,' was the rejoinder, 'that you
demand tribute? We pay tribute to no one; we have gifts for our friends,
and deadly weapons for our foes. Whether the Masai will be our friends we
shall see when we visit their country. But we have already formed an
alliance with the Wa-Duruma, and therefore we allow no one to rob them.
Give back the prisoners and the booty and go home to your kraals, else we
shall be obliged to use against you our weapons and our medicines
(magic)--which we should be sorry to do, for we wish to contract alliance
with you also.'

This last statement was evidently taken to be a sign of weakness, for the
Masai, who at first seemed to be a little alarmed, shook their spears
threateningly, and with loud shouts set themselves again in motion towards
us. Our trumpets brayed again, and while we horsemen sprang forwards the
guns and rockets opened fire--not upon the foe, among whose close masses
they would have wrought execution as terrible as it would have been
unnecessary--but away over their heads. The Masai stayed for only one
volley. When the guns thundered, the rockets, hissing and crackling, swept
over their heads, and, above all, the strange creatures with four feet and
two heads rushed upon them, they turned in an instant and fled away
howling. Our artillery sent another volley after them, to increase their
panic, if possible; while the horsemen busied themselves taking prisoners
and getting possession of the slaves and children, who were now visible in
the distance.

In less than half an hour we had forty-three prisoners, and the whole of
the booty was in our possession. We should not have succeeded so completely
in freeing the Duruma women and children had these not been fettered in
such a way as to make it impossible for them to run quickly. For when these
poor creatures saw and heard the fighting and the noise, they made
desperate attempts to follow the fleeing Masai. The children behaved more
sensibly, for, though they were much alarmed by the firing and the rockets,
they gave us and our dogs--which performed excellent service in this
affair--little difficulty in driving them into our camp.

The captured Masai were fine daring-looking fellows, and maintained a
considerable degree of self-composure in spite of their intense alarm and
of their expectation of immediate execution. Fortunately there was among
them their _leitunu_, or chief and absolute leader of the party--a bronze
Apollo standing 6 ft. 6 in. high. He looked as if he would like to thrust
his _sime_, or short sword, into his own breast when the Wa-Duruma, who had
begun to collect about us, ventured to mock at him and his people and to
shout aloud for their death. Johnston most emphatically refused this
demand. Speaking loudly enough for the prisoners to hear, he explained that
the Masai were to become our allies; we had simply punished them for the
wrong they had done. Did they--the Duruma--imagine that we needed their
help, or the help of anyone, to slay the Masai if we wished to slay them?
Had they not seen that we fired into the air, when a few well-aimed shots
from our mighty machines would have sufficed to tear all the Masai in
pieces? Then, in order to show the Duruma--but still more the Masai--the
truth of these words, which had been listened to with shuddering and
without the slightest trace of scepticism, Johnston directed a full volley
of all our guns and rockets upon a dilapidated straw-thatched round hut
about 1,100 yards off. The hut was completely smashed, and at once burst
into flames--a spectacle which made a most powerful impression upon the
savages.

'Now go,' said Johnston to the Wa-Duruma, pretending not to notice how
intently our prisoners listened and looked on, 'and take your women,
children, and cattle, which we have set free, and leave the Masai in peace.
We will see to it that they do not trouble you in future. But do not forget
that in a few weeks the Masai also will be our allies.'

The Wa-Duruma obeyed, but they did not quite know what to make of this
business. When they were gone away, Johnston ordered their weapons to be
given back to the captive Masai, whom he commanded to go away, telling them
that in at most two weeks' time he expected to visit Lytokitok, the
south-eastern frontier district of Masailand; and that it was in order to
inform them of this that he had had them brought before him. But instead of
at once taking advantage of this permission to go away, the _el-moran_ (as
the Masai warriors are called) lingered where they were; and at last
Mdango, their _leitunu_, stepped forward and explained that it would be
certain death for such a small band of Masai, separated from their own
people, to seek to get home through Durumaland in its present agitated
condition; and if they must die, they would esteem it a greater honour to
die by the hand of so mighty a white _leibon_ (magician) than to be slain
by the cowardly Wa-Duruma or Wa-Teita. As it was our intention to visit
their country very soon, we willingly permitted them to accompany us.

Johnston's face beamed with delight at this auspicious beginning; but
towards the Masai he maintained a demeanour of absolute calm, and declared
in a dignified tone that what they asked was a great favour, and one of
which their previous behaviour had shown them to be so little worthy that
before he could give them a definite answer he must hold a _shauri_
(council) of his people. Leaving them standing where they were, he called
aside some twenty of us who were on horseback near him, and told us the
substance of the conversation. 'Of course, we will accede to the request of
the _leitunu_, who, judging from the large number of _el-moran_ that follow
him, must be one of their most influential men. If he is completely won
over, he will bring over his countrymen with him. So now I will inform him
of the result of our council.'

'Listen,' said he, turning to Mdango; 'we have decided to accede to your
request, for your brethren in Lytokitok shall not be able to say that we
have exposed you to a dishonourable death. But as we have directed our
weapons against you, though without shedding of blood, our customs forbid
us to admit you as guests to our camp and our table before you have fully
atoned for the outrage by which you have displeased us. This atonement will
have been made when each of you has contracted blood-brotherhood with him
who took you prisoner. Will you do this, and will you honourably keep your
word?'

The _el-moran_ very readily assented to this. Hereupon another council
was held among ourselves, and this was followed by the fraternisation--
according to the peculiar customs of the Masai--of the forty-three
prisoners with their captors; and we thereby gained forty-three allies
who--as Johnston assured us--would be hewed in pieces before they would
allow any harm to happen to us if they could prevent it.

By this time it was nine o'clock, and, as the day promised to be glowing
hot, we had no desire to set foot upon the burning Duruma desert until the
sun was below the horizon. We therefore retired to our camp, which had not
been left by the sumpter beasts, and then we prepared our midday meal. In
honour of our bloodless victory, we prepared an unusually sumptuous repast
of flesh and milk--the only food of the Masai _el-moran_--followed by an
enormous bowl of rum, honey, lemons, and hot water, which was heartily
relished by our people, but which threw the Masai into a state of ecstasy.
The ecstasy knew no bounds when, the punch being drunk, the forty-three
blood-brethren were severally adorned with red breeches as a tribute of
friendship. The _leitunu_ himself received an extra gift in the form of a
gold-embroidered scarlet mantle.

The Duruma desert, which we entered about five o'clock, is quite
uninhabited, and during the dry months has the bad repute of being almost
absolutely without water. Now, however, immediately after the rainy season,
we found a sufficient quantity of tolerably good water in the many
ground-fissures and well-like natural pits, often two or three yards deep.
But we suffered so much from the heat before sunset, that we sacrificed our
night-rest in making a forced march to Taro, a good-sized pool formed by
the collected rain-water. We reached this towards morning, and rested here
for half a day--that is, we did not start again until the evening,
husbanding our strength for the worst part of the way, which was yet to
come. From this point the water-holes became less frequent, and the
landscape particularly cheerless--monotonous stony expanses alternating
with hideous thorn-thickets. Yet both men and beasts held out bravely
through those three miserable days, and on the 12th of May we reached in
good condition, though wetted to the skin by a sudden and unexpected
downpour of rain, the charming country of the Wa-Teita on the fine Ndara
range of hills.

We here experienced for the first time the ravishing splendour of the
equatorial highlands. The Ndara range reaches a height of 5,000 feet and is
covered from summit to base with a luxuriant vegetation; a number of
silvery brooks and streams murmur and roar down its sides to the valleys;
and the view from favourably situated points is most charming. As we rested
here a whole day, most of us used the opportunity to make excursions
through the marvellous scenery, being most courteously guided about by
several Englishmen who had settled here for missionary and business
purposes. I could not penetrate so far as I wished into the tangle of
delicious shadowy valleys and hills which surrounded us, because I had to
arrange for the provisioning of the caravan both in Teita and for the
desert districts between Teita and the Kilimanjaro. But my more fortunate
companions scaled the neighbouring heights, spent the night either on or
just below the summits, refreshed themselves with the cool mountain air,
and came back intoxicated with all the beauty they had enjoyed. Even at the
foot of the Teita hills it was scarcely less charming. The bath under one
of the splashing waterfalls, fanned by the mild air and odours of evening,
would ever have been one of the pleasantest recollections of my life, if
Africa had not offered me still more glorious natural scenes.

We spent the 14th and 15th in leisurely marches through this paradise, in
which a rich booty in giraffes and various kinds of antelopes fell to our
huntsmen. Everywhere we concluded friendly alliances with the tribes and
their chiefs, and sealed our alliances with presents. During the two
following days we worked our way through the uninhabited--but therefore the
richer in game--desert of Taveta, which in fact is not so bad as its
reputation; and on the afternoon of the 17th we approached the cool forests
of the foot-hills of the Kilima, where a strange surprise was hi store for
us.

When we were a few miles from Taveta and--as is customary in Africa--had
announced the arrival of our caravan by a salvo from our guns, Johnston and
I, riding at the head of the train, saw a man galloping towards us with
loose rein, in whom we at once recognised the leader of our advance-guard,
Engineer Demestre. The haste with which he galloped towards us at first
gave us some anxiety; but his smiling face soon showed us that it was no
ill-luck which brought him to us. He signalled to me from a distance, and
cried as he checked his horse in front of us: 'Your sister and Miss Fox are
in Taveta.'

Both Johnston and I must have made most absurd grimaces at this unexpected
announcement, for Demestre broke out into uproarious laughter, in which at
last we joined. Then he told us that, on the previous evening, when he and
his party arrived at Taveta, the two ladies had accosted him in the streets
as unconcernedly as if it were a casual meeting at home, had altogether
ignored the slight they had received, and, when asked, had told him in an
indifferent tone that they had travelled hither from Aden, whence they
started on the 30th of April--therefore while we were waiting at
Mombasa--to Zanzibar, whence, after a short stay, they went to Pangani and,
taking the route by Mkumbara and the Jipe lake, reached Taveta on the 14th
of May. They were accompanied by their servant and friend, Sam--a worthy
old negro who was Miss Fox's constant attendant--and four elephants upon
which they rode, to the boundless astonishment of the negroes. They were
quite comfortable in Taveta. 'Miss Clara sends greetings, and bids me tell
you that she longs to press you to her sisterly heart.'

When I saw that Demestre was not joking I put spurs to my horse, and in a
few minutes found myself in a shady, bowery woodland road which led from
the open country into Taveta. Soon after I saw the two ladies, one of whom
ran towards me with outstretched arms and, almost before I had touched the
ground, warmly embraced me, she weeping aloud the while. After the first
storm of emotion was over, I tried to get from my sister a fuller account
of her appearance here among the savages; but I failed, for as often as the
good creature began her story it was interrupted by her tears and her
expressions of joy at seeing me again, as well as by thoughts of all the
dangers from which I--heedless boy!--had been preserved by nothing but my
good luck. In the meantime Miss Fox had come up to us. She returned my
greeting with a slight tinge of sarcasm, but none the less cordially; and I
at length learned from her all that I wished to know.

I found that the two, at their very first meeting, had come to an
understanding and decided upon the principal features of their plot,
reserving the arrangement of details until we had left Europe. My sister
had found in Miss Fox the energy and the possession of the requisite
pecuniary means for the independent undertaking of an expedition, against
the will of the men; and Miss Fox had found in my sister the companion and
elder protectress, without whom even she would have shrunk from such a bold
enterprise. As Miss Fox was exactly informed of all our plans, she was able
to copy them in her own arrangements. She procured what she needed from the
manufacturers and brokers from whom we got our provisions, articles of
barter, and travelling necessaries. Like us, she substituted sumpter beasts
for _pagazis_; only, in order to be original in at least one point, she
chose elephants instead of horses, camels, or asses. She inferred that, as
elephants--though hitherto untamed--abounded in all the districts to which
we were going, Indian elephants would thrive well throughout Equatorial
Africa. A business friend of her late father's in Calcutta bought for her
four fine specimens of these pachyderms, and sent them with eight
experienced keepers and attendants to Aden, whence she took them with her
to Zanzibar. Here several guides and interpreters were hired; and, in order
not to come into collision with us too near the coast, she chose the route
by Pangani. The curiosity of the natives was here and there a little
troublesome; but, thanks mainly to the courteous attentions of the German
agents stationed in Mkumbana, Membe, and Taveta, the expedition had not met
with the slightest mishap. On their arrival at Taveta they had at once
dismissed their Swahili, and intended to join our expedition with the
elephants and Indians--unless we insisted on leaving them behind us alone
in Taveta.

What was to be done under such circumstances? It followed as a matter of
course that the two Amazons must henceforth form a part of our expedition;
and, to tell the truth, I knew not how to be angry with either my sister or
Miss Fox for their persistency. The worst dangers might be considered as
averted by the affair with the Masai in Duruma; the difficulties of the
journey were, as the result showed, no more than women could easily brave.
Therefore I gave myself up without anxiety to the joy of the unexpected
reunion. I was gratified to note also that the other members of the
expedition welcomed this addition to our numbers. So the elephants with
their fair burdens--for it may be added in passing that my sister,
notwithstanding her thirty-eight years, still retains her good looks--had
their place assigned to them in our caravan.

We bade farewell to our Masai friends outside Taveta. They were
commissioned to inform their countrymen that we should reach the frontier
of Lytokitok in eight or ten days, and that it was our intention to go
through the whole of Masailand in order to find a locality suitable for our
permanent settlement. This settlement of ours would be in the highest
degree profitable to the race in whose neighbourhood we should build our
dwellings, as we should make such race rich and invincible by any of their
foes. We should force no one to receive us and give us land, although we
possessed--as they were convinced--sufficient power to do so; and many
thousands of our brethren were only awaiting a message from us to come and
join us. If, however, a free passage were not peaceably granted to us
through any territory, we knew how to force it. We finally made our
blood-brethren solemnly engage to bring as many tribes as possible into
alliance with us, especially those who dwelt on the route to the Naivasha
lake, our route to the Kenia mountain; and we parted with mutual
expressions of good will. They had shown themselves most agreeable fellows,
and as parting mementos we gave them a number of what in their eyes were
very valuable presents for their beloved ones--the so-called 'Dittos'--such
as brass wire, brass bracelets and rings with imitation stones,
hand-mirrors, strings of glass pearls, cotton articles, and ribbons. These
gifts, which in Europe had not cost 20L altogether, were--as we afterwards
had occasion to prove--worth among the Masai as much as a hundred fat oxen;
and the _el-moran_ were struck dumb with our generosity. But in their eyes
Johnston's final gift was beyond all price--a cavalry sabre with iron
sheath and a good Solingen blade for each of the departing heroes. To give
ocular demonstration of the quality of these weapons, Johnston got a
Belgian, skilled in such feats, to cut through at one stroke the strongest
of the Masai spears, the head of which was nearly five inches broad. He
then showed to the astonished warriors the still undamaged sword-blade. 'So
do our _simes_ cut,' he said, 'when used in righteous battle; but beware of
drawing them in pillage or murder, for they will then shatter in your hands
as glass and bring evil upon your heads.' We then gave them a friendly
salute, and they were soon out of sight.

We stayed in Taveta five days to give our animals rest after their trying
marches, and to refresh ourselves with the indescribable charms of this
country, which surpassed in pleasantness and tropical splendour, as well as
in the grandeur of the mountain-ranges, anything we had hitherto seen. We
wished also, with the assistance of the German agents settled here and in
the neighbouring Moshi, to complete our equipment for the rest of the
journey. These gentlemen, and not less the friendly natives, readily gave
us information as to what wares were then in special demand in Masailand;
and as we happened to have very few of a kind of blue pearls just then
fashionable among the Dittos, and not a single piece of a sort of cotton
cloth prized as a great novelty, we bought in Taveta several beast-loads of
these valuables.

In our excursions from Taveta we saw for the first time the Kilimanjaro
mountain in all its overpowering majesty. Rising abruptly more than 13,000
feet above the surrounding high land, this double-peaked giant reaches an
altitude of 19,000 feet above the sea, and bears upon its broad massive
back a stretch of snow with which in impressiveness neither the glaciers of
our European Alps nor, in a certain sense, those of the Andes and the
Himalayas, can compare. For nowhere else upon our earth does nature present
such a strong and sudden contrast between the most luxuriant and exuberant
tropical vegetation and the horrid chilling waste of broken precipices and
eternal ice as here in Equatorial Africa. The flora and fauna at the foot
of the Himalayas, for example, are scarcely less gorgeous than in the
wooded and well-watered country around Taveta; but while the snow-covered
peaks of the mountain-range of Central Asia rise hundreds of miles away
from the foot of the mountains, and it is therefore not possible to enjoy
the two kinds of scenery together, heightened by contrast, here one can,
from under the shade of a wild banana or mango-palm, count with a good
telescope the unfathomable glacier-crevasses--so palpably near is the world
of eternal ice to that of eternal summer. And what a summer!--a summer that
preserves its richest treasures of beauty and fruitfulness without relaxing
our nerves by its hot breath. These shady yet cheerful forests, these
crystal streams leaping everywhere through the flower-perfumed land, these
balmy airs which almost uninterruptedly float down from the near icefields,
and on their way through the mountain-gorges and higher valleys get laden
with the spicy breath of flowers,--all this must be seen and enjoyed in
order to know what Taveta is.

This favoured land produces a superabundance of material enjoyments of a
tangible kind. Fat cattle, sheep and goats, poultry, dainty fishes from the
Jipe lake and the Lumi river, specially dainty game of a thousand kinds
from the banks of the smaller mountain-streams which flow down the sides of
the Kilimanjaro, satisfy the most insatiable longing for flesh food. The
vegetable kingdom pours forth not less lavishly from its horn of plenty a
supply of almost all the wild and cultivated fruits and garden-produce of
the tropics. At the same time everything is so cheap that the most
extravagant glutton could not exceed a daily consumption costing more than
a penny or two, even should the courteous and hospitable Wa-Taveta accept
payment at all--which, however, they seldom did from us. It is true that
the fame of our heroic deeds against the Masai had gone before us, and
particularly the assurance that we had delivered Taveta from these
unwelcome guests, who, it is true, had hitherto been kept away on every
attack by the impenetrable forest fastnesses of Kilima, but whose
neighbourhood was nevertheless very troublesome. Besides, our hands were
ever open to the men of Taveta, and still more generously to the women.
European goods of all kinds, articles of clothing, primitive ornaments, and
especially a selection of photographs and Munich coloured picture-sheets,
won the hearts of our black hosts, so that when, on the morning of the 23rd
of May, we at last set out on our way, we were as sorry to leave this
splendid woodland district as the Wa-Taveta were to lose us. These good
simple-minded men accompanied us over their frontier; and many of the by no
means ill-looking Taveta girls, who had lost their hearts to their white or
their Swahili guests, shed bitter tears, and told their woe preferably to
our two ladies, who fortunately did not understand a word of these effusive
demonstrations of the Tavetan female heart. Prudery is an unknown thing in
Equatorial Africa; and the Taveta fair ones would have been as little able
to understand why anyone should think it wrong to open one's heart to a
guest as their white sisters would have been to conceive of the possibility
of talking freely and in all innocence of such matters without giving the
least offence to friends and relatives.




CHAPTER IV


There are two routes from Taveta to Masailand, one leading westward past
Kilima through the territory of the Wa-Kwafi, the other along the eastern
slopes of the mountain through the lands occupied by the various tribes of
the Wa-Chaga.

Both routes pass through fertile and pleasant country; but we chose the
latter, because just then the Wa-Kwafi were at war with the Masai, and we
wished to avoid getting mixed up with any affair that did not concern us.
Moreover, we preferred to have dealings with the quiet and pacific Wa-Chaga
rather than with the swaggering Wa-Kwafi. By short day-marches we went on
past the wildly romantic Chala lake, shut in by dark perpendicular rocks,
through the wooded hillsides of Rombo and over the tableland of Useri. On
our way we crossed three considerable streams which unite to form the Tzavo
river. We also came upon numberless springs which sent their water down
from Kilima in all directions to irrigate the park-like meadows and the
well-cultivated fields of the natives. All along our route we exchanged
gifts and contracted alliances of friendship At times the chase was engaged
in, furnishing us with a great number of antelopes, zebras, giraffes, and
rhinoceroses.

On the 28th of May we reached the frontier of Lytokitok, the south-eastern
boundary of Masailand. As we crossed the Rongei stream we met our friend
Mdango, accompanied by a large number of his warriors. His report was
gratifying. He had given his message, not only to the elders and warriors
of his own tribe, but to all the tribes from Lytokitok to the frontiers of
Kapte, and had invited them to a great _shauri_ at the Minyenye hill, half
a day's march from the frontier in the direction of the Useri. The
invitation had been numerously accepted by both _el-morun_ and
_el-moran_--_i.e._ married men and warriors--the latter attending to the
number of above 3,000 men; and two days before they had been in
consultation from morning until evening. The result was the unanimous
resolve to permit us to pass through; but they had not yet agreed whether
to insist upon the payment of the customary _hongo_, or tribute, exacted
from trade-caravans, or to await our spontaneous liberality. Indeed,
difficulties still stood in the way of a permanent alliance of friendship
with us, and it was mainly the majority of the _el-moran_ who wanted to
treat us as strangers passing through Masailand were generally
treated--that is, to exhibit towards us a violent, arrogant, and
extortionate demeanour. They refused to believe in our great power, since
we had not killed even one Masai warrior, but had sent home in good
condition all who had fought against us, except sixteen--who had, however,
been killed by the Wa-Duruma and the Wa Teita, and not by us. This party
advanced the opinion that Mdango and his men had fled from us out of
childish alarm, which assertion nearly led to a sanguinary encounter
between the deeply incensed accused and their accusers. Since, however,
even the latter admitted that we must be very good fellows, inasmuch as we
had in no way abused our victory, they were, as already stated, not
disinclined graciously to permit our passage through their country. And
since Mdango consoled himself with the reflection that we could best
dispose of the braggarts who laughed at him, he had restrained himself, and
told the other party they had better meet us and try to frighten us; he and
his would remain neutral notwithstanding the blood-brotherhood he had
contracted with us, but he would have nothing to do with compelling us to
pay tribute. All his six hundred warriors would adhere to him, and nearly
as many _el-moran_ from other tribes; the married men--the
_el-morun_--were, almost without exception, favourable to us. Thus stood
affairs, and we had to prepare ourselves to meet, hi a few hours, some
2,000 _el-moran_, to whom we must either pay heavy tribute or play the same
game as we had played with him and his in Duruma. Moreover, he gave us
plainly to understand that a few sharp shots from the cannons, or, still
better, a few rockets, would not be amiss.

Johnston rejected this counsel of revenge, which was unworthy of a
blood-brother of white men, and pacified him by promising that the boasters
should be thoroughly shamed, and that the laughers in Masailand should be
those of Mdango's party. Thereupon Johnston very quietly made his
preparations. The sumpter beasts and their drivers occupied the well-fenced
camp prepared by our advance-guard; we whites, on the contrary, placed
ourselves conspicuously in the shade of some large isolated sycamores, with
our saddled horses a few yards behind us, where were also the limbered-up
guns and rocket-battery. Even the four elephants, which Johnston had
accustomed to fire in Taveta, had a _role_ assigned to them in this
burlesque, and they were therefore sent with their attendants to feed in
the shade of a small wood close at hand. When all this was arranged, we
settled down quietly to our cooking, and did not allow ourselves to be
disturbed when the first band of _el-moran_ became visible. Our apparent
indifference perplexed them, and while still a mile and a quarter from us
they held a consultation. Then a deputation of ten of their young warriors
approached, the rest of the band awaiting their companions who had not yet
appeared. The messengers addressed us with great dignity, and, after they
had been referred to Johnston as our _leitunu_, asked us what we wanted.

'An unmolested passage through your country, and friendship with you,' was
the answer.

Would we pay tribute?

'Our brother Mdango has told you that for our friends we have rich
presents, but these presents are given voluntarily or for services
rendered. We have weapons for our foes, but tribute for no one.'

The _el-moran_ replied with dignity, but haughtily, that it was not the
custom of the country to allow travellers to pass through as they pleased;
we must either pay what was demanded, or fight.

'Friends, consider well what you are doing. We do not wish to fight, but to
keep the peace and become your brethren. Go back to your kraals, and be
careful not to molest us. Tell this to your young warriors. If you go away,
we will take that as an indication of your friendly disposition, and there
shall no harm come to you. But if you come beyond that bush' (here Johnston
pointed to a small wood, a little over two hundred yards away from our
camp) 'we shall look upon it as an attack. I have spoken.'

The _el-moran_ went away with as much quiet dignity as they had exhibited
when they approached us. The number in sight had meantime increased to
nearly 2,000 men, who were arranged in tolerably good military order. When
they received our answer, they raised a not unmusical war-cry and,
extending their lances, hurried forward with a quick step. We sat still by
the side of our cooking-vessels as if the affair did not concern us, until
the foremost of the _el-moran_ had reached the specified bush. Johnston
then caused the signal to be blown; quick as lightning we were in the
saddle, and, with the elephants in our midst, we galloped towards the
_el-moran_, whilst a quick fire with blank-cartridge opened upon them and
our artillery began to play. The effect was not less drastic than it had
been in the case of the followers of Mdango. The arrogant assailants beat a
noisy retreat, and--an unheard-of disgrace for fighting _el-moran_--many of
them let fall their lances and shields in the panic. The whole body of them
fled until they were completely out of our view; but we went back to our
cooking-utensils, where we found Mdango's followers and adherents, who had
been inactive spectators of the scene, convulsed with laughter. We invited
them within our fenced camp, where we loaded each man with presents. First
Mdango was rewarded for his diplomatic services with a bright-coloured
gold-embroidered robe of honour (where, in speaking of presents, 'gold' is
mentioned--which the Central African neither knows nor values--spurious
metal must be understood), a silver watch, a white-metal knife, fork, and
spoon, and several tin plates. The using of the last-named articles must
have been very difficult to him at first; but it ought to be stated that
his watch continued to go well, and on special occasions he made use of his
knife and fork with a great deal of dignity.

Other Masai notables were honoured with choice presents, though not so
extravagantly as the much-envied Mdango. All the _el-moran_
received--besides strings of pearls and kerchiefs for their girls--the
much-coveted red breeches; each married man a coloured mantle; and every
woman, married or single, who honoured our camp with a visit was made glad
by gifts of pictures, pearls, and all kinds of bronze and glass
knickknacks. It took about fifty of us several hours to distribute these
presents. It was difficult to keep order in this surging mass of excited
and chattering men and women. It was almost sunset before the last of the
Masai men left our camp, whilst the prettiest of the girls and women showed
no inclination to return to their household gods.

Under the pretence of doing honour to our new friends, but really in order
to show that, when necessary, our weapons could strike as well as make a
noise, we ordered a grand parade for the next forenoon. At this there were
present, not merely our adherents, but also most of our assailants of
yesterday. The latter were shy and confused, like whipped children; but
they were attracted both by curiosity and by the hope of yet winning the
favour of the magnanimous _mussungus_ (whites). After manoeuvring for about
half an hour, we gave a platoon fire with ball-cartridge at a fixed target;
and then one of our sharpshooters smashed ten eggs thrown up in rapid
succession--a feat which won enthusiastic applause from the _el-moran_.
Even the ringleaders of yesterday's opponents, when this first part of the
play was over, declared that it would be madness to fight with such
antagonists; they saw clearly that we could have blown them all into the
air yesterday in ten minutes. The artillery portion of the spectacle
produced a still greater effect. About a mile and a quarter from our camp
Johnston had improvised several good-sized block-houses of heavy timber
covered with brushwood and dry grass, and had placed in them a quantity of
explosives. These structures, which were really of a substantial character,
were now subjected to a fire of grenades and rockets; and it can be readily
imagined that the ascending flames, the crackling of the falling timbers,
and the explosion of the enclosed fireworks, would strongly impress the
Masai. But the terrible fascination reached its climax when Johnston
brought into play a mine and an electric communication which had been
prepared during the night, and by means of which a hut stored with
fireworks was sent into the air. The Masai were now convinced that a
movement of our hands was sufficient alone to blow into the air any
enemies, however numerous they might be; and from that time to offer
violent resistance to us appeared to them as useless as to offer it to
supernatural powers.

When we saw that they were thus sufficiently prepared, we proceeded to
conclude our alliance of peace and friendship. First of all, however,
Johnston announced to the abashed and silently retreating victims of
yesterday's sham fight that we whites had forgiven them, that in the solemn
act now beginning we wished to look upon none but contented faces, and that
therefore they were to have presents given them. When this had been
announced, Johnston required the kraals--seventeen from Lytokitok and four
from Kapte were represented--each to nominate the _leitunu_ and _leigonani_
of its _el-moran_ and two of its _el-morun_ to draw up the contract with
us. The choice of these was soon finished, and an hour later the
deliberations--in which on our side only Johnston, myself, and six officers
took part--were opened by all sorts of ceremonies. First there were several
speeches, in which on our side were set forth the advantages which the
Masai would derive from our settling in their midst or on their frontiers;
and on the side of the Masai orators assurances of admiration and affection
for their white friends played the principal _role_. Then Johnston laid the
several points of the contract before them, as follows:

1. The Masai shall preserve unbroken peace and friendship towards us and
our allies, who are the inhabitants of Duruma, Teita, Taveta, Chala, and
Useri.

2. The Masai shall on no pretence whatever demand _hongo_ (tribute) from
any caravan conducted by white men; but promise on the contrary to assist
by all means in their power the progress of such caravans, particularly in
furnishing them, as far as their supplies allow, with provisions at a fair
price.

3. The Masai shall, when required by us at any time, place at our disposal
any number of _el-moran_ to act as escort or sentinels, yielding military
obedience to us during the period of their service with us.

4. In return we bind ourselves to recognise the Masai as our friends, to
protect them in their rights, and to aid them against foreign attacks.

5. The _el-moran_ of all the tribes in alliance with us shall receive every
man yearly two pair of good cotton trousers and fifty strings of glass
pearls to be chosen by themselves, or, if they wish, other articles of like
value. The _el-morun_ shall receive every man a cotton mantle; the
_leitunus_ and _leigonanis_ trousers, pearls, and mantle.

6. The _el-moran_ who shall be called out for active service among us shall
every one receive, besides full rations in flesh and milk, a daily payment
of five strings of pearls, or their value.

These conditions, which were received by the Masai present with signs of
undisguised satisfaction, were confirmed with great solemnity by the
symbolic ceremony of blood-fraternisation between the contracting parties.
As the multitude, who stood looking on at a respectful distance, greeted
the conditions, when read to them, with loud shouts of joy, we knew that
the public opinion of Lytokitok and of a portion of Kapte was completely
won.

We told our new allies that it was our intention to pass Matumbato and
Kapte on our way to the Naivacha lake, to admit to the alliance as many as
possible of the Masai tribes dwelling on our route, and then proceed to the
Kenia either by Kikuyu or by Lykipia. To facilitate our entering into
friendly relations with the tribes through whose territories we should
pass, we asked for a company of fifty _el-moran_ to precede us under the
leadership of our friend Mdango, who had risen very high in the estimation
of his countrymen. Our request was granted, and Mdango felt no little
flattered by the choice which had fallen on him. The fifty _el-moran_ whom
we asked for grew to be above five hundred, for the younger warriors
contended among themselves for the honour of serving us. The Masai advised
us not to take the route by Kikuyu. The Wa-Kikuyu are not a Masai tribe,
but belong to quite a different race, and have from time immemorial been at
feud with the Masai. They were described to us as at once treacherous,
cowardly, and cruel, as people without truthfulness and fidelity, and with
whom an honourable alliance was impossible. But as we had already learnt,
in our civilised home, how much reliance is to be placed on the opinions
held of each other by antagonistic nations, the above description produced
no effect upon our minds beyond that of convincing us that the Wa-Kikuyu
and the Masai were hereditary foes. That we were correct in our scepticism
the result showed. Mdango was informed that we should adhere to our
original purpose. He was to precede us by forced marches, if possible to
the frontiers of Lykipia, then turn and await us on the east shore of the
Naivasha lake, where, in three weeks' time, we hoped to hold the great
_shauri_ with the Masai tribes which he would then have got together and
won over to our wishes. As to the Wa-Kikuyu who occupied the territory to
the east of Naivasha, we ourselves would arrange with them.

Mdango left next morning, while we remained until the 1st of June at
Miveruni, on the north side of the Kilimanjaro. The news of what had
happened had reached the neighbouring Useri, whose inhabitants--hitherto
living in constant feud with the Masai--now came in great numbers, under
the leadership of their Sultan, to visit us, and to be convinced of the
truth of what they had heard. They brought gifts for both ourselves and the
Masai, the gifts for the latter being tokens of their pleasure at the
ending of their feud. We received fifty cows and fifty bulls; the Masai
half the number. This gift suggested to the Masai elders the idea of
sending messengers with greetings from us, and with assurances of peace
henceforth, to the Chaga, Wa-Taveta, Wa-Teita, and Wa-Duruma; which
embassy, as we learnt afterwards, returned six weeks later so richly
rewarded that the inhabitants of Lytokitok gained more in presents than
they had ever gained in booty by their raids. And as these presents were
repeated annually, though not to so great an amount, the peace was in this
respect alone a very good stroke of business for our new friends. But the
tribes which had formerly suffered from the Masai when on the war-path
profited still more from the peace, for they were henceforth able to
pasture their cattle in security and to till their fields, whilst
previously just the most fertile districts had been left untilled through
dread of the Masai.

As we were abundantly supplied with flesh and milk (for the Masai had given
us presents in return in the shape of fine cattle), we begged the Sultan of
Useri--who, of course, was not left unrewarded for his friendliness--to
hold his presents in his own keeping until we needed them. We intended to
use the cattle he offered us for the great caravans that would follow. For
the same purpose, we also left in charge of our Masai friends in Miveruni
three hundred and sixty head of cattle which we had not used of their
presents. We were not dependent upon our cattle for meat, as the chase
supplied us with an incredible abundance of the choicest dainties. For
instance, in three hours I shot six antelopes of different kinds, two
zebras, and one rhinoceros; and as our camp contained many far better
sportsmen than I am, it may be imagined how easy a matter it was to
provision us. In fact, though unnecessary slaughter was avoided as much as
possible, and our better sportsmen tried their skill upon only the game
that was very rare or very difficult to bring down, we could not ourselves
consume the booty brought home, but every day presented carcases of game to
our guest-friends. In particular, we shot rhinoceroses, with which the
country swarmed, solely for the use of our blacks, who were passionately
fond of certain portions of those animals, whilst no portion is palatable
to Europeans except in extreme need. When we were on the march it was often
necessary to kill these animals, because they--the only wild animals that
do it in Central Africa--have the inconvenient habit of attacking and
breaking through the caravans when they discover their neighbourhood by
means of the wind. This happened almost daily during the whole of our
journey, though only once a serious result followed, when a driver was
badly wounded and an ass was tossed and gored. But the inconvenience caused
by these attacks was always considerable, and we thought it better to shoot
the mischievous uncouth fellows rather than allow them an opportunity of
running down a man or a beast.

We had hitherto seen only isolated footprints of elephants, but on the
northern declivities of the Kilimanjaro we found elephants in great
numbers, though not in such enormous herds as we were to meet with later in
the Kenia districts. They were the noble game to which the more fastidious
of our sportsmen confined their attentions, without, however, achieving any
great success; for the elephants here were both shy and fierce, having
evidently been closely hunted by the ivory-seekers. It was necessary to
exercise extreme caution; and thus it was that only three of our best and
most venturesome hunters succeeded in killing one each, the flesh of which
was handed over to the blacks, whilst the small quantity of ivory found its
way into our treasury. _A propos_ of hunting, it may be mentioned here that
the lions, which were met with everywhere on our journey in great numbers,
sometimes in companies of as many as fifteen individuals, afforded the
least dangerous and generally the least successful sport. The lion of
Equatorial Africa is a very different animal from his North African
congener. He equals him in size and probably in strength, but in the
presence of man he is shyer and even timid. These lions will not attack
even a child; in fact, the natives chase them fearlessly with their
insignificant weapons when the lions fall upon their herds. All the many
lions upon which our huntsmen came made off quickly, and, even if wounded,
showed fight only when their retreat was cut off; in short, they are
cowards in every respect. The reason for this is to be sought in the great
abundance of their prey. As the table is always furnished for the 'king of
beasts,' and he need not run any danger or put forth any great effort in
order to satisfy his wants, he carefully avoids every creature that appears
seriously to threaten his safety. The buffalo, which is certainly the most
dangerous of all African wild beasts, is attacked by lions only when the
buffalo is alone and the lions are many in company.

At four in the morning of the 1st of June we left Miveruni. A march of
several hours placed the last of the woodland belts of the Kilima
foot-hills behind us, and we entered upon the bare plains of the Ngiri
desert. The road through these and past the Limgerining hills by the high
plateau of Matumbato offered little that was noteworthy. On the 6th of June
we reached the hills of Kapte, along whose western declivities we passed at
a height of from 4,000 to 5,500 feet above the sea. On our left, beneath
us, were the monotonous plains of Dogilani, stretching farther than the eye
could reach, and on our right the Kapte hills, rising to a height of nearly
10,000 feet, their sides showing mostly rich, grassy, park-like land, and
their summits clothed with dark forests. Numerous streamlets, here and
there forming picturesque waterfalls, fell noisily down, uniting in the
Dogilani country into larger streams, which, as far as the eye could follow
them, all took their course westward to fall into the Victoria Nyanza, the
largest of all the great lakes of Central Africa. All the tribes on our way
received us as old friends, even those with whom we had not previously
contracted alliance. They had all heard the wonderful story of the white
men who wished to settle amongst them, and who were at once so mighty and
so generous. Mdango's invitation to the _shauri_ at the Naivasha lake had
everywhere been gladly received; multitudes were already on their way, and
others joined us or promised to follow. There was no mention at all of
_hongo_; in short, our game was won in all parts of the country.

On the 12th we reached the confines of the Kikuyu country, along which our
further route to the Naivasha led. The evil reports of the knavish, hateful
character of this people were repeated to us in a yet stronger form by the
Kapte Masai, their immediate neighbours. But we had in the meantime
received from another source a very different representation. Our two
ladies had with them an Andorobbo girl whom they had taken into their
service in Taveta. The Andorobbo are a race of hunters who, without settled
residence, are to be met with throughout the whole of the enormous region
between the Victoria Nyanza and the Zanzibar coast. Sakemba--as the girl of
eighteen was called--belonged to a tribe of this race that hunted elephants
in the districts at the foot of the Kenia to the north of Kikuyu. She had
been stolen two years before by the Masai, who had sold her to a Swahili
caravan, with which she had gone to Taveta. The girl had an invincible
longing for her home--a rare thing among these races; and as it was known
that my sister and Miss Ellen were awaiting a caravan that was going on to
the Kenia, the girl appealed to them to buy her from her master and take
her back to her home, where her relatives would gladly pay the cost in
elephants' teeth. Touched by the importunity of the girl, Clara and Miss
Fox bought her of her master, gave her her liberty, and engaged to take her
with them. The girl was very intelligent, and was well-informed concerning
the affairs of her native country. She had heard in Miveruni what evil
reports the Masai gave of the Wa-Kikuyu, and she took the first opportunity
of assuring her protectresses that the case was not nearly so bad as it was
made to appear. The Masai and the Wa-Kikuyu were old foes, and, as they
consequently did each other all the harm they could, they ascribed every
conceivable vice to each other. It was true that the Wa Kikuyu would rather
fight in ambush than in the open field, and they certainly were not so
brave as the Masai; but they were treacherous and cruel only to their
enemies, while those who had won their confidence could as safely rely upon
them as upon the members of any other nation. The Andorobbo would much
rather have dealings with the Wa-Kikuyu than with the Masai, because the
former were much more peaceable and less overbearing than the latter. Our
direct route to the Kenia lay through Kikuyu, whilst the route through
Lykipia would have taken at least six days longer on account of the
_detour_ we should have to make around the Aberdare range of hills.

As we had no reason to question the trustworthiness of this report, the
last--and to us most important--part of which was confirmed by a glance at
the map, we resolved at any rate to attempt the route through Kikuyu.
Therefore, whilst the greater part of the expedition continued to pursue,
under Johnston's guidance, the northerly route to the Naivasha lake, I with
fifty men and a quantity of baggage went easterly by the frontier place,
Ngongo-a-Bagas. My intention was to take with me merely Sakemba as one
acquainted with the country and the people, and to leave the two ladies in
Johnston's care until my return. But my sister declared that she would not
leave me on any account; and as the Andorobbo girl belonged to the women
and not to me, and moreover asserted that there would be absolutely no
danger for the women, since it had been from time immemorial an unbroken
custom for the Masai and the Wa-Kikuyu to respect each other's women in
time of war--an assurance which was confirmed on all hands, even by the
Masai themselves--my sister and Miss Ellen became members of our party.

As soon as we entered the territory of Kikuyu we found ourselves in
luxuriant shady forests, which however could by no means be said to be
'impenetrable,' but were rather remarkable for being in very many places
cut through by broad passages, which had the appearance of having been made
by some skilful gardener for the convenience and recreation of
pleasure-seekers. These ways were not perfectly straight, but as a rule
they went in a certain definite direction. In breadth they varied from
three to twenty feet; at places they broadened out into considerable
clearings which, like the narrower ways, were clothed with a very fine and
close short grass, and were deliciously shady and cool. The origin of these
ways was, and is, an enigma to me. On each side of them there was underwood
between the stems of the tall trees. At places this underwood was very
thick, and we could plainly see that dark figures followed us on both
sides, watching all our movements, and evidently not quite sure as to what
our intentions were. The fact that we came from the hostile Masailand might
have excited mistrust, for we proceeded in this way a couple of hours
without an actual meeting between ourselves and any of our unknown escort.

An end had to be put to this, for some unforeseen accident might lead to a
misunderstanding followed by hostilities. So I asked Sakemba if she dared
to go alone among the Wa-Kikuyu. 'Why not?' asked she. 'It would be as safe
as for me to go into the hut of my parents.' I therefore ordered a halt,
and the Andorobbo girl went fearlessly towards the bushes where she knew
the Wa-Kikuyu to be, and at once disappeared. In half an hour she returned
accompanied by several Wa-Kikuyu women, who were sent to test the truth of
Sakemba's story--that is, to see whether we were, with the exception of a
few drivers, all whites, and whether--which would be the most certain proof
of our pacific intentions--there were really two white women among us.
Uncertain rumours about us had already reached the ears of the Wa-Kikuyu;
but, as these reports had come through the hostile Masai, the Wa-Kikuyu had
not known how much to believe. But the deputation of women opened up
friendly relations between us; a few lavishly bestowed trinkets soon won us
the hearts and the confidence of the black fair ones. Our visitors did not
waste time in returning to the men, but signalled and called the latter to
come to them, with the result that we were immediately surrounded by
hundreds of admiring and astonished Wa-Kikuyu.

I went among them, accompanied only by an interpreter, and asked where
their sultan and elders were. Sultan had they none, was the answer--they
were independent men; their elders were present among them. 'Then let us at
once hold a _shauri_, for I have something of importance to tell you.' No
African can resist a request to hold a _shauri_; so we immediately sat down
in a circle, and I was able to make known my wishes. First, I told them of
our victory over the Masai, and how we had forced them to preserve peace
with us and with all our allies, I also told them of our subsequent
generosity. I then assured them that we also wished to have the Wa-Kikuyu
as our allies, which would result in peace between them and the Masai, and
would bring great benefit to them from us. We asked for nothing, however,
in return but a friendly reception and an unmolested passage through their
territory. If they refused, we would force them to grant it, as we did the
Masai. 'Look here'--I took a repeating-rifle in my hand--'this thing hits
at any distance;' and I gave it to one of our best marksmen and pointed to
a vulture which sat upon a tree a little more than three hundred yards off.
The shot was heard, and the vulture fell down mortally wounded. The
Wa-Kikuyu showed signs of being about to run away, although they had
occasionally heard the reports of guns in their conflicts with Swahili
caravans. What frightened them was not the noise, but the certainty of the
aim. However, they were soon reassured, and I went on: 'We not only always
hit with our weapons, but we can shoot without cessation.' I had this
assertion demonstrated to them by a rapid succession of ten shots; and
again my hearers were seized with a horrible fright. 'We have fifty such
things here, a hundred and fifty more among the Masai, and many many
thousands where we come from. Besides, we carry with us the most dangerous
medicines--all to be used only against those who attack us. But we have
costly presents for those who are friendly towards us.' Then I ordered to
be opened a bale of various wares which had been specially packed for such
an occasion, and I said: 'This belongs to you, that you may remember the
hour in which you saw us for the first time. No one shall say, "I sat with
the white men and held _shauri_ with them, and my hands remained empty." If
you wish to know how liberally we deal with those who become our allies, go
and ask the Masai.'

The effect of this address, and still more of the openly displayed
presents, left nothing to be desired. The distribution of the presents gave
rise to a tremendous scramble among our future friends; but when this was
over--fortunately without any serious mischief--we were overwhelmed with
extravagant asseverations of affection and zealous service. First we were
invited to honour with our presence their huts, so ingeniously concealed in
the forest thickets, an invitation which we readily accepted. We were
careful, however, to take up our quarters in a commanding position, and to
keep ourselves well together. I also directed that several of our people
should, without attracting attention, keep constant watch. I left the
baggage in charge of four gigantic mastiffs which we had brought with us.
The former part of these precautions proved to be quite unnecessary; no one
harboured any evil design against us, and the anxious timidity which the
Wa-Kikuyu at first so manifestly showed quickly yielded to the most
complete confidence, in which change of attitude, it may be incidentally
remarked, the women led the way. On the other hand, it proved to be
extremely advisable to keep watch over the baggage. Desperate cries of
'Murder!' and 'Help!' were soon heard from a Wa-Kikuyu boy, who, thinking
our baggage was unwatched, had crept near it with a knife, but was very
cleverly fixed by one of the mastiffs. We released him, frightened nearly
to death, but otherwise quite unhurt, out of the clutches of the powerful
animal; and we were troubled by no further attempt upon our baggage.

The next morning we asked our hosts to accompany us a few days' march
further into the interior of the country in the direction of the Kenia, and
to invite as many of their associated tribes as they could communicate with
in so short a time to meet us in a _shauri_, since we desired to contract
with them a firm alliance. This was readily promised, and so for two days
we were accompanied by several hundred Wa-Kikuyu through the magnificent
forest, in which the flora vied with the fauna in beauty and multiplicity
of species. The Wa-Kikuyu entertained us in a truly extravagant manner,
without accepting payment for anything. We were literally overloaded with
milk, honey, butter, all kinds of flesh and fowl, _mtama_ cakes, bananas,
sweet potatoes, yams, and a great choice of very delicious fruits. We
wondered whence this inexhaustible abundance, particularly of wild fruits,
came; for in the forest clearings which we had passed through pasturage and
agriculture were evidently only subordinate industries. At the end of the
second day's march, however, the riddle was solved; for when we had reached
the considerable river called the Guaso Amboni, which falls into the Indian
Ocean, we found spreading out before us farther than the eye could reach a
high plateau which, so far as we could see, had the character of an open
park-land, bearing, especially where it touched the forest we had just
left, all the indications of a very highly developed agriculture. Here was
evidently the source of the Kikuyu's inexhaustible corn supply. Far in the
northern horizon we saw a large blue mountain-range, at least 50 or 60
miles distant, which our guides and Sakemba said was the Kenia range. They
assured us that from where we were there could be seen in clear weather the
snowy peak of the principal mountain; but at that time it was hidden by
clouds.

Here, then, lay before us the goal of our wanderings, and powerful emotion
seized us all as we, though only at a great distance, for the first time
looked upon our future home. The Kenia peak, however, remained wrapped in
clouds during the two days of our stay on the eastern outskirts of the
Kikuyu forest. We made our halt in a charming grove of gigantic bread-fruit
trees, where the Wa-Kikuyu placed their huts gratuitously at our disposal.
The place is called Semba, and had been selected as the meeting-place of
the great _shauri_. We found a great number of natives already assembled
there; and on the next day everything was arranged and confirmed between us
to our mutual satisfaction. Thus we were able to start on our return march
on the 16th of June. We did not go over the Ngongo, but followed a
tributary of the Amboni to its source--more than 7,000 feet above the
sea--and then dropped abruptly down from the edge of the Kikuyu tableland
and went direct to the Naivasha, which we reached on the evening of the
19th. We were somewhat exhausted, but otherwise in good condition and in
excellent spirits. We had discovered that we should be able to reach the
Kenia a good week earlier than would have been possible by the originally
chosen route through Lykipia.

The Naivasha is a beautiful lake in the midst of picturesque ranges of
hills, the highest points of which reach 6,500 feet. The lake has a
superficies of about thirty square miles, and its characteristic feature is
a fabulous wealth in feathered game of all kinds. Here Johnston had made
all the necessary preparations for the great feast of peace and joy which
we purposed to give the Masai. The news that they had henceforth to reckon
the Wa-Kikuyu also among our friends was received by the _el-moran_ with
mixed feelings; but they submitted to the arrangement without murmuring,
and at the feast, in which fifty of the principal men among the Wa Kikuyu
who had accompanied us took part, the new friendship between the two races
was more firmly established.

The feast consisted of a two days' great carousing, at which we provided
enormous quantities of flesh, baked food, fruits, and punch for not less
than 6,000 guests, without reckoning women and children. The chief feature
consisted of some splendid fireworks. During these two days 150 fat young
bulls, 260 antelopes of various kinds, 25 giraffes, innumerable feathered
game, and an enormous quantity of vegetables were consumed. The punch was
brewed in 100 vessels, each holding above six gallons, and each filled on
the average four times. Nevertheless, this colossal hospitality--apart from
the fireworks--cost us nothing at all. The cattle were presents, and indeed
were a part of the number brought to us by numerous tribes as tokens of
grateful esteem; the game we had, of course, not bought, but shot; and the
vegetables were here, on the borders of Kikuyu, so cheap that the price may
be regarded as merely nominal. As to the punch, the chief ingredient,
rum--fortunately not a home production in Masailand and Kikuyuland--our
experts had made on the spot, without touching the nearly exhausted supply
we had brought with us. For among our other machinery there was a still.
This was unpacked, wild-growing sugar-cane was to be had in abundance, and
hence we had rum in plenty. Care was taken that the process was not so
watched by the natives as to be learnt by them, for we did not wish to
introduce among our neighbours that curse of negroland, the rum-bottle. The
hot punch which we served out to them did not contain more than one part of
rum to ten of water; yet nearly three hundred gallons of this noble spirit
had to be used in the improvised bowls during the two days of the feast.
The jubilation, particularly during the letting-off of the fireworks, was
indescribable; and when finally, after silence had been obtained by
flourish of trumpets, we had it proclaimed by strong-voiced heralds that
the nation of the Masai were invited by us to be our guests at the same
place every year on the 19th and 20th of June, the people nearly tore us to
pieces out of pure delight.

The 21st of June was devoted to rest after the fatigues of the feast, and
to the arrangement of the baggage; on the 22nd the march to Kikuyu was
begun. To avoid taking the sumpter beasts over the steep acclivities of the
hills that skirted the Naivasha valley, we turned back towards
Ngongo-a-Bagas, which we reached on the 24th. Here we decided to establish
an express communication with the sea, in order that the news of our
arrival at our goal, which we expected to reach in a few days, might be
carried as quickly as possible to Mombasa, and thence to the committee of
the International Free Society. From Mombasa to Ngongo our engineers had
measured 500 miles; we had done the distance in 38 days--from May 5 to June
12--of which, however, only 27 were real marching days. We calculated that
our Arab horses, if put to the strain for only one day, could easily cover
more than 60 miles in the day, and that therefore the whole distance could
be covered in eight stages of a day each. Therefore sixteen of our best
riders, with twenty-four of the best-winded racers, were ordered back.
These couriers were directed to distribute themselves in twos at distances
of about sixty miles--where the roads were bad a little less, and where
they were good a little more. As baggage, besides their weapons and
ammunition, they were furnished with merely so much of European necessaries
and of articles for barter on the way as could be easily carried by the
eight supernumerary horses, which were at the same time to serve as a
reserve. For the rest we could safely rely upon their being received with
open arms and hospitably entertained by the natives they might meet with
along the route we had taken. A similar service of couriers was established
between Ngongo and the Kenia; as this latter distance was about 120 miles
it was covered by two stages. Thus there was a total of ten stages, and it
was anticipated that news from Kenia would reach Mombasa in ten days--an
anticipation which proved to be correct.

The march through the forest-land of Kikuyu, which was entered on the 25th,
was marked by no noteworthy incident. When, early on the morning of the
27th, we reached the open, we found ourselves at first in a thick fog,
which was inconvenient to us Caucasians merely in so far as it hid the view
from us; but our Swahili people, who had never before experienced a
temperature of 53 deg. Fahr. in connection with a damp atmosphere, had their
teeth set chattering. To the northerners, and particularly to the
mountaineers among us, there was something suggestive of home in the
rolling masses of fog permeated with the balmy odours of the trees and
shrubs. About eight A.M. there suddenly sprang up a light warm breeze from
the north; the fog broke with magical rapidity, and before us lay, in the
brilliant sunshine, a landscape, the overpowering grandeur of which mocks
description. Behind us and on our left was the marvellous forest which we
had not long since left; right in front of us was a gently sloping stretch
of country in which emerald meadows alternated with dark banana-groves and
small patches of waving corn. The ground was everywhere covered with
brilliant flowers, whose sweet perfume was wafted towards us in rich
abundance by the genial breeze. Here and there were scattered small groups
of tall palms, some gigantic wide-spreading fig-trees, planes, and
sycamores; and numerous herds of different kinds of wild animals gave life
to the scene. Here frolicked a troop of zebras; there grazed quietly some
giraffes and delicate antelopes; on the left two uncouth rhinoceroses
chased each other, grunting; about 1,100 yards from us a score of elephants
were making their way towards the forest; and at a greater distance still
some hundreds of buffaloes were trotting towards the same goal.

This splendid country stretched out of sight towards the east and the
south-east, traversed by the broad silver band of the Guaso Amboni, which,
some five miles off, and perhaps at a level of above 300 feet below where
we were standing, flowed towards the east, and, so far as we could see,
received at least a dozen small tributaries from sources on both of the
enclosing slopes. The tributaries springing from the Kikuyu forest on the
southern side--on which we were--are the smaller; those from the northern
side are incomparably more copious, for their source is the Kenia range.
This giant among the mountains of Africa, which covers an area of nearly
800 square miles and rises to a height of nearly 20,000 feet, now--despite
the 50 miles between us and that--showed itself to our intoxicated gaze as
an enormous icefield with two crystalline peaks sharply projected against
the dark firmament.

Even the Swahili, who are generally indifferent to the beauties of nature,
broke out into deafening shouts of delight; but we whites stood in
speechless rapture, silently pressed each other's hands, and not a few
furtively brushed a tear from the eye. The Land of Promise lay before us,
more beautiful, grander, than we had dared to dream--the cradle of a happy
future for us and, if our hopes and wishes were not vain, for the latest
generations of mankind.

From thence onward it was as if our feet and the feet of our beasts had
wings. The pure invigorating air of this beautiful tableland, freshened by
the winds from the Kenia, the pleasant road over the soft short grass, and
the sumptuous and easily obtained provisions, enabled us to make our daily
marches longer than we had yet done. On the evening of the 27th we crossed
the eastern boundary of Kikuyu, where we had to lay in large stores of
provisions, because we then entered a district where the only population
consisted of a few nomadic Andorobbo. As far as we could see, the country
resembled a garden, but man had not yet taken possession of this paradise.
The 28th and the greater part of the 29th found us marching through flowery
meadows and picturesque little woodlands, and crossing murmuring brooks and
streams of considerable size; but the only living things we met with were
giraffes, elephants, rhinoceroses, buffaloes, zebras, antelopes, and
ostriches, with hippopotamuses and flamingoes on the river banks. Most of
these creatures were so tame that they scarcely got out of our way, and
several overbold zebras accompanied us for some distance, neighing and
capering as they went along. On the afternoon of the 29th we entered the
thick highland forest, which stretched before us farther than we could see,
and through the dense underwood of which the axe of our pioneers had to cut
us a way. The ground had been gradually ascending for two days--that is,
ever since we had left the Amboni--and it now became steeper; we had
reached the foot of the Kenia mountain. The forest zone proved to be of
comparatively small breadth, and on the morning of the 30th we emerged from
it again into open undulating park-land. When we had scaled one of the
heights in front of us, there lay before us, almost within reach of our
hands, the Kenia in all the icy magnificence of its glacier-world.

We had reached our goal!




CHAPTER V


It was eight weeks since we had left Mombasa, a shorter time than had ever
been taken by any caravan in Equatorial Africa to cover a distance of more
than 600 miles. During the whole time we had all been, with unimportant
exceptions, in good health. There had been seven cases of fever among us
whites, caused by the chills that followed sudden storms of rain; the fever
in all these cases disappeared again in from two to eight days, and left no
evil results. Twice a number of cases of colic occurred among both whites
and blacks, on both occasions resulting simply from gastronomic excesses,
first in Teita and then at the Naivasha lake; and these were also cured,
without evil results, by the use of tartar emetic. These sanitary
conditions, exceptionally favourable for African journeys, even in the
healthy highlands, were the result of the judicious marching arrangements,
and, particularly among us whites, of the care taken to provide for all the
customary requirements of civilised men. Tea, coffee, cocoa, meat extract,
cognac to use with bad water, light wine for the evening meals, tobacco,
and cigars, were always abundantly within reach; our mackintoshes and
waterproof boots while marching, and the waterproof tents in camp,
protected us from the wet--the chief source of fever; and we were assisted
to bear our lesser privations and inconveniences by our zeal for our task,
and not least by the fine balmy air which, from Teita onwards, we almost
always breathed. Our saddle-horses and sumpter beasts also were, by the
nourishing feed and the judicious treatment which they received, enabled to
bear well the heavy labours of the march.

I cannot forbear expressing the opinion that the heavy losses of other
caravans, which sometimes lose all their beasts in a few days, are to be
ascribed less to the climate or to the--in the lowlands, certainly very
troublesome--insect pests, than to the utter inexperience of the Swahili in
the treatment of animals. Had we relied merely upon our blacks, we should
have left most of our beasts, and certainly all our horses, on the road to
feed the vultures and hyenas. The horses would never have been allowed to
cool before they drank, they never would have been properly groomed, if we
had not continually insisted upon these things being done, and given a good
example by attending to our saddle-horses ourselves. That the 'white
gentleman' attended to his horse's wants before he attended to his own
wrought such an effect upon the Swahili that at last their care for their
beasts developed into a kind of tenderness. The consequence was that during
the whole journey we lost only one camel, three horses, and five asses--and
of these last only two died of disease, the other three having been killed
by wild beasts. Of the dogs, we lost three by wild beasts--one by a
rhinoceros, and two by buffaloes.

From the moment of our arrival at the Kenia, the conduct of the expedition
devolved into my hands. My first care on the next morning was to despatch
to our friends in Europe my detailed journal of the events which had
already happened, together with a brief closing report. In the latter I
stated that we could undertake to have everything ready for the reception
of many thousands of our brethren by the next harvest--that is, according
to the African calendar, by the end of October. We could also undertake to
get finished a road suitable for slow-going vehicles from Mombasa to Kenia
by the end of September at the latest, with draught oxen in sufficient
number. I asked the managers of the Society, on their part, to have a
sufficient number of suitable waggons constructed in good time; and I, on
my part, engaged that, from and after the first of October, any number of
duly announced immigrant members should be conveyed to their new home
safely and with as little inconvenience as was possible under the
circumstances. In conclusion, I asked them to send at once several
hundredweight of different kinds of goods, accompanied by a new troop of
vigorous young members.

The two couriers with this despatch--the couriers had always to ride in
twos--started before dawn on the 1st of July; punctually on the 10th the
despatch was in Mombasa, on the 11th at Zanzibar; on the same day the
committee received my report by telegraph from our agents in Zanzibar, and
the journal, which went by mail-ship, they received twenty days later. On
the evening of the 11th the reply reached Zanzibar; and on the 22nd I was
myself able to read to my deeply affected brethren these first tidings from
our distant friends. The message was very brief: 'Thanks for the joyful
news; membership more than 10,000; waggons, for ten persons and twenty
hundredweight load each, ordered as per request, will begin to reach
Mombasa by the end of September; 260 horsemen, with 300 sumpter beasts, and
800 cwt. of goods start end of July. Send news as often as possible.' I had
already anticipated the wish expressed in the last sentence, for not less
than five further despatches had been sent off between the 6th and the 21st
of July. What they contained will be best learnt from the following
narrative of our experiences and our labours; and from this time forward a
distinction has to be made between the work of preparing the new home on
the Kenia and the arrangements necessary for keeping up and improving our
communication with the coast.

On the evening of the last day of June we had pitched our camp on the bank
of a considerable stream, the largest we had yet seen. Its breadth is from
thirty to forty yards, and its depth from one to three yards. The water is
clear and cool, but its current is strikingly sluggish. It flows from
north-west to south-east, through a trough-like plateau about eighteen
miles long, which bends, crescent-shaped, round the foot-hills of the
Kenia. The greatest breadth of this plateau in the middle is nearly nine
miles, whilst it narrows at the west end to less than a mile, and at the
east end to two miles and a half. This trough-like area of about 100 square
miles consists entirely of rich grass-land, with numerous small groves of
palms, bananas, and sycamores. It is bounded on the south by the grassy
hills which we had crossed over, on the west by abrupt rocky walls, on the
north partly by dark forest-hills, and partly by barren lofty rocks which
hide from view the main part of the Kenia lying behind them. On the east,
between the hills to the south and the rocks to the north, there is an
opening through which the stream finds its outlet by a waterfall of above
300 feet, and the thunder and plashing of which were audible at the great
distance at which we were. This river, which was later found to be the
upper course of the Dana, entering the Indian Ocean on the Witu coast,
enters our plateau by a narrow gate of rocks through which we were not at
first able to pass. From the north, down the declivities of the foot-hills
of the Kenia, four larger and many smaller streams hurry to the Dana, and
in their course through their rocky basins form a number of more or less
picturesque cascades. The height of this large park-like plateau above the
sea-level, measured at its lowest point--the stream-bed--is nearly 6,000
feet.

Whilst we were engaged in the detailed examination of this lofty plateau, I
sent out several expeditions, whose duty it was to penetrate as far as
possible into the Kenia range, in order to find elevated points from which
to make exact observations of the form and character of the district lying
around us. For though the country immediately about us charmed us so much,
yet I would not definitively decide to lay the foundation-stone of our
first settlement until I had obtained at least a superficial view of the
whole region of the Kenia. The information which Sakemba was able to give
us was but little, and insufficient. We were therefore much delighted when
eight natives, whom we recognised as Andorobbo, showed themselves before
our camp. They had seen our camp-fires on the previous night, and now
wished to see who we were, Sakemba, who went out to them, quickly inspired
them with confidence, and we now had the best guides we could have wished
for. With Sakemba's help we soon informed them of our first
purpose--namely, to send out eight different expeditions, each under the
guidance of an Andorobbo. The first expedition returned on the evening of
the same day, and the last at the end of a week, and all with tolerably
exhaustive reports.

Not one of the expeditions had got near the summit of the Kenia.
Nevertheless, grand views had been obtained from various easily accessible
points of the main body of the mountain, some of them at an altitude of
above 10,000 feet. It had been found that the side of the Kenia best
adapted to the rearing of stock and to agriculture was that by which we had
approached it. To the eastward and northward were large stretches of what
appeared to be very fertile land; but that on the east was very monotonous,
and lacked the not merely picturesque, but also practically advantageous,
diversity of open country and forest, hill and plain, which we found in the
south. On the north the country was too damp; and on the west there spread
out an endless extent of forest broken by only a small quantity of open
ground. It might all be converted into most productive cultivated land at a
later date; but, at the outset, soil that was ready for use was naturally
to be preferred. The inner portions of the mountain district before us were
filled with wooded hills and rocks traversed by numberless valleys and
gorges. These foot-hills reached on all sides close to the abruptly rising
central mass of the Kenia; only in the south-west, about three miles from
the western end of our plateau, did the foot-hills retire to make room for
an extensive open valley-basin, in the middle of which was a lake, the
outflow from which was the Dana. Our experts estimated the superficies of
this valley at nearly sixty square miles; and all agreed that it was very
fertile, and that its situation made it a veritable miracle of beauty. The
best way into this valley was through the gorge by which the Dana flowed;
but, so long as we were without suitable boats, we were obliged to enter
the valley not directly from our plateau, but by a circuitous route through
a small valley to the south.

I received this report on the morning of the 3rd of July. Next day, without
waiting for the return of two of the expeditions which were still absent, I
started for this much-lauded lake and valley. The indicated route, which
proved to be, in fact, a very practicable one, led from our camp to the
western end of the plateau, then bending towards the south and skirting a
small, rocky, wooded hill, it entered a narrow valley leading in a
northerly direction. This valley opened into the Dana gorge, which is here
neither so narrow nor so impassable as at its opening into the plateau.
Following this gorge upwards, in an hour we found ourselves suddenly
standing in the sought-for valley.

The view was perfectly indescribable. Imagine an amphitheatre of almost
geometrical regularity, about eleven miles long by seven miles and a half
broad, the semicircle bounded by a series of gently rising wooded hills
from 300 to 500 feet high, with a background formed by the abrupt and
rugged precipices and cloud-piercing snowy summit of the Kenia. This
majestic amphitheatre is occupied on the side nearest to the Kenia by a
clear deep-blue lake; on the other side by a flowery park-land and meadows.
The whole suggests an arena in which a grand piece, that may be called 'The
Cascades of the Kenia Glaciers,' is being performed to an auditory
consisting of innumerable elephants, giraffes, zebras, and antelopes. At an
inaccessible height above, numberless veins of water, kissed by the
dazzling sunlight, spring from the blue-green shimmering crevasses. Foaming
and sparkling--now shattered into vapour reflecting all the hues of the
rainbow, now forming sheets of polished whiteness--they rush downwards with
ever increasing mass and tumult, until at length they are all united into
one great torrent which, with a thundering roar plainly audible in a
favourable wind six miles away, hurries from its glacier home towards the
precipitous rocks. There the whole colossal mass of water--which a few
miles off forms the Dana river--falls perpendicularly down from a height of
1,640 feet, so dashed into vapour-dust as to form a great rainbow-cloud.
The stream suddenly disappears in mid-air, and the eye seeks in vain to
track its course against the background of dark glistening cliffs until,
more than 1,600 feet below, the masses of falling vapour are again
collected into flowing water, thence, with the noise and foam of many
smaller cascades, to reach the lake by circuitous routes.

Speechless with delight, we gazed long at this unparalleled natural
miracle, whose grandeur and beauty words cannot describe. The eye eagerly
took in the flood of light and glittering colour, and the ear the noise of
the water pealing down from a fabulous height; the breast greedily inhaled
as a cordial the odorous air which was wafted through this enchanted
valley. The woman who was with us--Ellen Fox--was the first to find words.
Like a prophetess in an ecstasy, she looked long at the play of the water;
then, suddenly, as a stronger breath of wind completely dissipated the
vaporous veil of the waterfall, which just before had formed a waving,
sabre-like, shimmering band, she cried, 'Behold, the flaming sword of the
archangel, guarding the gate of Paradise, has vanished at our approach! Let
us call this place Eden!'

The name Eden was unanimously adopted. That this valley must be our future
place of abode was at once decided by all of us. A more careful examination
showed its superficies to be over sixty-two square miles. Allowing thirteen
miles for the elliptical lake stretching out under the Kenia cliffs, and
fifteen miles for the woods which clothed the heights around the valley,
there remained above thirty miles of open park-land surrounding the lake,
except where the Kenia cliffs touched the water, stretching in narrow
strips to the Kenia on the north-east, and broadening on the other sides to
from 1,100 yards to four miles. The glacier-water forming the Dana entered
the valley on the north-west, and left it on the south-east. The water,
which was not so cold when it entered the lake as might have been expected,
rapidly acquired a higher temperature in the lake; on hot days the lake
rose to 75 deg. Fahr. Other streams fall into the lake, some of them from the
Kenia cliffs, and others from the various hills which surround the valley.
We counted not less than eleven such streams, among them a hot one with a
temperature of 125 deg. Fahr.

Naturally we had not been idle during the four days which preceded our
discovery of Eden Vale. On the 1st of July, a few hours after the couriers
with the first despatches, the expeditions appointed to establish regular
communication with Mombasa were sent off. There were two such expeditions:
one, under Demestre and three other engineers, had to construct the road;
and the other, under Johnston, had to procure the draught oxen--of which it
was estimated about 5,000 would be required--and to arrange for the
provisioning of the whole distance. To the first expedition were allotted
twenty of our members and two hundred of our Swahili men, with a train of
fifty draught beasts; with Johnston went merely ten of ourselves, twenty
draught beasts, and ten sheep-dogs. How these expeditions accomplished
their tasks shall be told later.

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.

In the meantime, the saw-mill, which had been set up in the Dana plateau,
hard by the river, and had for its motive-power one of the rapid streams
that came down from the hills, had begun its work. The first timber which
it cut up was used in the construction of two large flat boats, in which
the transportation of the building timber up the river to the Eden lake was
at once begun. A few weeks later, on the shores of the lake, there had
arisen forty spacious wooden buildings, into which we whites removed from
the confined camp-tents we had previously occupied. The negroes preferred
to remain in the grass huts which they had made for themselves in the
shelter of a little wood. By this time the cattle were also furnished with
their pen, which was high and strong enough to offer an insurmountable
obstacle to any invasion by quadrupeds. In this pen there was room for
about two thousand beasts, and it was, moreover, provided with a covered
space for protection against rain.

By the 9th of July, our smiths, wheelwrights, and carpenters had converted
ten of the ploughshares we had brought with us into ploughs, and by the
same date the first consignment of cattle had come in from Kikuyu--120 oxen
and 50 cows, together with 200 sheep and a large quantity of poultry.
Ploughing was at once attempted, under the direction of our agriculturists.
The Kikuyu oxen struggled a little against the yoke, and at first they
could not be made to keep in the furrow; but in three days we were able to
work them with ease in teams of eight to a plough. This expenditure of
force was necessary, as the black fat soil, matted by the thick virgin
turf, was extremely difficult to break up. At first it was necessary to
have a driver to every pair of oxen, and the furrows were not so straight
as if ploughed by long-domesticated oxen; but at any rate the ground was
broken up, and in a comparatively short time the beasts got accustomed to
their work and went through it most satisfactorily. On the 15th of July a
fresh arrival of oxen brought fifteen more ploughs into use; and again on
the 20th. By the end of the month, with these forty ploughs, some 750 acres
had been broken up. This was at once harrowed and prepared for the seed. It
was then sown with what seed-corn we had brought with us--chiefly wheat and
barley--supplemented to the extent of about three-fourths by African wheat
and _mtama_ corn. The ground was then rolled again, and the work was
finished in the second half of August. The whole of the cultivated area was
then hedged in, and we cheerfully greeted the beginning of the shorter
rainy season.

In the meantime a garden--provisionally of about twenty-five acres--had
been laid out, a little farther from the precincts of the town than the
arable land; for whilst the latter could easily be removed farther away as
the town increased, it was necessary to find for the garden as permanent a
site as possible--one therefore that lay outside of the range of the growth
of the town. As we had among us no less than eighteen skilled gardeners,
and as these had as much assistance as they required from the Swahili and
Wa-Kikuyu, the twenty-five acres were in a few months planted with the
choicest kinds of fruits and berries, vegetables, flowers--in short, with
all kinds of useful and ornamental plants which we had brought from our old
homes, had collected on our way, or had met with in the neighbourhoods in
which we had settled. The garden also was covered with a network of
irrigating canals, and enclosed against unwelcome intruders by a high and
strong fence.

Against accidental inroads of monkeys there was no other protection than
the vigilance of our dogs and the guns of the gardeners. A war of
annihilation was therefore begun against the monkeys of the whole district,
of which there were untold legions in the woods that girdled Eden Vale and
in some small groves in the vale itself. While we shot other animals only
when we needed their flesh, the monkeys were destroyed wherever they showed
themselves in the neighbourhood of Eden Vale; and very soon the cunning
creatures began carefully to avoid the inhospitable valley, whilst outside
of it they retained their former daring. Several other animals were also
excluded from the general law of mercy, and that even more rigorously than
the monkeys, which were proscribed only within the boundaries of the
valley. These animals were leopards and lions, against which we organised,
whenever we had time, serious hunting expeditions. After a few months these
animals entirely disappeared from the whole district; and subsequently they
almost voluntarily forsook all the districts into which we penetrated with
our weapons and with our noisy activity. They have room enough elsewhere,
and hold it to be unnecessary to expose their skin to the bullets of white
men. On the other hand, we did not molest the hyenas; the harm which they
now and then did by the theft of a sheep was more than compensated for by
their usefulness as devourers of carrion. They are shy, cowardly beasts,
which do not readily attack anything that is alive; but in the character of
unwearied sanitary police they scour field and forest for dead animals. In
the list of beasts not to be spared stood at first the hippopotamuses,
which haunted the Eden lake and the Dana in large herds. We should have had
nothing to object to in these uncouth brutes if they had not molested our
boats and behaved aggressively towards our bathers. But, after our shells
had somewhat lessened their number, and in particular after certain
uncommonly daring old fellows had been disposed of, the rest acquired
respect for us and kept at a distance whenever they saw a man; we then
relaxed our severity, and for the time contented ourselves with keeping
them out of Eden Vale. But of course we showed no mercy to the numberless
crocodiles that infested the lake and the river. We attacked these with
bullet and spear, with hook and poison, day and night, in every conceivable
way; for we were anxious that our women and children, when they came,
should be able to bathe in the refreshing waters without endangering their
precious limbs. As the district which these animals frequented was in the
present case a very circumscribed one--fresh individuals could come neither
down from the Kenia nor over the waterfall at the end of the great
plateau--we soon succeeded in so thinning their numbers that only a few
examples were left, the destruction of which we handed over to our
Andorobbo huntsmen, whom we furnished with weapons for this Purpose, and to
whom we offered a large premium for every crocodile slain in the Eden lake
or in the Dana above the waterfall. As a fact, before the arrival of the
first caravan of immigrants, the last crocodile had disappeared from Eden
Vale and from the basin of the Dana.

Agriculture, gardening, and the chase had not absorbed all the strength at
our disposal. We were at the same time busy constructing a number of
practicable roads round the lake, along the river-bank to the east end of
the plateau, and a number of branches from this main road to different
parts of our district. It must not be imagined that these roads were works
of art--they were merely fieldways, which, however, made it possible to
carry about considerable loads without the expenditure of an enormous
amount of force. In three places the Dana was bridged over for vehicular
traffic, and in two others for foot traffic. Only in two places was much
work required--at the end of the gorge through which the Dana passed from
Eden Vale into the great plateau, and at a place where the Kenia cliffs
touched the lake. At these places several cubic yards of rock had to be
blown away, in order to make room for a road.

As in the meanwhile neither wheelwrights nor smiths had been standing
still, when the roads were ready there were also ready for use upon them a
number of stout waggons and barrows.

The construction of the flour-mill demanded a greater expenditure of
labour. The mill was fixed on the upper course of the Dana, 1,100 yards
above the entrance of the river into the Eden lake, and was furnished with
ten complete sets of machinery. The site was chosen because just above
there was a strong rapid, while below the Dana flowed calmly with a very
trifling fall until it reached the great cataract. Thus we had, through the
whole of the provisionally occupied district, a splendid waterway to the
mill, and yet for the mill we could take advantage of the rapid flow of the
upper Dana. We had brought from Europe the more complicated and delicate
parts of this mill; but the wheels, shafts, and the ten millstones we
manufactured ourselves. This mill--which was provisionally constructed of
wood only--was ready by the end of September, thanks to the additional
assistance of the two instalments of members which had reached us in the
early part of the same month.

I have already mentioned that, as soon as we had reached the Kenia, I asked
our committee for fresh supplies and a fresh body of pioneers; and that the
committee had informed me that at the end of July there would start an
expedition of 260 horsemen and 800 cwt. of goods upon 300 beasts. This
expedition reached Mombasa on the 18th of August. Then it divided into two
groups: one group, containing the most adventurous 145 horsemen, started at
once on the 18th of August with fifty very lightly loaded led-horses--the
whole of the 300 sumpter beasts were horses--without taking with them a
single native except an interpreter. They relied upon the assistance of
those of our men who were constructing the roads, and of the population
friendly to us; but they were at the same time resolved to bear without
murmuring any deprivations and fatigue that might await them. A forced ride
of twenty days, with only a one day's rest at Taveta, brought these brave
fellows among us on the 9th of September. Five horses had died, seven
others had to be left behind knocked up; they themselves, however, all
reached us, except one who had broken his leg in a fall, and was left in
good hands in Miveruni, somewhat exhausted, but otherwise in good
condition. The newly arrived joined us heartily in our work two days after.
The 115 others reached us ten days later, with 250 sumpter horses and 100
Swahili drivers. The greater part of the goods they had given to Johnston
on the way, who met with them at Useri, where he had been eagerly awaiting
them. The articles brought to us at the Kenia--in all something over 300
cwt.--contained a quantity of tools and machinery; these, and especially
the considerable addition of workmen, contributed in no small degree to
expedite our various works.

The flour-mill was--as has been stated--ready by the end of September. It
at once found abundant employment. It is true that our harvest was not yet
gathered in; but we had been gradually purchasing different kinds of
grain--to the amount of 10,000 cwt.--of the Wa-Kikuyu, and had stored it
near the lake in granaries, for which the saw-mill had supplied the
building material. All this grain was ground by the end of October; and,
even if our harvest had failed, the first few thousands of those who were
coming would not have had to suffer hunger.

But our harvest did not fail. A few weeks after the beginning of the hot
season--which begins in October--the fertile soil, which had been
continuously kept moist by our system of irrigation, blessed us with a crop
that mocked all European conceptions. Every grain sowed yielded on an
average a hundred and twenty fold. Our 750 acres yielded 42,000 cwt. of
different kinds of grain, for each haulm ended, not in single lean ears,
but in thick heavy bunches of ears--our European wheat and barley not less
than the African kinds. We had fortunately made ample preparation for the
work of the harvest. Before the end of August a machine-factory had been
erected a few hundred yards above the flour-mill. Water-power was used, and
the work of manufacture began at once. Partly of materials brought with us,
but mainly of materials prepared by ourselves, we had constructed several
reaping-machines and two threshing-machines, worked by horse-power.

Our factories were able to produce these machines because our geologists
had discovered, among other valuable mineral treasures, iron and coal in
our district. The coal lay in one of the foot-hills of the Kenia, on the
Dana plateau, nearly two miles from the river; the iron in one of the
foot-hills which the Dana in its upper course had cut through, a mile and a
quarter above Eden Yale. The coal was moderately good anthracite, and the
iron ore was a rich forty-percent. ferro-manganese. A smelting and refining
furnace, as well as an iron-works, were at once put up near the source of
the iron; they were of a, primitive and provisional character, but they
sufficed to supply us with serviceable cast and wrought iron, and thus to
make us at once independent of the supplies brought from Europe. We now
possessed a small but independent iron industry, and this enabled us to
gather in and work up within a few weeks the unexpectedly rich harvest.

A further use which we immediately made of our increased powers of
production was to put up two new saw-mills and a brewery. The saw-mills
were needed to supply material for the shelter of the continually
increasing stream of fresh arrivals; and the brewery was intended to serve
as a means of agreeably surprising the new-comers with a welcome draught of
a familiar beverage with which most of them would be sorry to dispense. As
soon as the barley was cut and threshed, it was malted. Our gardeners had
grown hops of very acceptable quality on the sides of the Kenia foot-hills;
and soon a cool cellar, made by utilising some natural caverns, was filled
with casks of the noble drink.

By the end of October we were able to contemplate our four months' labours
with a restful satisfaction. Six hundred neat block-houses awaited as many
families; 50,000 cwt. of corn and flour, copious supplies of cattle for
slaughter and draught, building material and tools, were ready for the
food, shelter, and equipment of many thousands of members. The garden had
been not less successfully cultivated, and its dainty gifts were already
beginning to be enjoyed. Our own garden-produce did not, as yet, suffice to
cover our anticipated requirements; but it continued to be supplemented by
a brisk barter trade with the Wa-Kikuyu. For these natives we had
established a regular weekly market in Eden Vale, which several hundreds of
them attended, bringing with them their goods upon ox-carts, the use of
which we had introduced among them and had made possible by means of the
roads our engineers had constructed through their country. Since we had set
up our iron-works, the Wa-Kikuyu came to us principally for iron either in
a raw condition or made up into tools. For this they at first bartered
cattle and vegetables; afterwards, when we no longer needed these things,
they offered mainly ivory, of which we had already acquired 138 tons,
partly through our trade with the Wa-Kikuyu and the Andorobbo, and partly
as the fruits of our own hunting. For ivory is as cheap here as
blackberries; the Wa-Kikuyu and the Andorobbo are glad to buy our wrought
iron for double its weight in the material which is so valuable in the
West. An iron implement, whether hammer, nail, or knife, is exchanged for
from ten to twenty times its weight in ivory. Thus almost the whole cost of
our expedition was already covered by our ivory--the cattle and provisions,
the implements and machinery, not to speak of the land, being thrown in
gratis.




CHAPTER VI


Whilst we at the Kenia were thus busily preparing a comfortable home for
our brethren who were expected from the Old World, our colleagues, under
the direction of Demestre and Johnston, were working not less successfully
on the tasks allotted to them.

Demestre had nothing to do with the construction of roads within the Kenia
district; his work began with the great forests that girdled this district.
The execution of the work from thence to the boundary between Kikuyu and
Masailand, at Ngongo, he deputed to the engineer Frank, an American; the
second section, from Ngongo to Masimani in Masailand, midway between Ngongo
and Taveta, was allotted to the engineer Moellendorf, a German; the third
section, from Masimani to Taveta, to Lermanoff, a Russian, as his name
shows; the last and most difficult section, from Taveta to Mombasa,
including two of the worst deserts, Demestre reserved to himself. To each
of the four sections five whites were appointed. His 200 Swahili,
strengthened by double that number of Wa-Kikuyu hired on the march through
their land, Demestre divided between the first two sections, allotting 50
Swahili and 300 Wa-Kikuyu to the first in Kikuyuland, and 150 Swahili and
100 Wa-Kikuyu to the second in Masailand. The third section was organised
from Taveta. Lermanoff and a companion rode thither from Kenia, by making
use of our courier-stages, in six days. He engaged 100 Swahili men in
Taveta--where Swahili caravans are always to be met with--and 250 natives
in Useri and Chaga. In the meantime his four colleagues had arrived and
brought with them the pack-horses allotted to his--as to each--section; and
the work from Taveta to Useri was begun on the 15th of July. Demestre also
made use of the courier-stages, and rode, with no other breaks than
night-rests, first to Teita, where he hired 400 Wa-Teita, whom he at once
set to work, under the direction of one of his colleagues, upon the road
between Teita and Taveta. He then hastened on to Mombasa, and by the 20th
of July he was able to put 500 people of the coast upon the most difficult
part of the work--the road from Mombasa to Teita.

The work to be done in all cases was threefold. First, in the places where
there was a deficiency of water--of which places there were several in the
lower sections, particularly in the deserts of Duruma, Teita, and
Ngiri--wells had to be dug and, where there was no spring-water, cisterns
made capacious enough to supply water sufficient not merely for the workmen
during the construction of the road, but afterwards for the men and cattle
of the caravans that passed that way. As there occur in Equatorial Africa
at all seasons of the year heavy storms of rain, which in the so-called hot
season are only much less frequent than in the so-called rainy season,
there was no danger that large cisterns draining the rain-water from a
sufficiently wide area would be exhausted even in the hot months; but the
cisterns had to be protected from the direct rays of the sun as well as
from impurities. The former was effected by providing the cisterns with
covering and shelter; the second by making the rain-water filter through
layers, several yards thick, of sand and gravel. The natural water-holes,
which are found in all deserts, but which dry up in times of protracted
drought, indicated the spots where it would be most practicable to
construct cisterns, for such spots were naturally the lowest points. The
larger of these water-holes needed only to be deepened, the evaporation of
the water guarded against, and the cisterns surrounded by the
above-mentioned natural filter, and the work was then finished. Of these in
the different sections twenty five were dug, with a depth of from nine to
sixteen yards and a diameter of from two to nine yards. Of ordinary wells
with spring-water thirty-nine were made. Each of these artificial supplies
of water was placed under the protection of a watchman.

In the second place, there was the road-making itself. In general, the
route which the expedition had taken from Mombasa to the Kenia was chosen,
and merely freed from obstacles and widened to twice its original width
where it led through bush. But at certain places, particularly where steep
heights had to be traversed, it was necessary to look for a fresh and less
hilly track. That several bridges had to be built scarcely need be
mentioned.

The third part of the work consisted in the erection of primitive houses of
shelter, at suitable places, for both men and cattle. Accommodation for
several hundred men, pens for cattle, and storehouses for provisions, were
constructed at sixty-five stations, at distances varying from seven to
twelve miles.

These works were all completed between Mombasa and Teita by the end of
September, and in all the other sections fourteen days later. The workmen,
however, were not discharged, as a part of them were required for guarding
and maintaining the road and buildings, and another part found occupation
in the transport service on the newly made highway. The cost of
construction for the whole by no means small undertaking was 14,500L, half
of which went in wages and half in rations; the material used in the work
cost nothing.

By this time Johnston had completed the purchase of the draught-beasts
required for the transport service, and had organised the commissariat of
the caravans. His Masai friends procured for him in a few weeks the
originally ordered 5,000 head of cattle; and as every despatch from the
committee of the Free Society reported a larger and larger number of
members on their way to the settlement, our order was increased to 9,000,
exclusive of the 750 head of cattle, the unused remnant of our presents
which we had left behind us in Useri and Masailand. As the committee had
reason to anticipate that by the end of October the number of members
intending at once to join the colony would reach 20,000, they had enlarged
their orders for waggons to 1,000, and announced that fact to us in the
course of September. Therefore, as every waggon--which weighed 14 cwt., and
would carry ten persons, with 20 cwt. of luggage--would require four yoke
of oxen, the total number of draught-oxen needed would be 8,000, in
addition to a reserve of 200 head, and 1,550 oxen and cows for slaughter.
Johnston received this message on the southern frontier of Masailand, and,
as there was not time to return, he had to complete his provisioning in the
districts of Kilima and Teita. Nevertheless he succeeded in collecting the
full number of cattle and distributing them along the sixty-five stages
between Mombasa and the Kenia without materially raising prices by his
purchases in these favoured districts. He bought 8,500 oxen and 500 cows,
and the cost--including the travelling expenses and wages of the buyers and
drivers--amounted to no more than 8,650L--that is, the goods which we
bartered for them had cost us this amount. Each head of cattle cost on the
average a little over eight shillings, half of which represented incidental
expenses, the bare selling price being less than four shillings a head.

Johnston so arranged the transport service that every day twenty-five
waggons left Mombasa, and at every one of the sixty-five stations found
fresh draught-oxen ready. Arrived at Eden Vale, the waggons had to return
to Mombasa in the same manner. By this simple and practical arrangement,
all the waggons were kept constantly in motion between Mombasa and the
Kenia, whilst the draught-oxen merely moved to and fro in fixed teams
between neighbouring stations. In this way 250 persons could be conveyed
every day, and to convey 20,000--the total number of members reported by
the committee--would require eighty days, unless some of them made the
journey on horseback.

The waggons constructed in England, America, and Germany arrived punctually
at Mombasa. They were in every respect models of skilful construction,
solidly and yet, in proportion to their size, lightly built, affording many
conveniences without sacrificing simplicity. Each one accommodated ten
persons with sitting space in the day and with good sleeping space at
night. By a very simple alteration of the seats, room could be made for ten
persons--four above and six beneath. Strong springs made the riding easy, a
movable leathern covering gave shelter from rain or sun, and the mattrasses
which served as beds at night were by day so buckled on the under-side of
the leathern covering as to afford double protection against the heat of
the sun. Accommodation for the baggage was provided in a similarly
practical manner.

The first ship, with 900 members, arrived on the 30th of September. This
ship, like all that followed, was the property of the Society. Anticipating
that the stream of emigrants would not soon cease, would probably continue
to increase, and desirous to keep the transportation of the emigrants as
much as possible in their hands, the Society had bought twelve large,
swift-sailing steamships, averaging 3,500 tons burden, and had had them
adapted to their purpose. They could do this without overstraining their
resources; for, though the 940,000L which these twelve steamers cost
exceeded the amount actually in hand, the Society could safely reckon that
the deficit would soon be made good by the contributions of new members, to
accommodate whom the vessels and all the other provisions were intended. In
fact, by the middle of September the number of members exceeded 20,000, and
the property of the Society had grown to 750,000L. Of this amount, however,
150,000L had been spent independently of the purchase of the ships, and a
similar amount would in the immediate future be required for the general
purposes of the Society; thus less than half of the cost of the ships was
in hand and available for payment. But the sellers readily gave the Society
credit, and handed over the vessels without delay, even before any money
was paid. They risked nothing by this, for the Society's executive were
fully justified in calculating that the future income from new members
would be at least 100,000L a month, while the Society's property was quite
worth all the money they had hitherto spent upon it.

The chief thing, however, was that people were getting to have more and
more faith in the success of the Society's undertaking, and to look upon
that undertaking as representative of the great commonwealth of the future.
Several governments already offered their assistance to the committee, who
accepted those offers only so far as they afforded a moral support. A
number of scientific and other public associations took a most lively
interest in the aims of the Society. For example, the Geographical
Societies of London and Rome gave, the one 4,000L and the other 50,000
lires, merely stipulating in return that a periodical report should be sent
to them of all the scientifically interesting experiences of the Society.
That the business world should also interest themselves in the Society's
doings is not surprising. For the vessels which had been bought the Society
made an immediate payment of forty per cent., and undertook to pay the
remainder within three years. The whole was, however, paid off before the
end of the second year.

The ships thus bought were employed to convey the emigrant members from
Trieste to Mombasa. As each vessel carried from 900 to 1,000 passengers,
while the waggons could convey 200 persons daily from Mombasa to the
settlement, it was necessary that two ships should reach Mombasa per week;
it being assumed that a part of the emigrants would prefer to travel from
Mombasa on horseback. And as the average length of a voyage to Mombasa and
back was thirty-five days, the twelve vessels were sufficient to maintain a
continuous service, with an occasional extra voyage for the transport of
goods, particularly of horses. There was no distinction of class on board
the vessels of the Society; no fee was taken from anyone, either for
transport or for board during the whole voyage, and everyone was therefore
obliged to be content with the same kind of accommodation, which certainly
was not deficient in comfort. On deck were large dining-rooms and rooms for
social intercourse; below deck was a small sleeping-cabin for each family,
comfortably fitted up and admirably ventilated. The members were received
on board in the order in which they had entered the Society, the earlier
members thus having the priority. Of course it was optional for any member
to make the voyage on any ship not belonging to the Society, without losing
his place in the list of claimants when he arrived at Mombasa.

At Mombasa everyone was at liberty to continue his journey either on
horseback or in a waggon. The horsemen might either accompany the caravans
or ride in advance in such stages as they pleased, only the horses must be
changed regularly at the sixty-five stations, provision being made for a
sufficient supply of horses. The travellers in waggons had, moreover, the
option of going on night and day uninterruptedly, pausing only to effect
the necessary changes of oxen; or of travelling more deliberately, halting
as long as they pleased at the midday or the night stations. In the former
case they could, in favourable weather, reach Eden Vale in fourteen days,
or even less; in the latter case twenty days or more would be spent on the
journey.

All the arrangements were perfectly carried out. There was no hitch
anywhere. The commissariat left nothing to be desired. An escort of ten
Masai, which Johnston had organised for each station, kept guard against
wild beasts during the night journeys, and had to serve as auxiliaries in
any difficulty; while four commissioners sent from among our members, and
located respectively at Teita, Taveta, Miveruni, and Ngongo, superintended
the whole. The natives greeted the first train of waggons with jubilant
astonishment, but received all with the greatest friendliness and
helpfulness. Particularly the Wa-Taveta, the Sultan of Useri, and the Masai
tribes did not fail to overwhelm our travellers with proofs of their
respect and love for the white brethren who had 'settled on the great
mountain.'

The first new arrivals--among them our beloved master--entered Eden Valley
on the 14th of October; they were followed by an uninterrupted series of
fresh companies. But, before the story of this new era in the history of
our undertaking is told, a brief account must be given of what had been
taking place at the Kenia.

As early as August, a numerous deputation of Masai tribes from Lykipia--the
country to the north-west of the Kenia--and from the districts between the
Naivasha and the Baringo lakes, arrived at Eden Vale offering friendship,
and asking to be admitted into the alliance between us and the other Masai.
This very affecting request was made with evident consciousness of its
importance, and the granting of it certainly placed us under new and heavy
obligations. Yet I granted it without a moment's hesitation, and my act
received the approval of all the members. For the pacification of the most
quarrelsome and unquestionably the bravest of all the tribes of the
equatorial zone was not too dearly bought by the sacrifice of a few
thousand pounds sterling per annum. We now had a satisfactory guarantee
that civilisation would gradually develop in these regions, which had
hitherto been cursed by incessant feuds and pillage; that we should be able
so to educate the black and brown natives that they would become more and
more useful associates in our great work; and that, in proportion as we
taught them to create prosperity and luxury for themselves, we should be
increasing the sources of our own prosperity. So I addressed to the brown
warriors a flattering panegyric, declared myself touched by the friendly
sentiments they had expressed, and promised with all speed to send an
embassy to them in order to conclude the treaty of alliance and to do them
honour. They were sent away richly laden with presents; and they on their
part had not come empty-handed, for they brought with them a hundred choice
beasts, and two hundred fat-tailed sheep. Johnston, whom I at once informed
of the incident, undertook the fulfilment of the promise I had given. I
have already stated that for this purpose he provided himself with a full
supply of the necessary goods from the baggage of the expedition which he
met with in September on its way to the Kenia. When his task in the
road-stages was finished, he started, about the beginning of October, for
the Naivasha lake, and went thence through the extensive and, for the most
part, exceedingly fertile high plateau--6,000 feet above the sea--which,
bounded by hills from 3,300 to 6,600 feet higher, contains the elevated
lakes of Masailand--namely, not only the Naivasha lake, the marvellous
Elmeteita lake, and the salt lake of Nakuro, but also a series of smaller
basins. On the 20th of October he reached the Baringo lake, on the northern
limit of Masailand, a lake that covers 77 square miles in a depression of
the land not more than 2,500 feet above the sea. Thence, in a westerly
direction, he went over ground, rising again, past the grand Thomson Falls,
through the wooded and well-watered Lykipia, and in the second week of
November he reached us at the Kenia, having on the way contracted alliance
with all the Masai tribes through whose lands he had passed, as well as
with the 'Njemps' at the Baringo lake.

In the next place an account has to be given of the successful attempts
made, at the instigation of our two ladies, to tame several of the wild
animals indigenous to the Kenia. The idea was originated by Miss Fox, who
in the first instance wished merely to provide pleasure for the women and
children of the expected new arrivals. Miss Fox won over my sister, a great
friend to animals, to this idea; and so they hired several Andorobbo and
Wa-Kikuyu to capture monkeys and parrots, of which in Eden Vale there were
several very charming species. The attempts to tame these creatures were
successful beyond expectation--so much so that after a few weeks the
captives, when let loose, voluntarily followed their mistresses. This
excited the ambition of both of the ladies, and the Andorobbo were
commissioned to capture some specimens of a particularly pretty species of
antelope, which our naturalists decided to be a variety of the tufted
antelope (_Cephalophus rufilatus_), which is almost peculiar to Western
Africa. This attempt was also successful. It is true that the old animals
proved to be so shy and intractable that they were at last allowed to go
free; but several young ones became attached to their guardians with
surprising rapidity, and followed them like dogs. These antelopes are not
larger than a medium-sized sheep, and the young ones in particular look
exceedingly pretty with their red tufts, and disport themselves like frisky
kids. Miss Ellen and my sister soon had about them a whole menagerie of
antelopes, monkeys, and parrots, trained to perform all sorts of tricks for
the delectation of the children who were expected.

Thus matters stood when one of the elephant-keepers whom Miss Ellen had
brought with her to the Kenia, and who had given up all thoughts of
returning to their home, ventured to ask his 'mistress'--for the Indians
could not accustom themselves to the idea that they were perfectly
independent men--whether she would not like an elephant-baby also as a pet?
Receiving an affirmative answer, he undertook to capture one or more, if he
were allowed to go with the four elephants and their keepers into the woods
for a few days. As Miss Ellen had allowed her elephants to be employed in
the building operations, where these interesting colossi were of invaluable
service, and as the work could not be interrupted for the sake of a
plaything, she told the Indian that she would forego her wish, or at least
would wait until the elephants could be more easily spared from the work.
The Indian went away, but the idea that his beloved mistress should be
deprived of anything that would--as he had at once perceived--have given
her great pleasure, roused him out of his customary fatalistic indolence.
He brooded over the matter for a couple of days, and on the third he
appeared with the proposal to make good the loss of time occasioned by the
temporary absence of the four elephants by capturing, with the aid of the
other Cornaks, not only a young elephant, but also several old elephants,
and training them for work. 'But African elephants cannot be trained like
the Indian ones,' objected Miss Ellen. The Indian ventured to question
this, and his seven colleagues were all of his opinion. Elephants were
elephants; they would like to see an animal with a trunk that they could
not tame in a few weeks if he only got into their hands. 'If it is really
so, why have you not said so before; for you must have seen what good use
can be made of elephants here?' asked the American, and received for answer
merely a laconic 'Because you have not asked us.'

Miss Ellen did not know what to do. The idea of furnishing the colony of
Eden Vale with herds of tame elephants--for if these animals could be
tamed, there might as well be thousands as one--did not allow her to rest.
On the other hand, she remembered to have read, in her natural-history
studies, that African elephants were untameable. We all, when she asked us,
were obliged to affirm that there were no tame elephants anywhere in
Africa. She thought over this problem until she began to grow melancholy;
evidently she was anxious that a trial should be made. But the Indians
insisted upon the impossibility of capturing wild elephants without the
assistance of the tame ones; and she shrank the more from using the latter
in a doubtful attempt at a time when work urgently required doing, because
the tame elephants were her own property, and therefore the decision
depended entirely upon herself. Just then our zoologist, Signor Michaele
Faenze, returned from a long excursion to the central mass of the Kenia;
and when Miss Fox took him into her confidence, he at once sided with the
Indians. He admitted that, as a matter of fact, there were no tame African
elephants; but he maintained that this was simply because the Africans had
forgotten how to make the noble beast serviceable to man. The reason did
not lie in the character of the African elephant, for in the days of the
Romans trained elephants were as well known in Africa as in Asia. They
should let the Indians make an attempt; if the latter understood their
business they would succeed as well in Africa as in India.

And so it turned out. The eight Cornaks with their four elephants went into
the neighbouring forests; and when, as soon happened, they had found a herd
of wild elephants, they did with them exactly as they had learnt to do at
home. The tame elephants were sent without their attendants into the midst
of the herd of wild ones, by whom they were at first greeted with some
signs of surprise, but were ultimately received into companionship. The
crafty animals then fixed their attention upon the leader of the herd, the
strongest and handsomest bull, caressed him, whisked the flies off him, but
in the meantime bound, with some strong cord they had taken with them, one
of his legs to a stout tree. Having done this, they uttered their cry of
alarm--a sharp trumpet-like sound--and ran off as if they had discovered
some danger. On this signal, the Indians rushed forward with loud cries and
the firing of guns, and thus caused the whole herd to rush off after the
tame elephants. The poor prisoner, of course, could not run off with the
rest, desperately as he strained at the ropes; and the Indians allowed him
to stamp and trumpet, without for a while troubling themselves about him.
Their next care was to follow the track of the escaped herd. In the course
of an hour they had again crept up to it, to find that in the meantime the
four tame elephants had repeated the same trick with a new victim, which
was also fettered and then left in the same manner. In the course of the
day three more elephants shared the same fate; and by that time the herd
appeared to have grown suspicious, for their betrayers returned alone to
their keepers.

Now first was a visit paid to the five captives, among whom was a female
with a yearling about the size of a half-grown calf. The tame elephants
went straight to the captives straining at the ropes, and bound their
fore-feet tightly together. This was not done without furious resistance on
the part of the betrayed beasts; but this resistance was overcome in a most
brutal way by strokes of the trunk and by bites. Thereupon the merciless
captors busied themselves removing from within their victims' reach
everything that is pleasant to an elephant's palate--grass, bushes, and
tree-twigs; and what their trunks could not do they enabled the keepers to
do with axe and hatchet by dragging the captives down upon their sides.

When night came, all five captives were securely bound and deprived of
every possibility of getting food. They were watched, however, to secure
them from being attacked by lions or leopards. The next morning the tame
elephants again visited their captive brethren one after the other, helped
the fallen ones to get up--which was not effected without a good deal of
thrashing and pushing--and then again left them to their fate.

This went on for three days; the poor captives suffered from hunger and
thirst, and received barbarous blows from their treacherous brethren
whenever the latter came near them. By the fourth day they had become so
weak and subdued that they no longer roared, but pitifully moaned when
their tormentors approached, which nevertheless fell upon them fiercely
with trunk and teeth. Now a rescuing angel appeared to them, in human form.
An Indian, with threatening actions and several noisy blows, drove the
captors from their victim, and offered to the latter a vessel of water. If
the wild elephant, struck with astonishment, took time to survey the
situation, the tragi-comedy was over--the beast was tamed. For, in this
case, he would, after a little hesitation, accept the proffered drink, and
then a little food; he could afterwards be fed and watered without danger,
and, under the escort of the tame elephants, led home for further training.
If, on the contrary, the sight of the man maddened him--as was the case
with three out of the five--the thrashing-and-hunger treatment had to be
continued until the elephant began to understand that release from his
situation could be afforded only by the terrible biped.

At last all the captives submitted to their fate. The only danger in this
process consists in the necessity, on the part of the hunter, of relying
upon the accuracy of his judgment concerning the captive's character when
he first approaches him. It is true that the tame elephants stand by
observant and ready to help; but as a single thrust of the tusk of an
enraged animal may be fatal, the business requires a great deal of courage
and presence of mind. However, the Indians asserted that anyone only
partially accustomed to the ways of elephants could tell with certainty
from the look of the animal what he meant to do; it was therefore necessary
merely to take the precaution not to get very close to a captive elephant
before reading in his eye submission to the inevitable, and then there was
nothing to fear.

After an absence of six days, the expedition returned with the five
captives, which were certainly not yet trained and serviceable for work,
but were so far tame that they quietly allowed themselves to be shut up,
fed, watered, and taught. In the course of another fortnight they were
ready for use in all kinds of work, particularly when they had one of the
veterans by their side. Miss Ellen had a double triumph: she possessed a
charming baby elephant, which was certainly a little too clumsy for a
lap-dog, but was nevertheless as droll a creature as could be, and soon
made itself the acknowledged favourite of all Eden Vale; and she had
besides opened out for the Society an inexhaustible source of very valuable
motive power, of which no one would have thought but for her.

From that time forth we actively carried on the capture of elephants, so
that in a little while the elephant was the chief draught-beast in the
Kenia, and could be employed wherever heavy weights had to be removed to
short distances or to places inaccessible to waggons.

This successful experiment with the elephants suggested to us the taming of
other animals, for purposes, not merely of pleasure, but of utility. The
first attempt was made upon the zebra, and was successful. Though the old
animals were useless, the foals, when captured quite young, were tolerably
tractable and not particularly shy; and in the second generation our tame
zebras were not distinguishable from the best mules, except in colour.
Ostriches and giraffes came next in the order of our domestic animals; but
our trainers achieved their greatest triumph in taming the African buffalo.
This is the most vicious, uncontrollable, and dangerous of all African
beasts; and yet it was so thoroughly domesticated that in the course of
years it completely supplanted the common ox as a draught-beast. The bulls
that had grown up in a wild condition were, and remained, perfect devils;
but the captured cows could be so thoroughly domesticated that they would
eat out of their attendants' hands, and the buffaloes bred in a state of
domestication exhibited exactly the same character as the ordinary domestic
cattle. The bulls, especially when old, continued to be somewhat
unreliable; but the cows and oxen, on the other hand, were as gentle and
docile as any ruminant could be. They were never valued among us as milch
kine--for, though their milk was rich, it was not great in quantity--but
they were incomparable as draught-beasts. They were higher by half a foot
than the largest domestic cattle; they measured two feet across the
shoulders, and their horns were too thick at the base to be spanned by two
hands. No load was too heavy for these gigantic beasts; two buffaloes would
keep up their steady pace with a load that would soon have disabled four
ordinary oxen. They bore hunger, thirst, heat, and rain better than their
long-domesticated kindred; in short, they proved themselves invaluable in a
country where good roads were not everywhere to be found.

The third incident--But this really concerns only me personally, and
belongs to this narrative merely so far as it relates to the mode of life
and the social conditions of Eden Vale. It will therefore be best if I next
tell how we lived, what our habits were, and how we worked in the new home,
before the arrival of the main body of our brethren.




CHAPTER VII


The colonists in Eden Vale looked upon me--the Society's plenipotentiary,
who had organised our expedition to the Kenia and procured the necessary
means--as their president in the full sense of the word: I might have
commanded and I should have been obeyed. But, on the other hand, I acted
not only in harmony with my own inclination, but also according to the
evident intention of the committee, when I assumed merely the position of
president of an association of men who had power to manage their own
affairs. Whenever it was possible, I consulted my colleagues previous to
making any arrangements, and acted in accordance with the will of the
majority; and only in the most urgent cases, or when orders had to be given
to persons who were absent, did I act independently. The distribution of
the work to different groups was made by arrangement between all the
members concerned, and the superintendents of the several branches of work
were elected by their special colleagues. Though in all essential matters
the views and proposals of myself and of those more particularly in my
confidence were always carried out (so that if in what I have written I
had, for brevity's sake, said 'I arranged,' 'I designed,' it would have
been essentially correct), yet this was due entirely to the fact that my
confidants were the intellectual leaders of the colony, and the others
voluntarily subordinated themselves to them. Moreover, we all knew that the
present was only a provisional arrangement. In the meanwhile, no one worked
for himself; all that we produced belonged not to the producer, not even to
the whole of the producers, but to the undertaking upon the common property
of which we were, in return, all living. In a word, the Free Society which
we wished to found was not yet founded--it was in process of forming; and
for the time we were, in reference to it, nothing more than persons
employed according to the old custom, and differed from ordinary
wage-earners simply in the fact that it was left to ourselves to decide
what we should keep for our own maintenance and what we should set apart as
the employer's share of the gains. If any evil-intentioned colleague had
compelled me to do so, I not only had the right, but was resolved, to
assume the attitude of the 'plenipotentiary.' That I was able to avoid
doing this contributed no little to heighten the mutual pleasure we all
experienced, and very materially facilitated the transition to the ultimate
form of our organisation; but this did not alter the fact that our life and
work, both on the journey and at the Kenia, were carried on under the
social forms of the old system.

During this period the hours of work, whether of overseer or simple
workman, white or negro, at Eden Vale were alike for all--from 5 A.M. to 10
A.M. and from 4 P.M. to 6 P.M.; only in the harvest-time were one or two
hours added. All work ceased on Sundays.

The order of the day was as follows: We rose about 4 A.M. and took a bath
in Eden Lake, where several bathing houses had been constructed. The
washing and repairing of clothes was attended to--under the superintendence
of a member who was an expert in such matters--by a band of Swahili, to
whom this work was allotted as their sole duty. We wore every day the
clothes which had been cleansed on the previous day, and which were brought
to the owner in the course of the day to be ready for him in the morning.
After the toilet came the breakfast, the preparation of which, as well as
of all the other meals, was also the special duty of a particular band of
Swahili. In initiating them into the mysteries of French cookery my sister
was of great service. This first breakfast consisted, according to
individual taste, of tea, chocolate, coffee--black or _au lait_--milk, or
some kind of soup; to these might be added, according to choice, butter,
cheese, honey, eggs, cold meat, with some kind of bread or cake. After this
first breakfast came work until 8, followed by a second breakfast,
consisting of some kind of substantial hot food--omelets, fish, or roast
meat--with bread, also cheese and fruits; the drinks were either the
delicious spring-water of our hills, or the very refreshing and agreeable
banana-wine made by the natives. Fifteen or twenty minutes were usually
spent over this breakfast, and work followed until 10 A.M. Then came the
long midday rest, when most of us, particularly in the hotter months, took
a second bath in the lake, followed by private recreation, reading,
conversation, or games. As a rule, the heat in this part of the day was
great; in the hot season the thermometer frequently measured 95 deg. Fahr. in
the shade. It is true that the heat out of doors was prevented from
becoming unendurable by cool breezes, which, in fine weather, blew
regularly between 11 A.M. and 5 P.M. from the Kenia, and these breezes were
the stronger the hotter the day; but it was most agreeable and most
conducive to health to spend the midday hours under cover. At 1 P.M. the
principal meal was taken, consisting of soup, a course of meat or fish with
vegetables, sweet pastry, and fruit of many kinds, with banana-wine or,
when our brewery had been set to work, beer. The meal over, some would
sleep for half an hour, and the rest of the time would be filled up with
conversation, reading, and games. When the fiercest heat was over, the two
hours of afternoon work would be gone through. After this a few indulged in
a third and hasty bath. At 7 P.M. a meal similar to the first breakfast was
taken, out of doors if it did not rain, and in large companies. It should
be stated that, with reference to the meals and to all other means of
refreshment, everyone could choose what and how much he pleased. It was
only in the matter of alcoholic drinks that there was any restriction, and
that for easily understood reasons. Later, when everyone acted for himself,
even in this matter there was perfect liberty; but so long as we were under
the then existing obligations to the Society it was necessary to observe
restrictions for the sake of the negroes.

The evenings were generally devoted to music. We had some very skilful
musicians, an excellent orchestra of wind and string instruments numbering
forty-five performers, and a fine choir; and these performed whenever the
weather permitted. The air would grow cool two or three hours after sunset;
on some nights the thermometer would measure over 70 deg. Fahr., but it
occasionally sank to less than 60 deg. Fahr., so that the night-rest was always
refreshing.

Sundays were given up to recreation and instruction: excursions into the
adjoining woods, hunting expeditions, concerts, public lectures, addresses,
&c.

The block-houses in which we dwelt were intended to serve each family as a
future--though merely provisional--home. Each stood in a garden of 1,200
square yards; and with its six rooms--living-room, kitchen, and four
bedrooms--covered 150 square yards. At this time each such house was
occupied by four of us; to the two women and Sakemba--the latter had been
visited by her parents and their family, and had induced them to put up
their grass hat in Eden Vale--a separate house was of course allotted.

This last arrangement, however, did not please my sister at all. During the
journey she had yielded to the necessity of being separated from me, the
darling ward given into her charge by our sainted mother. Arrived at Eden
Vale, she expected to resume her old rights of guardianship and domestic
superintendence; but she found herself prevented from carrying out her
wishes by her duty towards a second, who in the meantime had become a
favourite with her--namely, Miss Fox. She could not possibly leave this
young woman alone among so many men; but as little could she bring us both
into the same house, though in her eyes we were mere children. What would
her friends in Paris have said to that? I spent all my leisure time in the
women's house, whither I was unconsciously more and more strongly
attracted, not less by the young American's conversation--which was a
piquant mixture of animated controversy and unaffected chatter--than by her
harp-playing and her clear alto voice. But this did not satisfy sister
Clara, who at last hit upon the plan of marrying us. Our common
'foolishness'--that is, our social ideas--made us, she thought, mutually
suitable; and though, in her opinion, we should make a pair entirely
lacking in sound domestic common sense, _she_ was there to think and act
for both of us.

Having once conceived this purpose, she, as a prudent and discreet person
who rightly foresaw that in this matter she could not expect implicit
obedience from either Miss Fox or myself, placed us under close
observation. Though she was peculiarly lacking in personal experience in
matters of love, yet, by means merely of that delicate sensibility peculiar
to woman, she made the startling discovery that we were already over head
and ears in love with each other. At first she was so astonished at this
discovery that she would not believe her own eyes. But the thing was too
clear to make mistake possible. We two lovers had ourselves not the
remotest suspicion of our condition; but to anyone who knew Miss Fox so
well as several months of unbroken companionship with the open-hearted and
ingenuous young American had enabled my sister to do, there could be no
difficulty in understanding what was the matter when a young woman, who had
hitherto lived only for her ideals, freedom and justice, whose idol had
been humanity, but who had shown no interest in any individual man apart
from the ideas to which he devoted himself, was thrown into confusion as
often as she heard the footsteps of a certain man, and in her confidential
intercourse with my sister, instead of talking of the grandeur of our
principles, preferred to talk of the excellences of him who in Eden Vale
was the leading exponent of those principles. As to my own feelings, sister
Clara knew too well that hitherto woman had interested me merely on account
of her position in human society not to feel as if scales had fallen from
her eyes when one day, after long and devotedly watching Miss Fox as she
was busying herself about something, I broke out with the words, 'Is not
every movement of that girl music?'

So my sister took us each aside and told us we must marry. But she met with
a check from both of us. On hearing of the proposal, Miss Ellen, though she
became alternately crimson and pale, at once exclaimed that she would
rather die than marry me. 'Would not those arrogant men who deny us women
any sense of the ideal, any capacity for real effort, and look upon us as
the slaves of our egoistic impulses--would they not triumphantly assert
that my pretended enthusiasm for our social undertaking was merely passion
for a man; that it was not for the sake of an idea, but for the sake of a
man, that I had run off to Equatorial Africa? No--I don't love your
brother--I shall never love, still less marry!' This heroic apostrophe was,
however, followed by a flood of tears, which, when sister Clara wished to
interpret them in my favour, were declared to be signs of emotion at the
offensive suspicion. I received the proposal in a similar way. When Clara
hinted to me that I was in love with Miss Fox, I laughed at her heartily,
and declared that what she took to be symptoms of my passion were merely
signs of psychological interest in a woman who was capable of a genuine
enthusiasm for abstract ideas.

But a motherly sister who has once conceived the purpose of getting her
brother--and her female friend as well--married, is not so easily driven
from the field: at least, not when she has such good and manifold grounds
to adhere to her intention. As she could not gain her end in a direct way,
she tried a circuitous one--not a new one, but one often tried: she made us
both jealous. She told each of us in confidence that she had given up her
'stupid plan,' as the other party was no longer free. As she slily added to
me that she had devised her project merely to be able to come into my house
with my young wife and to resume her motherly care over me, and as this was
evidently the truth, I also gave credence to the invention that Ellen had
left a betrothed lover in America, who was about to appear in Eden Vale.
'Only think, Ellen never made this confession until I approached her with
my plan of getting her married! It is very lucky that you, my boy, care
nothing for the sly little creature; it would have been a pretty business
if you had set your heart upon Ellen!'

I declared myself perfectly satisfied with this turn of affairs; but at the
same time I felt as if a knife had pierced my heart. Suddenly my love stood
clear and distinct before my mind's eye--a glowing boundless passion, such
as he only can feel whose heart has remained six-and-twenty years
untouched. It seemed to me an unalterable certainty that, though I might
still live and struggle, I could never more enjoy life and life's battles!
But was my fate so certain and inevitable? Was it not possible to drive
from the field this lover who had exposed his betrothed to all the dangers
of an adventurous journey, to all the temptations of her unprotected
condition, and who was now about to appear and snatch the bliss from my
Eden? Was it at all conceivable that Ellen--this Ellen--such as I had known
her for months, would love such a wretched fellow? Away to her, to learn
the truth at any price!

I rushed over to the neighbouring house. There in the meantime my sister
had been telling a similar tale to Ellen. She had, she said to Ellen,
conceived the idea of making us man and wife; and therefore, in the hope
that my wooing would overcome her (Ellen's) resistance, she had also told
me of her plan; and when I hesitated she had urged it more strongly, until
at last I had confessed that, unknown to her, I had become betrothed in
Europe. The bride would reach Eden Vale with the next party that
arrived.... Clara had got so far when my appearance interrupted the story.

Deadly pale, Ellen turned towards me. She tried to speak, but her voice
failed her. My half-sad, half-angry inquiry after the American betrothed
first gave her speech. In a moment she found the key to the situation--that
I loved her, and that my sister had deceived us both. What followed can be
easily imagined. Thus it came to pass that Ellen was my betrothed when Dr.
Strahl arrived at Eden Vale; and this is the third incident which I was
about to narrate above.

Whether the joy with which I for the first time pressed to my heart the
woman of my love was greater than that with which I welcomed the friend of
my soul, the idol of my intellect, to the earthly paradise to which he had
shown us the way--this I cannot venture to decide.

When, in the eyes of my revered friend, as he looked upon our new home and
the strongly pulsing joyous life that already filled it, I saw tears of
joy, and in those tears a sure guarantee of immediate success, I was not
seized with such an extravagant delight--almost more than the breast which
felt it for the first time could bear--as I felt a few days before when my
beloved revealed to me the secret of her heart. But when my hair shall have
grown white and my back shall be bent with years, and the recollection of
those lover's kisses may no longer drive my blood so feverishly through my
veins as to-day, yet the thought of the hour in which, hand in hand with my
friend, I experienced the proud pure joy of having accomplished the first
and most difficult step towards the redemption of our suffering
disinherited brethren out of the tortures of many thousands of years of
bondage--the thought of that hour will never lose its bliss-inspiring power
as long as I am among the living.

Long, long stood the master on the heights above Eden Vale, eagerly taking
in every detail of the charming picture. Then, turning to us standing
around him he asked if we had given a name to the country that stretched
out before us on all sides, and which was to be our home. When I said that
we had not, and added that to him, who had given words to the idea that had
led us hither, also belonged the office of finding a word for the country
in which that idea was to be realised, he cried out: 'Freedom will find its
birthplace in this country; FREELAND we will name it.'




_BOOK II_




CHAPTER VIII


We now resume the thread of our narrative where Ney's journal left off.

With the President there had arrived in Eden Vale three members of the
executive committee; five others followed a few days after with the first
waggon-caravan from Mombasa; so that, including Ney, Johnston, and Demestre
(the last of whom had been co-opted at the suggestion of the two former),
twelve were now in Freeland. As hie committee at that time consisted of
fifteen members, there still remained three at a distance, of whom one was
in London, another at Trieste, and the third at Mombasa, at which places
they were for the present to act as the committee's authorised agents in
the foreign affairs of the Society. Their duty was to receive fresh
members, to collect and provisionally to have charge of the funds, and to
superintend the emigrations to Eden Vale.

Their instructions respecting applications for membership were to receive
every applicant who was not a relapsed criminal, and who could read and
write. The former condition needs no justification. We had an unqualified
confidence in the ennobling influence of our social reforms, because those
reforms removed the motive that impelled to most vices; we were perfectly
satisfied that Freeland would produce no criminals, and would even, if it
were not beyond the bounds of possibility, wean from vice those who had
been previously made criminals by misery and ignorance; but we wished, in
the beginning, to avoid being swamped by bad elements, and, in view of the
excusable attempts of certain States to rid themselves in some way or
another of their relapsed criminals, we were compelled to exercise caution.

It may seem a greater hardship that the perfectly illiterate were excluded.
But this was a necessary requirement of our programme. We wished to
transfer the right of the absolute free self-control of the individual to
the domain of labour from that of the relation of servitude which had
existed for thousands of years. We wished to transform the worker who had
been dependent upon his employer for his bread into the independent
producer acting at his own risk in free association with free colleagues.
It follows, as a matter of course, that in this our work we could use only
such workers as were raised above at least the lowest stage of brutality
and ignorance. That we thus excluded the most miserable of the miserable,
is true; but, apart from the fact that generally the ignorant man lacks a
clear consciousness of his misfortune and degradation, and his sufferings
are therefore, as a rule, rather of a physical than of a moral nature, we
could not allow ourselves to be so led astray by pity as to endanger the
success of our work. The ignorant man _must_ be under authority; and as it
was not our purpose to educate our members gradually to become free
producers, but to introduce them immediately to a system of free
production, we were compelled to protect ourselves against ignorance as
well as against crime.

Should it, on the other hand, be contended that ability to read and write
is of itself by no means a sufficient evidence of the possession of that
degree of culture and intelligence which must be presupposed in men who are
to exercise control over their own work, the answer is that for such a
purpose a very high degree of intelligence is certainly requisite, yet not
in all, but only in a relatively not large number of the workers, who thus
organise themselves, whilst the majority need not possess more than that
moderate amount of mental capacity and mental training which is enough to
enable them to look after their own interests. When a hundred or a thousand
workers unite to work for their common profit and at their common risk, it
is not every one of them that can or need have the abilities requisite to
organise and superintend this common production--it is merely necessary
that a very few possess this higher degree of intelligence; whilst it is
enough for the majority that they are able rightly to judge what ought to
be and is the result of the production in common, and what characteristics
those must possess in whose hands the guardianship of the common interest
is placed. But just here is the knowledge of letters absolutely
indispensable, for it is the printed word alone which makes man and his
judgment independent of the accidental influences of immediate surroundings
and first opens his mind to instruction. It will later on be seen in how
large a measure the most comprehensive publicity of all the proceedings
connected with this productive activity--a publicity possible only through
writing and print--contributed to the success of our work.

Of course these two conditions which applicants for membership had to
satisfy had from the beginning been insisted upon by the committee, and the
second condition at first very strictly so. It had been found, however,
that the intellectual level of most of the applicants was surprisingly
high. In the main, from among the class of manual labourers it was only the
_elite_, who in any numbers interested themselves in our undertaking; and
as, when the membership had gone beyond 20,000, a slight leaven of
ignorance could not be very dangerous, the committee contented itself with
requiring that the application should be made in the applicant's own
handwriting.

The number of applicants--women and children are always reckoned
in--continued to increase, particularly after the publication of the first
report of the settlement of the colony at the Kenia. When the
committee--with the exception of the delegates left behind--embarked at
Trieste, the rate of increase of members had reached 1,200 weekly; three
months later it had risen to 1,800 weekly. The European agents had to
register the new members--as had previously been done with the old
members--carefully, according to sex, age, and calling, and at every
opportunity to despatch the lists to Freeland; they had also to organise
and superintend the transport to Mombasa, which in all cases was
gratuitous; and they were authorised to pay all necessary expenses, in case
of need even to buy new ships, subject to subsequent examination and
approval of the accounts. It was also the duty of the agents to advise and
help the members when they were preparing for the journey; and they had
authority to give material assistance to needy comrades. The members'
contributions showed a tendency to increase similar to that of the number
of members. It was evident that the interest in and the understanding of
the character of our undertaking grew not merely among the working classes,
but also among the wealthy; the weekly addition to the funds increased from
20,000L at the end of September to 30,000L at the end of December. These
funds, after payment of the expenses incurred by the agents, were under the
control of the committee, whose executive organ, however, in this respect
also, for the payment of debts incurred outside of Freeland, were the
delegates who had been left behind.

On the 20th of October the committee held its first sitting in Eden Vale,
for the purpose of drawing up such rules as were required to regulate the
constitution of the free associations that were henceforth to be
responsible for all production in Freeland. Hitherto the sittings of the
committee had been so far public that every member of the Society had
access to them, and this was to continue to be the case; but a provisional
regulation was now adopted by which the audience might take part in the
proceedings, though simply as consultative members. This regulation was to
be in force until the press could perform its news-spreading and
controlling functions. At the same time it was found that, whilst the
committee had long been unanimous in holding that the Society's
programme--that is, the organisation of production upon the basis of
absolute individual independence on the one hand, and the securing to every
worker the full and undiminished produce of his work on the other
hand--should be carried out as soon as the committee had reached the new
home, a part of the members of the Society still wished to continue the
provisional organisation for at least a few months. In favour of this it
was alleged that the executive knew best what were the needs as well as the
capabilities of the gradually assembling community; the colonists should be
allowed time to become accustomed to their new conditions and to acquire
confidence in themselves; the committee had hitherto exhibited so much
discretion in all their measures, that it was their duty to keep for some
time longer the absolute direction of affairs in their own hands. It was
particularly the members who had just arrived in Eden Vale who exhibited
this dread of immediate and absolute independence. They thought they should
not be able at once to act wisely for themselves; it would be cruel to
pitch them as it were head-over-heels into the water, forcing upon them the
alternative of swimming or sinking, when they themselves did not know
whether they could swim or not. Ney, as the director of the works at the
Kenia, was especially importuned by these faint hearted ones to manage
their affairs for them, and not to force upon them an independence for
which they did not yet feel themselves qualified.

The committee were prepared for this demand, and had no difficulty in
dispelling the fears thus expressed. In the first place, the timid members
were made to understand that to continue production as the common
undertaking of the whole community after the Society, as such, had settled
in Freeland, would be sheer Communism. The 200 pioneers of the first
expedition, and the 260 of the second, were simply functionaries appointed
by the Society, whose relation to the Society was not altered in the least
by the fact that they were at the Kenia, while the committee were in
Europe. The pioneers were well aware of this before they left the Old
World. But the case was different with all who now came to the settlement.
Those who came now were not the officials, but the members of the Society;
they did not come to do something at the bidding of the Society, but to
work on their own account on the basis of the Society's principles of
organisation. We had therefore no further right to utilise the first comers
for the benefit of those who came after them. Even if we had such a right,
it would be a fatal mistake to exercise it. For those that came now were no
longer the carefully selected small band with whom we formerly had to do,
but persons who, though influenced by one great common idea, were yet a
thoroughly heterogeneous crowd accidentally thrown together, whom it would
be a very dangerous experiment to entrust with an anti-egoistic system of
production. The first 400 were--at least, in their character of
workers--mainly men of one mould, similar in their capacities and in their
requirements; the few leaders found ready obedience because no one
questioned their intellectual superiority, and chiefly because every one
who took part in the two expeditions was, as it were, pledged beforehand to
obedience. The new-comers, on the contrary, were persons of very various
capacities, and still more diverse in their requirements: there were among
them women and old persons, fathers with numerous children. There might
also be among them--and this was the greatest danger--ambitious persons, to
whom one could not assign the right place because their capacities would
not be known, and who would certainly refuse to obey.

Thus, Communism would most probably in a very short time produce universal
dissatisfaction, and that would lead to chaos. Consequently we had as
little power as we had right to introduce it. But we had not the least
occasion to do so. Why should not that take place at once which must take
place sooner or later--namely, the organisation of free labour, with all
the profits taken by the workers themselves? Because there was not yet
enough human material for the organisation of all the branches of industry?
What necessity was there to organise all branches at once; and, on the
other hand, what certainty was there that it would be possible or useful to
do so in the course of several weeks or months? To take an example: there
were several weavers among us, for whom at present there were no
companions, and who therefore were not in a position to start their
industry with reasonable hopes of success. What was there to prevent these
weavers, in the meantime, from engaging in some other occupation; and who
would guarantee that a little later on there would be weavers enough to set
up a factory; and that, should such a factory be set up, the conditions of
the settlement would be such as to make weaving sufficiently profitable to
justify the carrying of it on? And while it was admitted that there would
be at first more such torsos--such insufficient fragments--of future
branches of industry than there would be later on, this inconvenience was
more than counterbalanced by the fact that it was easier to begin a new
organisation among a small than among a large number of men. In every
respect it appeared advisable at once to organise production upon the basis
of free individual action. Of course it did not follow that the committee
did not possess, not merely the right, but also the duty, of making all the
provision in its power to facilitate and promote the work of organisation.
They would not confine themselves to the work of smoothing the way for the
members of the Society, but would utilise their knowledge and experience in
pointing out to the members the best way. They would assume no compelling
authority, but claimed to be the best--because the best-informed--advisers
of the members. Further, there was no doubt that the whole of the hitherto
acquired property, whether derived from the contributions of the members or
created in Freeland, since it belonged to the whole community and not to
the individual members, was at the disposal of the committee, and that the
committee would make a legitimate use of this its responsibility. The
members might therefore rest assured that no one should be left uncared for
or exposed to blind accident. The committee would act as advisers and
helpers to anyone who wished for their advice and help, not only now, but
at any time. In truth, what the committee purposed to do--conformably to
the Society's programme--differed from the above-mentioned demands in only
two points. The committee offered their advice, whilst they were asked to
command and to allow no scope to other and probably, in many points, better
counsel; and they offered both advice and help in the interest of each
separate individual, whilst they were asked to act in the interest of the
whole community alone.

These explanations gave general satisfaction, and afterwards, when those
detailed regulations had been decided upon which were partly in
contemplation and partly already in operation for the establishment of the
new forms of organisation, the last remnant of fear and hesitation
vanished.

The fundamental feature of the plan of organisation adopted was unlimited
publicity in connection with equally unlimited freedom of movement.
Everyone in Freeland must always know what products were for the time being
in greater or less demand, and in what branch of production for the time
being there was a greater or less profit to be made. To the same extent
must everyone in Freeland always have the right and the power--so far as
his capabilities and his skill permitted--to apply himself to those
branches of production which for the time being yield the largest revenue,
and to this end all the means of production and all the seats of production
must be available to everyone. The measures required, therefore, must first
of all have regard to these two points. A careful statistical report had to
register comprehensively and--which is the chief point--with as much
promptitude as possible every movement of production on the one hand and of
consumption on the other, as well as to give universal publicity to the
movement of prices of all products. In view of the great practical
importance of this system of public advertisement, care would have to be
taken to exclude deception or unintentional errors--a problem which, as
what follows will show, was solved in the most perfect yet simple manner.

And in order that the knowledge thus made common to everyone may be
actually and profitably made use of by everyone--which is possible only
when everyone is placed in a position to apply his capabilities to those
among the branches of labour in which he is skilled, and which for the time
being yield the highest revenue--provision must be made that everyone shall
always be able to obtain possession of the requisite means of production.
Of these means of production there are two classes--the powers of nature
and capital. Without these means of production, the most exact information
as to which are the branches of labour whose products are in greatest
demand, and which, therefore, yield the highest profits, would be of as
little use as the most perfect skill in such branches of production. A man
can utilise his power to labour only when he has command both of the
materials and forces supplied by nature, and of the appropriate instruments
and machines; and if he is to compete with his fellow-workers he must
possess both classes of the means of production as fully and as completely
as they. In order to grow wheat, a man must not only have land at his
command, but he must have land that is equally good for growing wheat as is
the land of the other wheat-growers, otherwise he will labour with less
profit and possibly with actual loss. And possession of the most fertile
land will not make the work possible, or at any rate equally profitable,
unless the worker possesses the requisite agricultural implements, or if he
possesses them in a less degree than his competitors.

Then as to capital: the Free Society undertook to place it at the disposal
of everyone who wished for it, and that without interest, on condition that
it was reimbursed out of the proceeds of production within a period the
length of which was to be determined by the nature of the proposed
investment. As the instruments of labour and the other capitalistic aids to
labour could be provided to any amount and of any quality, one part of the
problem was thereby solved.

The case was different with the natural powers, as representative of which
we will take the land with which those powers are bound up. No one has
produced the land, therefore no one has a claim of ownership upon it, and
everyone has a right to use it. But not merely has no one produced the
land, no one can produce it; the land, therefore, exists in a limited
quantity, and, moreover, the existing land is not all of the same quality.
Now, in spite of all this, how is it possible to satisfy everyone's claim
not merely to land, but to produce-bearing land?

In order to make this clear, the third and, in reality, most fundamental
predicate of economic justice must be expounded. When every worker is
promised the undiminished produce of his own labour, it is necessarily
assumed that the worker himself is the sole and exclusive producer of the
whole of this produce. But this he was, by no means, according to the old
economic system. The worker as such produced only a part of the product,
while another part was produced by the employer, whether he was landowner,
capitalist, or undertaker. Without the organising disciplinary influence of
the latter the toil of the worker would have been fruitless, or at least
much less fruitful; formerly the worker supplied merely the power, while
the organising mind was supplied by the employer.

It is not implied by this that the more intellectual element in the work of
production was formerly to be found exclusively or necessarily on the side
of the employer: the technicians and directors who superintend the great
productive establishments belong essentially to the wage-earners; and it
will be readily admitted that in many cases the higher intelligence is to
be found not in the employers, but in the workers. Nevertheless, in all
cases where a number of workers have had to be brought together and
accustomed to work in common, this work of organising has been the business
of the employer. Hitherto the worker has been able to produce for himself
only in isolation; whenever a number had to be brought together, in one
enterprise, a 'master' has been necessary, a master who with the
whip--which may be made either of thongs or of the paragraphs in a set of
factory regulations--has kept the rebellious together, and _therefore_--not
because of his higher intelligence--has swept the profits into his own
pocket, leaving to the workers, whether they belonged to the proletariat or
to the so-called intelligent classes, only so much as sufficed to sustain
them. Hitherto the workers have made no attempt to unite their productive
labours without a master, as free, self-competent men, and not as servants.
The employment of those powerful instruments and contrivances which science
and invention have placed in the hands of men, and which so indefinitely
multiply the profits of human activity, presupposes the united action of
many; and hitherto this united action has been taken only hand in hand with
servitude. The productive associations of a Schulze-Delitzsch and others
have effected no change in the real character of servitude; they have
merely altered the name of the masters. In these associations there are
still the employers and the workers; to the former belongs the profit, the
latter receive stall and manger like the biped beasts of burden of the
single employer or of the joint-stock societies whose shareholders do not
happen to be workers. In order that labour may be free and
self-controlling, the workers must combine as such, and not as small
capitalists; they must not have over them any employer of any land or any
name, not even an employer consisting of an association of themselves. They
must organise themselves as workers, and only as such; for only as such
have they a claim to the full produce of their labour. This organisation of
work without the slightest remnant of the old servile relationship to an
employer of some kind or other, is the fundamental problem of social
emancipation: if this problem be successfully solved, everything else will
follow of itself.

But this organisation was not nearly so difficult as it appears to be at
first sight. The committee started from the principle that the right forms
of the organisation of free labour were best found through the free
co-operation of all those who shared in this organisation. No special
difficulties were discovered in this. The questions which had to be dealt
with were of the simplest nature. For example: in order to set up an
iron-works, it was not at all necessary that the workers should all
understand the whole mechanism of the manufacture of iron. Two things only
were necessary--first, that the men should know what sort of persons they
ought to set at the head of their factory; and, secondly, that on the one
hand they should give those persons sufficient authority properly to
control the work, and, on the other hand, they should reserve to themselves
sufficient authority to hold the reins of their undertaking in their own
hands. Doubtless, very serious mistakes might be made in the organisation
of the managing as well as of the overlooking organs--there might be a
serious misproportion in the powers conferred. But the previously mentioned
unlimited publicity of all productive operations, which on other grounds
also would be demanded in the interest of the commonwealth, materially
lightened the task of the associations of workers; and as all the members
of each such productive association had in this decisive point exactly the
same interests, and their whole attention was always directed to these
interests, they learnt with remarkable speed to correct the mistakes they
had made, so that after a few months the new apparatus worked tolerably
well, and in a remarkably short time reached a high degree of perfection.
From the beginning there was nothing left to desire in the industry and
diligence of all the associates--a fact which might have been anticipated
in view of the full play given to self-interest as well as of the incessant
mutual encouragement and control of men who had equal rights and were
equally interested.

The committee therefore drew up a 'Model Statute' for the use of the
associations, not at all anticipating that it would really be preserved as
a model, but merely for the sake of making a beginning and of providing a
formula which the associations might use as the skeleton of the schemes of
organisation that their experience would enable them to devise. As a matter
of fact this 'Model Statute,' which was at first accepted almost unaltered
by all the associations, was in less than twelve months so much altered and
enlarged that little more than the leading principles of its original form
remained. These, however, were the following:

1. Admission into every association is free to everyone, whether a member
of any other association or not; and any member can leave any association
at any time.

2. Every member has a claim upon such a share of the net profits of the
association as is proportionate to the amount of work he has contributed.

3. Every member's contribution of work shall be measured by the number of
hours he has worked; the older members receiving more than those who have
joined the association later, in the proportion of a premium of _x_ per
cent. for every year of seniority. Also, a premium can be contracted for,
in the way of free association, for skilled labour.

4. The labour contribution of superintendents or directors shall, according
to a voluntary arrangement with every individual concerned, be reckoned us
equal to a certain number of hours of work per day.

5. The profits of the association shall be calculated at the end of every
year of business, and, after deducting the repayment of capital and the
taxes paid to the Freeland commonwealth, divided. During each year the
members shall receive, for every hour of work or of reckoned work, advances
equal to _x_ per cent. of the net profits of the previous year.

6. The members shall, in case of the dissolution or liquidation of on
association, be liable for the contracted loan in equal proportions; which
liability, so far as regards the still outstanding amount, attaches also to
newly entering members. When a member leaves, his liability for the already
contracted loan shall not cease. This liability for the debts of the
association shall, in case of dissolution or liquidation, be in proportion
to the claim of the liable member upon the existing property.

7. The highest authority of the association is the general meeting, in
which every member possesses an equal active and passive vote. The general
meeting carries its motions by a simple majority of votes; a majority of
three-fourths is required for the alteration of statutes, dissolution, or
liquidation.

8. The general meeting exercises its rights either directly as such, or
through its elected functionaries, who are responsible to it.

9. The management of the business of the association is placed in the hands
of a directorate of _x_ members, elected for _x_ years by the general
meeting, but their appointment can be at any time rescinded. The
subordinate business functionaries are nominated by the directorate; but
the fixing of the salaries--measured in hours of work--of these
functionaries is the business of the general assembly on the proposition of
the directorate.

10. The general meeting annually elects a council of inspection consisting
of _x_ members, to inspect the books and take note of the manner in which
the business is conducted, and to furnish periodical reports.

It will strike the reader at once that only with reference to the possible
dissolution of an association (section 6) is there a mention of what should
apparently be regarded as the principal thing--namely, of the 'property' of
the associations and of the claims of the members upon this property. The
reason of this is that any 'property' of the association, in the ordinary
sense, does not exist. The members, it is true, possess the right of
usufruct of the existing productive capital; but as they always share this
right with every newly entering member, and are themselves bound to the
association by nothing except their interest in the profits of their
labour, so there can be no property-interest in the association so long as
they are carrying on their work. And, in fact, that which everyone can use
cannot constitute property, however useful it maybe. There are no
proprietors--merely usufructuaries of the association's capital. And should
it be thought that this is in contradiction to the obligation to reimburse
the loaned productive capital of the associations, it ought not to be
overlooked that even this repayment of capital--except in the already
mentioned case of a liquidation--is done by the members merely in their
capacity of usufructuaries of the means of production. As the reimbursed
capital is derived from the profits, and these are divided among the
members in proportion to each one's contribution of work, every member
contributes to the reimbursement in proportion to the amount of work he
does. And when the subject is looked at more closely it will be seen that
the repayments are ultimately derived from the consumers of the commodities
produced by the associations; they form, of course, a part of the cost of
production, and must necessarily be covered by the price of the product.
That this shall take place fully and universally is ensured with infallible
certainty by the free mobilisation of labour. A production in which these
repayments were not completely covered by the price of the commodities
produced would fail to attract labour until the diminished supply of the
commodities had produced the requisite rise in price. When the repayments
have all been made, this part of the cost of production ceases; the
association capital may be regarded as amortised, and the prices of the
commodities produced sink--again under the influence of the free
mobilisation of labour; so that the members of the association individually
profit as little by the employment of burdenless capital as they suffered
before by the liquidation of their burden. Profit and loss are always
distributed--still thanks to the mobilisation of labour--equally among all
the workers of Freeland.

Thus it is seen that, in consequence of this simple and infallibly
operative arrangement, productive capital is, strictly speaking, as
ownerless as the land; it belongs to everyone, and therefore to no one. The
community of producers supplies it and employs it, and it does both in
exact proportion to the amount of work contributed by each individual; and
payment for the expenditure is made by the community of consumers--again by
each one in exact proportion to the consumption of each individual.

That an absolute and universally uniform level of profits should result
from this absolutely free mobility of labour neither was expected, nor has
it been attained. Often the inequality is not discovered until the
balance-sheets are drawn up, and therefore cannot until then be removed by
the ebb and flow of labour. But, besides this, there is an important and
continuous difference of gains--a difference which it is impossible to
equalise, and which has its intrinsic foundation in the difference in the
amount of effort and inconvenience involved in engaging in the different
branches of labour. Certainly it is not the same in Freeland as in other
parts of the world, where only too often the burden of labour is in inverse
ratio to its profitableness; with us difficult, burdensome, unpleasant
kinds of labour must without exception obtain larger gains than the easier
and more agreeable--so far as the latter do not demand special
skill--otherwise everyone would at once forsake the former and apply
themselves to the latter. Moreover, the premium allowed to the older
members in section 3--which varies in different associations from one to
three per cent. for each year, and therefore, in cases of long-continued
labour, amounts to a very respectable sum, and is intended to attach the
proved veteran of labour to the undertaking--prevents an absolute
equalisation of gains even in associations of exactly similar constitution.

Section 5 of the statutes requires a brief explanation. In the first year,
the calculation of the advances to be made to the association members could
not, of course, be based upon the net profits of the previous year, and the
committee therefore suggested a fixed sum of one shilling per hour. This
strikingly high rate will perhaps excite surprise, particularly in view of
the scale of prices that prevailed at the Kenia; and it may reasonably be
asked whence the committee derived the courage to hope for such a high rate
of profits as would justify the payment of such an advance. But this
valuation was not recklessly made, it was in truth the expression of
extreme prudence. The results of the associated productive labour hitherto
in operation had actually been much more favourable. The corn industry, for
example, had yielded a gross return of a little over 41,000 cwt. of
different cereals for a total expenditure of 44,500 hours of labour. The
average price of these cereals in Eden Vale at that time was not quite 3s.
per cwt., as we had grown more than we needed, and the export through
Mombasa yielded only 3s. on account of the still very primitive means of
transport. We had therefore, in round figures, agricultural produce worth
6000L. The cost of producing this was: materials 400L, amortisation of
invested capital (implements and cattle) 300L; so that 5,300L remained as
net profit. As a tax to cover all those expenses which, in accordance with
our programme, had to be incurred by the commonwealth, and which will be
spoken of further on, not less than thirty-five per cent. was set aside.
Thus a round sum of 3,400L remained as disposable profit. Divided by the
44,500 hours of labour, this gave 1s. 6d. for each hour. This was also
approximately the average profit of the other kinds of production, so far
as it was possible to assess it in the absence of a general market at the
Kenia. Thus it could be assumed with the utmost confidence that, had we
been able to control the prices of all commodities by means of supply and
demand, there would either have been paid, or might have been assessed, at
least a price equivalent to that which produced the agricultural profit.
For we could at once have produced--as far as our supply of labour
went--and disposed of cereal crops valued at 3s. per cwt. at Eden Vale;
therefore, in the period of work through which we had already passed
everyone was able to earn at least 1s. 6d. by one hour's labour. But, as
will presently be seen, we were entering upon the next period of work with
much improved means; therefore, apart from unforeseen contingencies, the
productiveness of our labour must very considerably increase, so that, in
granting an advance of one shilling for each hour of labour, we calculated
that we were advancing scarcely the half of the actual earnings--an
assumption that was fully borne out by the result. In later seasons it
became the practice of most associations to make the advance as much as
ninety per cent. of the net profits of the previous year.

As to the salaries of the directorate, these were from the beginning very
different in different associations. Where no extraordinary knowledge and
no special talent were necessary, the overseers were content to have their
superintendence valued at the price of from eight to ten hours of work per
diem. There were directors who received as much as the value of twenty-four
hours of work per diem, and in the very first year this amounted to an
income of about 850L. The functionaries of a lower grade received, as a
rule, the value of from eight to ten hours of work per diem. In most cases
the controlling council of inspection received no extra remuneration for
their duties.

The credit granted to the associations in the first year of work reached an
average amount of 145L per head of the participating workers; and if it be
asked whence we derived the funds to meet the requirements of the total
number of our members, the answer is, from the members themselves. And the
reference here is not merely to those voluntary contributions paid by the
members on their joining the International Free Society, for these
contributions were in the first instance devoted to the transport service
between Trieste and Freeland, and would not have sufficed to supply our
associations with capital if they had all been devoted to that purpose. The
credit required in the course of the first year rose to nearly two million
pounds sterling, while the voluntary contributions up to that date did not
much exceed one million and a-half. The principal means which enabled us to
meet the requirements of our members were supplied us, on the one hand by
the Society's property hi disposable materials, and on the other hand by
the members' tax.

It should be mentioned here that, for the first year, the committee
reserved to itself the right of deciding the amount and the order of
granting the credit given. This, though merely negative, interference with
the industrial relations of the associations was not in harmony with the
principle of the producers' right of unconditioned self-control; but was so
far unavoidable, inasmuch as our commonwealth had not yet actually attained
to that high degree of productiveness of labour which is the assumed result
of the perfect realisation of all the fundamental principles of that
commonwealth. Later, when we were more fully furnished with the best means
of production which technical progress placed within our reach, and we were
consequently no longer occupied in provisionally completing and improving
what already existed, there could never be any question whether the surplus
of the current production would suffice to meet the heaviest fresh claims
for capital that could arise. It was different at the beginning, when the
need for capital was unlimited, and the means of supplying that need as yet
undeveloped. The Free Commonwealth could not offer more than it could
supply, and it had therefore to reserve to itself a right of selection from
among the investments that applied for credit. Thanks to the thorough
solidarity of interests created by the free mobility of labour, this could
happen without even temporarily affecting the essential material interests
of the producers by giving some a dangerous advantage over others. For if,
as was scarcely to be avoided, certain productions were helped or hindered
by the giving or withholding of credit, this was immediately and naturally
followed by such a shifting of labour as at once restored the equilibrium
of profits.

But this interference during the first year extended only to the
controlling of the amount and order of granting the credit asked, for, and
not to the way in which it was used. In this respect, from the very
beginning the principle of the producers' responsibility was carried out to
the fullest extent. As it was necessary for the producers to be successful
in order to repay the capital taken up, so it was their business to see
that care was taken to make a profitable use of such capital. It is true
that--as has been already stated--the consumers ultimately bear the cost of
production; but they do this, of course, only when and in so far as the
processes employed in production have been useful and necessary. If an
association should procure unnecessary or defective machinery, it would be
impossible for it to transfer to the purchasers of its commodities the
losses thus occasioned; the association would not have increased, but
diminished, its gains by such investments. It can therefore be left to the
self-interest of those who are concerned in the associations to guard
against such a waste of capital.

We now come to the question how it is possible to guarantee the equal right
of everyone to equally fertile land. This problem also is solvable in the
simplest manner by the free mobility of labour involved in the principle of
free association. As everywhere else in the world, there was in Freeland
richer and poorer land; but as more workers were attracted to the better
land than to the worse, and as, according to a well-known economic law, a
greater expenditure of labour upon an equal extent of land is followed by
_relatively diminishing_ returns, so the individual worker obtained no
higher net profit per hour of labour on the best land than upon the worst
land which could be cultivated at all.

On the Dana plateau, for example, by the expenditure of 32 hours of labour
48 cwt. of wheat could be produced per acre; in Eden Vale the same
expenditure of labour would produce merely 36 cwt. Therefore, as the cwt.
of wheat was worth 3s. 1-1/2d., and 1-1/2d. was sufficient to cover all
expenses, the land association in the Dana plateau had at the end of the
year a return of 4s. 6d. for every hour of work, and, after deduction of
tax and repayment of capital, 2s. 9d. for division among the members. The
members of the Eden Vale association, on the other hand, had only 2s. per
hour of labour to divide among the members; and as careful investigation
proved that this difference was due neither to accidental uncongeniality of
the weather nor to a less amount of labour, but to the character of the
soil, the consequence was that in the next year the newly arrived
agriculturists preferred the better land of the Dana plateau. There was now
an average expenditure of 42 hours of labour to the acre in the Dana
plateau, but in Eden Vale only 24; yet in the former place the additional
10 hours of labour did not yield the 1-1/2 cwt. per hour, as was the case
when the expenditure of labour was only 32 hours, but merely a scant 3
qrs.; that is, the returns did not rise from 48 cwt. to 63 cwt., but merely
to 55 cwt.--sank therefore to 1.34 cwt. per hour of labour. The consequence
was that the returns, notwithstanding the considerable increase in the
price of grain due to the improved means of communication, rose merely to
5s., of which 3s. per hour of labour was available for division among the
members. In Eden Vale, on the other hand, the gross returns were lessened
merely 3 cwt. by the withdrawal of eight hours of labour per acre; the
produce therefore now was 33 cwt. for 24 hours of labour, or 1.37 cwt. per
hour of labour. The Eden Vale association therefore numbered a trifle more
than that of Dana; and as Eden Vale was a more desirable place of
residence, and had more conveniences than the Dana plateau, the stream of
agriculturists flowed back to Eden Vale until, after two other harvests,
there remained a difference of profit of about five per cent. in favour of
the Dana plateau, and this advantage, with slight variations, continued
permanently.

But just as the principle of the solidarity of interests brought about by
the mobility of labour placed him who used the actually worse land in the
enjoyment of the advantages of the better land, so everyone, whatever
branch of production he might be connected with, participated in all the
various kinds of advantages of the best land; and, on the other hand, every
cultivator of the soil, like every other producer, derived profit from all
the increased productiveness of labour, in whatsoever branch of labour in
our commonwealth it might arise, just as if he were himself immediately
concerned in it. _All_ means of production are common property; the use
which any one of us may make of this common property does not depend upon
the accident of possession, nor upon the superintending care of an
all-controlling communistic authority, but solely upon the capacity and
industry of each individual.




CHAPTER IX


As already stated, the fundamental condition of the successful working of
the simple organisation described above was the completest publicity of all
industrial proceedings. The organisation was in truth merely a mode of
removing all those hindrances that stand in the way of the free realisation
of the individual will guided by a wise self-interest. So much the more
necessary was it to give right direction to this sovereign will, and to
offer to self-interest every assistance towards obtaining a correct and
speedy grasp of its real advantage.

No business secrets whatever! That was at once the fundamental law of Eden
Vale. In the other parts of the world, where the struggle for existence
finds its consummation not merely in exploiting and enslaving one another,
but over and above this in a mutual industrial annihilation--where, in
consequence of the universal over-production due to under-consumption,
competition is synonymous with robbing each other of customers--there, in
the Old World, to disclose the secrets of trade would be tantamount to
sacrificing a position acquired with much trouble and cunning. Where an
immense majority of men possess no right to the increasing returns of
production, but, not troubling themselves about the productiveness of
labour, must be content with 'wages'--that is, with what is necessary for
their subsistence--there can be no sufficient demand for the total produce
of highly productive labour. The few wealthy cannot possibly consume the
constantly growing surplus, and their endeavour to capitalise such
surplus--that is, to convert it into instruments of labour--is defeated by
the impossibility of employing the means of a production the products of
which cannot be consumed. In the exploiting world, therefore, there
prevails a constant disproportion between productive power and consumption,
between supply and demand; and the natural consequence is that the disposal
of the products gives rise to a constant and relentless struggle between
the various producers. The principal care of the exploiting producers is
not to produce as much and as well as possible, but to acquire a market for
as large as possible a quantity of their own commodities; and as, in view
of the disproportion above explained, such a market can be acquired and
retained only at the expense of other producers. There necessarily exists a
permanent and irreconcilable conflict of interest. It is different among
us. We can always be sure of a sale, for with us no more can be produced
than is used, since the total produce belongs to the worker, and the
consumption, the satisfaction of real requirements, is the exclusive motive
of labour. Among us, therefore, the disclosure of the sources of trade can
rob no one of his customers, since any customers whom he may happen to lose
must necessarily be replaced by others.

On the other hand, what reason has the producer in the world outside to
communicate his experiences to others? Can those others make any use of the
knowledge they would thus acquire, except to do him injury? And can he use
any such information when communicated to him, except to the injury of
others? Does he allow others to participate in his business when his is the
more profitable, or does another let him do so with the business of that
other when the case is reversed? If the demand for the commodities of a
producer increases, the labour market is open to him, where he can find
servants enough ready to work without inquiring about his profits so long
as they receive their 'wages.' Thus, elsewhere in the world, not even are
the consumers interested in the publication of trade practices, which
publication, moreover, as has already been said, would be a matter of
impossibility. Quite different is this among us in Freeland. We allow
everyone to participate in our trade advantages, and we can therefore
participate in the trade advantages of everyone else; and we are compelled
to publish these advantages because, in the absence of a market of
labourers who have neither will nor interest of their own, this publicity
is the only way of attracting labour when the demand for any commodities
increases.

And--which is the principal thing--whilst elsewhere no one has an interest
in the increase of production by others, among us every one is most
intensely interested in seeing everyone produce as easily and as well as
possible. For the classical phrase of the solidarity of all economic
interests has among us become a truth; but elsewhere it is nothing more
than one of those numerous self-deceptions of which the political economy
of the exploiting world is composed. Where the old system of industry
prevails, universal increase of production of wealth is a chimera. Where
consumption by the masses cannot increase, there cannot production and
wealth increase, but can be only shifted, can only change place and owner;
in proportion as the production of one person increases must that of some
one else diminish, unless consumption increases, which, where the masses
are excluded from enjoying the increasing returns of labour, can happen
only accidentally, and by no means step by step with the increasing power
of productiveness of labour. With us in Freeland, on the contrary, where
production--in view of the necessary growth of the power of consumption in
exactly the same proportion--can and does increase indefinitely so far as
our facilities and arts permit, with us it is the supreme and most absolute
interest of the community to see that everyone's labour is employed
wherever it can earn the highest returns; and there is no one who is not
profited when the labour of all is thus employed to the completest extent
possible. The individuals or the individual associations which, by virtue
of our organisation, are compelled to share an accidentally acquired
advantage with another, certainly suffer a loss of gain by this
circumstance looked at by itself; but infinitely greater is the general
advantage derived from the fact that the same thing occurs everywhere, that
productiveness is constantly increasing, and their own advantage therefore
compels the occurrence of the same everywhere. To how undreamt-of high a
degree this is the case will be abundantly shown by the subsequent history
of Freeland.

It remains now to say something of the measures adopted to ensure the most
extensive publicity of industrial proceedings. We start from the principle
that the community has to concern itself with the affairs of the individual
as little as possible in the way of hindering or commanding, but, on the
other hand, as much as possible in the way of guiding and instructing.
Everyone may act as he pleases, so far as he does not infringe upon the
rights of others; but, however he acts, what he does must be open to
everyone. Since he here has to do not with industrial opponents, but only
with industrial rivals, who all have an interest in stimulating him as much
as possible, this publicity is to his own advantage. In conformity with
this principle, when a new member was admitted by the outside agents, his
industrial specialty was stated, and the report sent as quickly as possible
to the committee. This was not done out of idle curiosity, nor from a
desire to exercise a police oversight; rather these data were published for
the use and advantage of the productive associations as well as of the new
members themselves. The consequence was that, as a rule, the new members on
their arrival at the Kenia found suitable work-places prepared for them,
such as would enable them at once to utilise their working capacity to the
best advantage. No one forced them to accommodate themselves to these
arrangements made without their co-operation, but as these arrangements
served their advantage in the best conceivable way, they--with a few
isolated exceptions--accepted them with the greatest pleasure.

The second and most important subject of publication were the trade reports
of the producers, of the associations as well as of the comparatively few
isolated producers. Of the former, as being by far the more important and
by their very nature compelled to adopt a careful system of bookkeeping, a
great deal was required--in fact the full disclosure of all their
proceedings. Gross returns, expenses, net returns, purchases and sales,
amount of labour, disposal of the net returns,--all must be published in
detail, and, according to the character of the respective data, either
yearly, or at shorter intervals--the amount of labour, for example, weekly.
In the case of the isolated producers, it sufficed to publish such details
as would be disclosed by the regulation about to be described.

The buying and selling of all conceivable products and articles of
merchandise in Freeland was carried on in large halls and warehouses, which
were under the management of the community. No one was forbidden to buy and
sell where he pleased, but these public magazines offered such enormous
advantages that everyone who did not wish to suffer loss made use of them.
No fee was charged for storing or manipulation, as it was quite immaterial,
in a country where everyone consumed in proportion to his production,
whether the fees were levied upon the consumers as such, or upon the same
persons in their character as producers in the form of a minimal tax. What
was saved by the simplification of the accounts remained as a pure gain.
Further, an elaborate system of warranty was connected with these
warehouses. Since the warehouse officials were at the same time the channel
through which purchases were made, they were always accurately informed as
to the condition of the market, and could generally appraise the warehoused
goods at their full value. The sales took place partly in the way of public
auction, and partly at prices fixed by the producers; and here also no
commission was charged to either seller or buyer.

The supreme authority in Freeland was at the same time the banker of the
whole population. Not merely every association, but every individual, had
his account in the books of the central bank, which undertook the receipts
and the disbursements from the millions of pounds which at a later date
many of the associations had to receive and pay, both at home and abroad,
down to the individual's share of profits on labour and his outlay on
clothes and food. A 'clearing system,' which really included everything,
made these numberless debit and credit operations possible with scarcely
any employment of actual money, but simply by additions to and subtractions
from the accounts in the books. No one paid cash, but gave cheques on his
account at the central bank, which gave him credit for his earnings,
debited his spendings to him, and gave him every month a statement of his
account. Naturally the loans granted by the commonwealth as capital for
production, mentioned in the previous chapter, appeared in the books of the
bank. In this way the bank was informed of the minutest detail of every
business transaction throughout the whole country. It not only knew where
and at what price the producers purchased their machinery and raw material
and where they sold their productions, but it knew also the housekeeping
account, the income and cost of living of every family. Even the retail
trade could not escape the omniscience of this control. Most of the
articles of food and many other necessaries were supplied by the respective
associations to their customers at their houses. All this the bank could
check to a farthing, for both purchases and sales went through the books of
this institution. The accounts of the bank had to agree with the statements
of the statistical bureau, and thus all these revelations possessed an
absolutely certain basis, and were not merely the results of an approximate
valuation. Even if anyone had wished to do so, it would have been simply
impracticable to conceal or to falsify anything.

This comprehensive and automatically secured transparency of the whole of
the productive and business relations afforded to the tax assessed in
Freeland a perfectly reliable basis. The principle was that the public
expenditure of the community should be covered by a contribution from each
individual exactly in proportion to his net income; and as in Freeland
there was no source of income except labour, and the income from this was
exactly known, there was not the slightest difficulty in apportioning the
tax. The apportionment of the tax was very simply made as soon as the
income existed, and that through the medium of the bank; and this was done
not merely in the case of the associations, but also of the few isolated
producers. In fact, by means of its bank the community had everyone's
income in hand sooner than the earners themselves; and it was merely
necessary to debit the earners with the amount and the tax was paid. Hence
in Freeland the tax was regarded not as a deduction from net income, but as
an outlay deducted from the gross product, just like the trade expenses. In
spite of its high amount, no one looked upon it as a burden, because
everyone knew that the greater part of it would flow back to him or to his,
and every farthing of it would be devoted to purposes of exclusively public
utility, which would immediately benefit him. It was therefore quite
correct to recognise no difference whatever between productive outlay by
the commonwealth and the more private outlay of the associations and
individuals, and accordingly to designate the former not as 'taxes,' but as
'general expenditure.'

This general expenditure, however, was very high. In the first year it
amounted to thirty-five per cent. of the net profits, and it never sunk
below thirty per cent., though the income on which the tax was levied
increased enormously. For the tax which the community in Freeland had
imposed upon themselves for the very purpose of making this increase of
wealth possible was so comprehensive in its objects as to make a most
colossal amount necessary.

One of its objects was to create the capital required for the purposes of
production. But it was only at first that the whole of this had to be met
out of the current tax, as afterwards the repayment of the loans partly met
the new demands.

A constantly increasing item of expenditure was the cost of education,
which swallowed up a sum of which no one outside of Freeland can have any
conception.

The means of communication also involved an expenditure that rose to
enormous dimensions, and the same has to be said of public buildings.

But the chief item of expenditure in the Freeland budget was under the head
of 'Maintenance,' which included the claims of those who, on account of
incapacity for work or because they were by our principles released from
the obligation of working, had a right to a competence from the public
funds. To these belonged all women, all children, all men over sixty years
of age, and of course all sick persons and invalids. The allowances to
these different classes were so high that not merely urgent necessities,
but also such higher daily needs as were commensurate with the general
wealth in Freeland for the time being, could be met. With this view the
allowances had to be so calculated that they should rise parallel with the
income of the working part of the population; the amounts, therefore, were
not fixed sums, but varied according to the average income. The average net
profit which fell to the individual from all the productive labour in the
country, and which increased year by year, was the unit of maintenance. Of
this unit every single woman or widow--unless she was a teacher or a nurse,
and received payment for her labour--was allotted thirty per cent.; if she
married, her allowance sank to fifteen per cent.; the first three children
in every household were allowed five per cent. each. Parentless orphans
were publicly supported at an average cost of twelve per cent. of the
maintenance unit. Men over sixty years and sick persons and invalids
received forty per cent.

It may at once be remarked that it would startle those unaccustomed to
Freeland ideas to hear the amounts of these allowances. In the first year
the maintenance unit reached 160L; therefore an unmarried woman or a widow
received 48L; a married woman 24L; a family with three children and a wife
48L; an old man or invalid 64L, which, in view of the prices that then
prevailed among us, was more than most European States give as pensions to
the highest functionaries or to their widows and orphans. For a cwt. of
fine flour cost, in that first year at the Kenia, 7s., a fat ox 12s.;
butter, honey, the most delicious fruits, were to be had at corresponding
prices. Lodgings cost not more at most than 2L a year. In brief, with her
48L a single woman could live among us in the enjoyment of many luxuries,
and need not deny herself to any material extent of those conveniences and
enjoyments which at that time were obtainable at all in Eden Vale. And
afterwards, when prices in Freeland were somewhat higher, the profits of
labour, and consequently the percentage of the maintenance allowance,
quickly rose to a much greater extent, so that the purchasing power of the
allowance constantly became more pronounced. But this was the intention of
the people of Freeland. Why? In the proper place this subject will be again
referred to, and then will in particular be explained why the women,
without exception, receive a maintenance allowance, and why teaching and
nursing are the only occupations of women that are mentioned. Here we
merely state that it naturally required a constantly increasing tax to
cover all these expenses.

Considerable items of expenditure were to be found under the heads,
'Statistics,' 'Warehouses,' and 'Bank'; but the relative cost of these
branches of the executive--notwithstanding their great absolute
growth--fell so rapidly in comparison with the taxable income, that in a
few years it had sunk to a minimal percentage of the total expenditure.

On the other hand, the departments of justice, police, military, and
finance, which in other countries swallow up nine-tenths of the total
budget, cost nothing in Freeland. We had no judges, no police organisation,
our tax flowed in spontaneously, and soldiers we knew not. Yet there was no
theft, no robbery, no murders among us; the payment of the tax was never in
arrears; and, as will be shown later on, we were by no means defenceless.
Our stores of weapons and ammunition, as well as our subsidies to the
warlike Masai, might be reckoned as a surrogate for a military budget. As
to the lack of a magistracy, we were such arrant barbarians that we did not
even consider a civil or a criminal code necessary, nor did we at that time
possess a written constitution. The committee, still in possession of the
absolute authority committed to it at the Hague, contented itself with
laying all its measures before public meetings and asking for the assent of
the members, which was unanimously given. For the settlement of
misunderstandings that might arise among the members, arbitrators were
chosen--at the recommendation of the committee--who should individually and
orally, to the best of their knowledge, give their judgment, and from them
appeal was allowed to the Board of Arbitrators; but they had as good as
nothing to do. Against vices and their dangerous results to the community,
we did not exercise any right of _punishment_, but only a right of
_protection_; and we esteemed _reformation_ the best and most effectual
means of protection. Since men with a normal mental and moral character, in
a community in which all the just interests of every member are equally
recognised, cannot possibly come into violent collision with the rights of
others, we considered casual criminals as mentally or morally diseased
persons, whose treatment it was the business of the community to provide
for. They were therefore, in proportion to their dangerousness to the
community, placed under surveillance or in custody, and subjected to
suitable treatment as long as seemed, in the judgment of competent
professional men, advisable in the interest of the public safety.
Professional men in the above sense, however, were not the justices of the
peace, who merely had to decide _whether_ the accused individual should
undergo the reforming treatment, but medical men specially chosen for this
purpose. The man who was under surveillance or in custody had the right of
appealing to the united Board of Medical Men and Justices of the Peace, and
publicly to plead his case before them, if he thought that he had been
injured by the action of the medical man set over him.

The appointment of the officers for public buildings, means of
communication, statistics, warehouses, central bank, education, &c., was
vested provisionally in the committee. The salaries were reckoned in
hour-equivalents, like those of the functionaries of the associations; and
these salaries ranged from 1,200 to 5,000 labour hours per annum, which in
the first year amounted to from 150L, to 600L. The agents in London,
Trieste, and Mombasa were each paid 800L per annum. These agents remained
only two years at their foreign posts, and then had a claim to
corresponding positions in Freeland. To each of its own members the
committee gave a salary of 5,000 hour-equivalents.

Each member of the committee was president of one of the twelve branches
into which the whole of the public administration of Freeland was
provisionally divided. These branches were:

     1. The Presidency.
     2. Maintenance.
     3. Education.
     4. Art and science.
     5. Statistics.
     6. Roads and means of communication.
     7. Post--including later the telegraph.
     8. Foreign affairs.
     9. Warehouses.
    10. Central bank.
    11. Public undertakings.
    12. Sanitation and administration of justice.

These are, in general outlines, the principles upon which in the beginning
Freeland was organised and administered. They stood the test of experience
in all respects most satisfactorily. The formation of the associations was
effected without the slightest delay. As the majority of the members who
successively arrived were unknown to each other, it was necessary in
filling the more responsible positions provisionally to follow the
recommendations of the committee; in most cases, therefore, provisional
appointments were made which could be afterwards replaced by definitive
ones. The already mentioned kinds of productive labour--agriculture,
gardening, pasturage, millering, saw-mills, beer-brewing, coal-mining, and
iron-working--were considerably enlarged and materially improved by the
increase of labour which daily arrived with the Mombasa caravans. A great
number of new industries were immediately added. Ono of the first--most of
the material of which was imported and only needed completing--was a
printing-office, with two cylinder machines and five other machines; and
from this office issued a daily journal. Then came in quick succession a
machine-factory, a glass-works, a brickyard, an oil-mill, a chemical-works,
a sewing and shoe factory, a carpenter's shop, and an ice-factory. On the
first day of the new year the first small screw steamboat was launched for
towing service in the Eden lake and the Dana river. This was at short
intervals followed by other and larger steamers for goods and passengers,
all constructed by the ship-building association, which, on account of its
excellent services, increased with extraordinary rapidity.

At the same time the committee employed a not inconsiderable part of the
newly arriving strength in public works; and the workers thus employed had
naturally to be paid at a rate corresponding to the average height of the
general labour-profit, and even at a higher rate when specially trying work
was required. These public works were, in the first instance, the
provisional house-accommodation for the newly arriving members. It was
arranged that every family should be furnished with a separate house,
whilst for those who were single several large hotels were built. The
family houses were of different sizes, containing from four to ten
dwelling-rooms, and each house had a garden of above 10,000 square feet.
Every new-comer could find a house that was convenient to him as to size
and situation, and might pay for it either at once or by instalments. Not
fewer than 1,500 such houses had to be got ready per month; they were
strongly built of double layers of thick plunks, and the average cost was
about 8L 10s. per room. For the use of hotel rooms, sixpence per week per
room was sufficient to cover the amortisation of the capital and the
expenses of management.

Together with the dwelling-houses, the building of schools was taken in
hand; and as it was anticipated that for some time from 1,000 to 1,200
fresh school-children would arrive per month, it was necessary to make
provision to secure a continuous increase of accommodation. These schools,
as well as the private houses, were of course erected, some in Eden Vale
and some on the Dana plateau, and were only of a provisional character, but
light, airy, and commodious. It was also necessary to secure a timely
supply of teachers, a task the accomplishment of which the committee
connected with another scarcely less important question. There was in
Freeland a great disproportion in the comparative number of the sexes,
particularly of young men and young marriageable women. Of the 460 pioneers
who had reached the Kenia between June and September, very few had either
wives or betrothed in the old home; and among the later arrivals there was
a preponderance of young unmarried men. It was not to be expected that the
immediate future would bring an adequate number of young unmarried women
unless some special means were adopted; but this forced celibacy could not
continue without danger of unpleasant social developments in a community
that aimed at uniting absolute freedom with the strictest morality. In
Taveta and Masailand, a few isolated cases of intrigue with native girls
and wives had occurred. At the Kenia, our young people had, without
exception, resisted the enticements of the ugly Wa-Kikuyu women; but our
young people could not permanently be required to exercise a self-denial
which, particularly in this luxurious country, would be contrary to nature.
It was therefore necessary to attract to Freeland young women who would be
a real gain not only to the men whom they married, but also to the country
that received them. We had merely to make the state of affairs known in
Europe and America, and to announce that women who remained single were in
Freeland supported by the State, and we should very soon have had no reason
to complain of a lack of women. But whether we should have been pleased
with those whom such an announcement might bring is another question. We
preferred, therefore, to instruct our representatives in the old home to
engage women-teachers for Freeland. The salary--180L for the first
year--was attractive, and we had a choice of numberless candidates. It was
therefore to no one's injury if these highly cultured women, most of whom
were young, gave up their teaching vocation not long after they reached
Freeland and consented to make some wooer happy. The vacated place was at
once filled by a new teacher, who quite as quickly made room for a fresh
successor.

In this way, for several years Freeland witnessed a constant influx of
quickly marrying women-teachers, though our representatives had no
instructions to make their choice of the candidates for our teacherships
depend in any way upon the suitability of such persons as candidates for
matrimony. Our announcement in the leading newspapers of the old home was
seriously meant and taken. 'Well-qualified cultured women-teachers wanted.
Salary 180L for the first year; more afterwards.' Elderly women who seemed
suitable for teachers were sometimes appointed; but young, sprightly women
are in the nature of things better fitted than old and enfeebled ones to
educate children, and thus we obtained what we needed without exhibiting
the least partiality. Later, this announcement was no longer needed; for it
gradually became known, especially in England, France, and Germany, that
young women-teachers found in Freeland charming opportunities of becoming
wives; so that the permanent preponderance of men among the general
immigrants was continually balanced by this influx of women-teachers.

The next problem to which special attention was given during this first
year of the new government was that of the post. The courier-service
between Eden Vale and Mombasa no longer sufficed to meet the demands of the
increased intercourse. The mails had grown to be larger in quantity than
could be transported in saddlebags, and they had to be more quickly
carried. It was most desirable that letters and despatches should pass
between Mombasa and Freeland at a more rapid rate than a little over sixty
miles a day, which had hitherto been the maximum. With this in view, the
road to Mombasa was thoroughly repaired. It should be remembered that this
road had not been 'constructed' in the Western sense of the term, but was
mainly in the condition in which nature had left it, nothing having been
done but to remove wood that stood in the way, fill up holes, and build
bridges. As the so called dry season extends from September to February,
very little rain had yet fallen; nevertheless our heavy waggons, which were
daily passing to and fro, had in places, where the ground was soft, made
deep ruts; and it was to be expected that the long rainy season beginning
in March would completely stop the traffic in some places if the road was
not seen to in time. Demestre, the head of the department for road
construction, therefore engaged 2,000 Swahili, Wa-Kikuyu, and Wa-Teita in
order at once to repair the worst places, and afterwards to improve the
whole of the road.

In the meantime, our general postmaster, Ferroni, had organised a threefold
transport and post service. For ordinary goods a luggage-service was
established, running uninterruptedly day and night, the oxen teams being
still retained. The old waggons, carrying both passengers and luggage, had
been obliged to halt longer at certain stations in the day than at others,
for the meal-times; and, apart from this, they were often delayed on the
way by the travellers. The new luggage-waggons stayed nowhere longer than
was necessary to give time to change the oxen and the attendants, and thus
gained an average of four hours a day, so that under favourable conditions
they could reach Eden Vale in twelve days. Of course passengers were not
taken. A second kind of service was arranged for express goods, and here
elephants were the motive power. Mrs. Ellen Ney's Indians, assisted by
several of our own people, who had been initiated into the secrets of the
catching and taming of these pachyderms, had trained several hundred of
these animals. Thirty-five elephants were placed at stages between Eden
Vale and Mombasa, and upon their backs from ten to twelve hundredweight of
the most various kinds of goods were daily carried in both directions. This
elephant-post covered the 600 miles and odd between the coast and Eden Vale
in seven or eight days. For the third and fastest service mounted couriers
were employed; only there were twenty-two instead of only ten relays, and
sixty-five fresh horses were used, so that, with an average speed of over
eleven miles an hour, the whole journey was made in two days and a half.
They carried merely despatches and letters; but from Mombasa they also
carried a packet of European and American newspapers for our Eden Vale
newspaper. (All newspapers sent to private persons were carried by the
elephant-post.) A few months later, our representative in Mombasa effected
an arrangement between the Sultan of Zanzibar and the English and the
German governments, in accordance with which a telegraph-line was
constructed between Mombasa and Zanzibar at the common cost of the
contracting parties. This very soon made it possible for us to communicate
with and receive answers from all parts of the civilised world in five or
six days; and our newspaper was able every Wednesday--its publishing
day--to report what had happened three days before in London or New York,
Paris or Berlin, Vienna or Rome, St. Petersburg or Constantinople. For
passengers, besides the oxen-waggons, which, on account of their greater
comfort, were retained for the use of women and children, there were
express-waggons drawn by horses, which made the journey in ten days.

For the rest, the mode of life at the Kenia had meanwhile altered but
little, with the exception of the fact that Eden Vale, which before the
arrival of the first waggon-caravan was only a large village, in the course
of a few months grew to be a considerable town of more than 20,000
inhabitants. On the Dana plateau, where at first there were only a few
huts, two large villages had sprung up--one at the east end near the great
waterfall, and inhabited by the workers in several factories; the other
nearer to Eden Vale, and the home of an agricultural colony. A very
noticeable air of untroubled joyousness and unmistakable comfort was common
to all the inhabitants of Freeland. The manner of life was still very
primitive, in harmony with the provisional character of the houses and the
dress; on the other hand, as to meat and drink there was abundance, even
luxury. The meals were in the main still arranged as they had been at first
by the earliest comers; only the women had soon invented a number of fresh
and ingenious modes of utilising the many delicate products of the country.
The list of aesthetic and intellectual enjoyments within reach had not been
considerably enlarged. The journal; a library founded by the Education
Bureau, and daily enriched by newly arriving chests of books, so that by
the New Year it contained 18,000 volumes, which did not by any means meet
the demand for reading, particularly during the hot midday hours; several
new singing and orchestral societies; reading or debating circles; and two
dozen pianos--these were all that had been added to the original stock of
means of recreation. But there was frequent hunting in the splendid woods;
and excursions to the more accessible points of view were the order of the
day. In short, the Freelanders endeavoured to make life as pleasant as
possible with such a temporarily small variation in the programme of
pleasures and intellectual recreation. In spite of all drawbacks, happiness
and content reigned in every house.

With respect also to the hours of labour, the system originally adopted was
on the whole retained. The men worked for the most part between 5 and 10
A.M. and between 4 and 6 P.M.; the women, assisted by natives, took care of
the home and of the children when they were not at school. Yet no one felt
bound to observe these hours--everyone worked when and as long as he
pleased; and several associations, the work of which would not well bear
the interruption of meal-times, introduced a system of relays which ensured
the presence of a few hands at work during the hot hours. But as no one
could be compelled to work during those hours, it became customary to pay
for the more burdensome midday work a higher rate than for the ordinary
work, and this had the effect of bringing the requisite number of
volunteers. The same held good for the night work that was necessary in
certain establishments.




CHAPTER X


At the end of our first year of residence at the Kenia, Freeland possessed
a population of 95,000 souls, of whom 27,000 were men belonging to 218
associations and engaged in eighty-seven different kinds of work. In the
last harvest--there are here two harvests in the year, one in October after
the short rainy season, and the other in June after the long rainy
season--36,000 acres had yielded nearly 2,000,000 cwt. of grain,
representing in value the sum of 300,000L, and giving to the 10,800 workers
an average profit of nearly 2s. 6d. for every hour of labour. But it must
not be supposed that all these workers spent their whole time in
agricultural pursuits; except during sowing and harvest a great many
agriculturists found profitable employment for the labour which would have
been superfluous in the fields in the neighbouring industrial
establishments. The average profit of all the industries was a little
higher than that of agriculture; and as it was usual to work about forty
hours a week, the average weekly earnings of an ordinary worker of moderate
application were 5L 5s.

Next to agriculture, the iron-works and machine-factories gave employment
to the greatest number; in fact, if we take not the temporary employment of
a large number of men, but the total number of labour-hours devoted to the
work, as our measure, then these latter industries employed much more
labour than agriculture. And this is not to be wondered at, for all the
associations needed machinery in order to carry on their work to the best
advantage. In other countries, where the wages of labour and the profit of
labour are fundamentally different things, there is a fundamental
distinction between the profitableness of a business and the theoretical
perfection of the machinery used in it. In order to be theoretically useful
a machine must simply save labour--that is, the labour required for
producing and working the machine must be less than that which is saved by
using it. The steam-plough, for example, is a theoretically good and useful
machine if the manufacture of it, together with the production of the coal
consumed by it, swallows up less human labour than on the other hand is
saved by ploughing with steam instead of with horses or cattle. But the
actual profitableness of a machine is quite another thing--out of Freeland,
we mean, of course. In order to be profitable, the steam-plough must save,
not labour, but value or money--that is, it must cost less than the labour
which it has saved would have cost. But elsewhere in the world it by no
means follows that it costs less because the amount of labour saved is
greater than that consumed by the manufacture of the steam-plough and the
production of the coal it uses. For whilst the labour which the improved
plough saves receives merely its 'wages,' with the bought plough and the
bought coal there have to be paid for not only the labour required in
producing them, but also three items of 'gain'--namely, ground-rent,
interest, and undertaker's salary. Thus it may happen that the
steam-plough, between its first use and its being worn out, saves a million
hours of labour, whilst in its construction and in the total quantity of
coal it has required, it may have consumed merely 100,000 hours of labour;
and yet it may be very unprofitable--that is, it may involve very great
loss to those who, relying upon the certainty of such an enormous saving of
labour, should buy and use it. For the million hours of labour saved mean
no more than a million hours of _wages_ saved; therefore, for example,
10,000L, if the wages are merely 1L for a hundred hours of labour. For the
construction of the plough and for the means of driving it 100,000 hours of
labour are required, which alone certainly will have cost 1,000L. But then
the rent which the owners of the iron-pits and the coal-mines charge, and
the interest for the invested capital, must be paid, and finally the
profits of the iron-manufacturer and the coal-producer. All this may, under
certain circumstances, amount to more than the difference of 9,000L between
cost of labour in the two cases respectively; and when that is the case the
Western employer loses money by buying a machine which saves a thousand per
cent. of his labour. With us the case is quite different: the living labour
which the steam-plough spares _us_ is hour for hour exactly as valuable as
the labour-time which has been bestowed upon the plough and has been
transformed into commodities; for in Freeland there is no distinction
between the profit of labour and the wages of labour, and in Freeland,
therefore, every theoretically useful--that is, every really
labour-saving--machine is at the same time, and of necessity, profitable.
This is the reason why in Freeland the manufacture of machines is
necessarily of such enormous and constantly increasing importance. One half
of our people are engaged in the manufacture of ingenious mechanical
implements, moved by steam, electricity, water, compressed or rarefied air,
by means of which the other half multiply their powers of production a
hundredfold; and it follows as a natural consequence that among us the
employment of machinery has developed a many-sidedness and a perfectness of
which those who are outside the limits of our country have no conception.

The most important manufacture taken in hand before the end of this first
year was that of steam-ploughs and--worked provisionally by animal
labour--seed-drills and reaping-machines sufficient for the cultivation of
the 64,000 acres which were to be brought under the plough for the October
harvest. We calculated that, by the initial expenditure of 3,500,000 hours
of labour, we should save at least 3,000,000 hours of labour yearly. In
other parts of the world that would have been a great misfortune for the
workers who would thus have been rendered superfluous, while the community
would not have profited at all. We, on the contrary, were able to find
excellent employment for the labour thus saved, which could be utilised in
producing things that would elevate and refine, and for which the increased
productiveness of labour had created a demand.

A second work, which had to be carried out during the next year, was the
improvement of the means of communication by deepening the bed of the Dana
from the flour-mill above the Eden lake to the great waterfall on the Dana
plateau, and by the construction of a railway across the Dana plateau. With
this were to be connected rope-lines on several of the Kenia foot-hills for
the use of the miners and the foresters.

That all the existing industries were enlarged, and a great number of new
ones started, will be taken for granted. It should be mentioned that only
such factories were erected in Eden Vale or on the upper course of the Dana
as would pollute neither the air nor the water; the less cleanly
manufactures were located at the east end of the Dana plateau, close upon
or even below the waterfall. Later, means were found of preventing any
pollution whatever of the water by industrial refuse.

The town of Eden Vale had grown to contain 48,000 souls and covered more
than six square miles, with its small houses and gardens, and its numerous
large, though still primitively constructed, wooden public buildings. The
herds of cattle, and the horses, asses, camels, elephants, and the newly
imported swine--all of which had increased to an enormous extent--were for
the main part transferred to the Dana plateau, while the wild animals were
excluded by a strong stockade drawn round the heights that encircled Eden
Vale.

We were driven to this last somewhat costly measure by an incident which
fortunately passed off without serious consequences, but which showed the
necessity of being protected against marauding animals. The noise of the
town had for months made the wild animals which once abounded in Eden Vale
avoid our immediate neighbourhood. But in the surrounding woods and copses
there were still considerable numbers of antelopes, zebras, giraffes,
buffaloes, and rhinoceroses; the elephants alone had completely
disappeared. One fine evening, just before sunset, an enterprising old
rhinoceros bull approached the town, and, enraged by some dogs--of which we
had imported a good number, besides those that were descended from the dogs
we brought with us--made his way into one of the principal streets of the
town. This street led to a little grove which was a favourite playground
for children, especially in the evening, and which was full of children
when the savage brute suddenly appeared among them. The children were in
charge of several women-teachers, who, as well as the children, lost their
heads at sight of the monster, which was snorting and puffing like a
steam-engine. Teachers and children fled together, chased by the
rhinoceros, which, singling out a little fugitive, tossed her like a
feather into the air. Seeing one of the teachers, who had fallen in her
fright, lying motionless on the ground, the rhinoceros chose her as his
next victim, and was within a few steps of her when the dogs, which had so
far contented themselves with barking, now fell in a body upon the beast as
if they recognised the danger of the women and children, and, by biting its
ears and other tender parts, drew its fury upon themselves. The struggle
was an unequal one, and in a few moments the rhinoceros had slain two of
the brave dogs and severely wounded three others; but the rest persisted in
their attack, and thus gave the children and their attendants time to save
themselves. The little girl who had been tossed was merely frightened, and
found safety in one of the houses near by. The rhinoceros, when he had put
several more of the dogs _hors de combat_, trotted off, and was soon out of
sight of the men who had hastened to the rescue with all kinds of weapons.

Such a scene could not be allowed to be repeated. The next day it was
resolved to surround Eden Vale with a fence, and the work was at once
begun. As the Kenia rocks formed a secure defence on one side, it was
necessary only to construct a semicircular barrier. On the ridge of the
surrounding heights, with timber obtained on the spot, a barrier five feet
high was constructed, strong enough to resist the attacks of any wild
beast, and extending about twenty miles. This protection was intended
simply to keep out rhinoceroses, elephants, and buffaloes; antelopes,
zebras, even giraffes and such like, if they had a fancy for leaping the
barrier, could do no harm. Nor did we need any protection against beasts of
prey--lions and leopards--for these had for months entirely left the
neighbourhood. When this barrier was completed, except for a distance of
about 220 yards, we had a great hunt, by which all the wild beasts that
were still in the valley were driven to this opening and then chased out.
The chain of hunters was so close that we had every reason to be sure that
not an animal was left behind. Two rhinoceroses and a buffalo made an
attempt to break the chain, but were shot down. The opening in the barrier
was then closed up, and there was no longer any wild quadruped worth
mentioning in the whole of Eden Vale.

On the other hand, the groves and woods within the barrier became
increasingly populous with tame antelopes of all kinds, which were
accustomed to return to their owners in the evening. Very soon there was
not a family--particularly with children--in Eden Vale which did not
possess one or more tame antelopes, monkeys, or parrots; and elephant cubs,
under two years of age, wandered by dozens in the streets and in the public
places, the pampered pets of the children, who were remarkably attached to
these little proboscidians. An elephant cub is never better pleased than
when he has as many children as he can carry upon his back, and he will
even neglect his meals in order to have a frolic with his two-legged
comrades.

At the beginning of the second year our European agents informed us that
the rate of increase of members had assumed very large proportions. The
notices of Freeland which had been published in the journals--
correspondents of some of the principal European and American journals had
visited us--had naturally very powerfully quickened the desire to
emigrate; and if all the indications did not deceive us, we had to expect,
during the second year of our residence at the Kenia, an influx of at
least twice, probably thrice, as many as had come during the first year.
Provision had, therefore, to be made for the requisite means of transport.
As many of the more wealthy new members paid for passages in ships
belonging to foreign companies, instead of waiting to take their turn in
our own ships, the most urgent part of the work was that of increasing the
means of transport from Mombasa. A thousand new waggons were therefore
purchased as speedily as possible, together with the requisite number of
draught-cattle; and they were set to work in the order of purchase from
March onwards. At the same time our London agent bought first six, and
shortly afterwards four more, steamships of from 4,000 to 10,000 tons
burden, and adapted them to our requirements so that each ship could carry
from 1,000 to 3,000 passengers. By means of these new steamships the
traffic through Trieste was increased; the largest ships took passengers
from thence as the most favourably situated point of departure for the
whole of the middle of Europe. Twice a week, also, a ship went from
Marseilles, and once a month another from San Francisco across the Pacific
Ocean. After a third set of a thousand waggons had been ordered to provide
for emergencies, we thought we had made adequate provision for the
transport of immigrants during the second year.

So stood affairs when Demestre approached the committee with the
declaration that our primitive method of transport from Mombasa could not
possibly suffice to meet the requirements of the strong permanent tide of
immigration which promised to set in. We must at once think about
constructing a railway between Eden Vale and the coast. The cost would be
covered by the immigrants alone, and the incalculable advantage that would
accrue to the whole of our industry would be clear profit. When he spoke of
the covering of the cost by the immigrants he did not mean to propose that
they should pay for travelling on the railway. The fare, however high it
were fixed, would not suffice to cover the cost; and he did not propose to
levy any direct payment for transport by rail, any more than had been done
for transport by waggon. What he referred to was the saving of time. The
waggons did the journey on an average in fourteen days, and after the
fatigues of the journey the immigrants needed a rest of several days before
they were ready for work. By rail the 600 miles and odd could comfortably
be done in twenty-four hours; there would thus be an average saving of
twelve labour-days. When it was considered that, among the 250,000 or
300,000 immigrants who might be expected to arrive yearly for some time to
come, there would be between 70,000 and 80,000 persons able to work, the
railway would mean a gain for them of from 800,000 to 1,000,000
labour-days. At present the average daily earnings amounted to 15s., and
the 800,000 labour-days therefore represented a total value of 600,000L.
But before the railway was finished the average value of labour in Freeland
would probably have doubled; and when he said that the railway would in the
first year of its working yield to the immigrants at least a million pounds
sterling he was certainly within the mark. Every year would this gain
increase in proportion to the increased productiveness of labour in
Freeland.

On the other side was the cost of construction of the line; he would not
speak of the cost of working, for, though there was no doubt that it would
be less than the cost of working the transport services hitherto in
operation, yet the saving might be left out of sight as not worth
mentioning. The cost of constructing a railway to the coast could not be
definitely calculated, particularly as the route was not yet decided upon.
Whether the route of our caravan-road should be, with slight alterations,
retained; whether another route to Mombasa should be chosen; or whether the
coast should be reached at quite another point, nobody could say at
present, when only one of the routes had been surveyed at all, and that
only very imperfectly. But on the supposition that no better route could be
found than the old one, or that this should be ultimately chosen on
technical grounds, he could positively assert that the railway could not
possibly cost nearly so much as the savings of the immigrants would amount
to in the course of a few years. And, in consequence of the way in which
labour was organised in Freeland, every increase in the produce of labour
was converted into immediate gain to the whole community.

We should therefore proceed at once to construct the railway, even if it
were merely to the advantage of the immigrants. That it was not merely to
their advantage, however, was self-evident, since the profit which the
community would derive from the cheapening and facilitating of the goods
traffic would be infinitely greater--so great that it could not be even
approximately calculated. He merely wished to throw a few rays of light
upon the economic result of the railway. Assuming that the line would be
completed in three years, we should then have a population of about a
million, and there was no doubt that when we had sufficient means of
transport we should be able easily to produce ten million hundredweight of
grain for export. Such a quantity of grain at the Kenia then represented
one and a-half million pounds sterling. If the cost of transport sank from
five or six shillings per cwt., the current price--independently of the
fact that a greater quantity could not then be conveyed--to one shilling,
or at most eighteen-pence, which might be looked upon as the maximum
railway freight for 600 miles, then the value of the above quantity of
grain would be raised to a round two million pounds sterling. In short, he
was firmly convinced that the railway, even at the highest probable cost,
must fully pay for itself in three or four years at the latest. He
therefore proposed that they should at once send out several expeditions of
skilled engineers to find the most suitable route for the future line. They
should not proceed too cautiously, for even a considerable difference in
cost would be preferable to loss of time.

Everything that Demestre urged in support of his project was so just and
clear that it was unanimously adopted without debate; in fact, everyone
secretly wondered why he had not himself thought of it long before. The
only thing to do now, therefore, was to trace the route of the future
railway. In the first place, there was the old route through Kikuyu into
Masailand, thence to the east of Kilimanjaro, past Taveta and Teita, to
Mombasa. A second and possibly more favourable route was thought of, which
led also southwards, and reached the coast at Mombasa, but took a direction
two degrees further east, through Kikuyu, into the country of the Ukumbani,
and thence followed the valley of the Athi river to Teita. This track might
probably shorten the distance by more than a hundred miles. The third, the
shortest route to the ocean, led directly east, following the Dana, through
the Galla lands, to the Witu coast; here eventually nearly half the
distance might be saved, for we were but about 280 miles from the coast in
a straight line.

It was decided that these three routes should be examined as carefully as
would be possible in the course of a few months; for the beginning of the
construction of the line was not to be delayed more than half a year.
Demestre was appointed to examine the old route, with which he was already
well acquainted. Two other skilful engineers were sent to the Athi and the
Dana respectively, each accompanied, as was Demestre, by a staff of not
less qualified colleagues. But these two latter expeditions, having to
explore utterly unknown districts, inhabited by probably hostile tribes,
had to be well armed. They were each 300 strong, and, besides a sufficient
number of repeating-rifles, they took with them several war elephants, some
cannons, and some rockets. All these expeditions were accompanied by a
small band of naturalists, geologists in particular. They started in the
beginning of May, and they were instructed to return, if possible, in
August, before the short rainy season.

Whilst our attention was fixed principally upon the east in making
provision for the enormous influx expected from Europe and America, an
unexpected complication was brought about in the west by means of our
allies, the Masai. In order to find a new field for their love of
adventure, which they could no longer bring into play against the Swahili,
Wa-Duruma, Wa-Teita, Wa-Taveta, and Wa-Kikuyu, whom we had made their
allies, the Masai fell upon the Nangi and Kavirondo, who live west of Lake
Baringo, and drove off a large number of their cattle. But when the
patience of these large tribes was exhausted, they forgot for a time their
mutual animosities, turned the tables upon the Masai, and overran their
country. In this war the Masai suffered a great deal, for their opponents,
though not equal to them in bravery, far surpassed them in numbers. If the
Masai had but got together in time, they might have easily collected in
their own country an army equal to the 18,000 Kavirondo and Nangi who took
the field against them: but they were thrown into confusion by the
unexpected attack, got together a poor 7,000 _el-moran_, and suffered utter
defeat in two sanguinary engagements. More than a thousand of their
warriors fell, and the swarms of the victors poured continuously over the
whole country between the Lakes Baringo and Naivasha, sweeping all the
Masai before them, and getting an immense booty in women, children, and
cattle. This was at the beginning of May; and the Masai, who knew not how
to escape from their exasperated foes except by our aid, sent couriers who
reached the Kenia with their petitions for help on the 10th of the month.

This help was of course at once granted. On the day after the messengers
reached us, 500 of our horsemen, with the still available cannons and
rockets, and with twenty-four elephants, started in forced marches for the
Naivasha, where the Masai, favoured by the character of the country,
thought they could hold out for a time. Our men reached their destination
on the 16th, just after our allies had met with another reverse and were
scarcely able to hold out another day. Johnston, who led our little army,
scarcely waited to refresh his horses before he sent word to the Kavirondo
and the Nangi that they were to cease hostilities at once; he was come, not
as their enemy, but as arbitrator. If they would not accept his mediation,
he would at once attack them; but he warned them beforehand that successful
resistance to his weapons and to those of his people was impossible.
Naturally, this threat had no effect upon the victorious blacks. It is true
they had already heard all sorts of vague rumours about the mysterious
white strangers; and the elephants and horses, which they now saw, though
at a distance, were not likely to please them. But their own great numbers,
in comparison with the small body of our men, and chiefly their previous
successes, encouraged them, after their elders had held a short _shauri_,
to send a defiant answer. Let Johnston attack them; they would 'eat him up'
as they meant to eat up the whole of Masailand.

Johnston anticipated such an answer, and had made the necessary
preparations. As soon as he had received the challenge he caused his men to
mount at once, told the Masai not to join in the fight at all, and then he
attacked the Kavirondo and Nangi. This time he did not rely upon the effect
of blank-cartridges, not because an entirely bloodless battle would
scarcely have satisfied the Masai's longing for revenge, but because he
wished to end the whole war at a single stroke. He therefore allowed his
men to approach within 550 yards of the blacks, who kept their ground; and
then, whilst the horsemen charged the enemy's centre, he directed several
sharp volleys from the cannons and rockets against them. Naturally, the
whole order of battle was at once broken up in wild flight, though not many
men fell. Those who fled westward Johnston allowed to escape; but the main
body of the enemy, who tried to get away along the banks of the Naivasha to
the north, were cut off by 400 of our men, whilst he kept with the other
hundred between the blacks and the Masai, principally for the purpose of
preventing the latter from falling upon the conquered. Our 400 horsemen,
who made a wide circle round the fugitives, much as sheep-dogs do around a
scattering flock of sheep, soon brought the Kavirondo and Nangi to a stand,
who, when they found themselves completely surrounded, threw down their
weapons and begged for mercy. Johnston ordered them to send their elders to
him, as he did not intend to do them any further harm, but merely wished to
bring about peace between them and the Masai.

As might be supposed, the peace negotiations were brief, for Johnston did
not require anything unjust from the conquered, who were completely at his
mercy. They were to give up all their prisoners and booty; and, after they
had taken an oath to keep the peace with us and the Masai, they should
remain unmolested. In the meantime, however, until the prisoners and the
booty had been given up--for only a part of both had fallen into our hands,
the Kavirondo having sent off the greater part to their own country several
days before--they were to remain upon one of the Naivasha islands as our
prisoners. Those who thus remained numbered more than 10,000, and included
some of the chief men of their nation. The Kavirondo and Nangi accepted
these terms; in the course of the afternoon and night they were ferried
across to one of the neighbouring islands, and twelve of their number were
sent home to bring back the booty.

Johnston, having caused the Masai leaders to be brought before him,
administered to them a very severe reprimand. Did they think that we should
continue to be friends with thieves and robbers? Had he not told them that
the swords which we had given to their _leitunus_ would snap asunder like
glass if drawn in an unrighteous cause? And in the war with the Kavirondo
and Nangi were not the Masai in the wrong? 'We have saved you from the just
punishment with which you were threatened, for the alliance which we had
contracted still stood good when you were defeated; but we dissolve that
alliance! I stay here until the Kavirondo and Nangi have brought back their
booty, which shall be handed over to you in its entirety; but, after that,
do not expect anything more from us. We can live in friendship with only
peaceable honourable people. Henceforth the Kavirondo and Nangi are our
friends; woe to you in the future if you ever break the peace; our anger
will shatter you as the lightning shatters the sycamore-tree!'

The Masai were completely cowed. This unlooked-for dissolution of a
friendship which had for a year past been their chief pride, and which had
just been their salvation in extremity, was more than they were able to
bear. But Johnston preserved a severe attitude towards them, and finally
insisted upon their leaving his camp. When the _leitunus_ and _leigonanis_
returned to their people with the terrible news that their friendship with
the white brethren was at an end there were exhibited the most extravagant
signs of distress. The whole camp of the Masai rushed over to ours; but
Johnston ordered them to be told that, weaponless though they were, he
would fire upon them if they dared to come near. This was repeated several
times during the next few days. The Masai sent messengers throughout the
whole country, called together the wisest of their elders, and again and
again endeavoured to induce Johnston to treat with them; but he remained
inexorable, had his camp entrenched, and threatened to shoot every Masai
who attempted to enter it.

In ten days the Kavirondo and Nangi messengers returned with the prisoners
and the cattle. Johnston now bade the Masai elders appear before him that
he might hand over to them what he had won for them in battle. The Masai
came, and took advantage of the opportunity of making their last attempt to
appease the terrible white man. Johnston might keep all that he--not
they--had recovered; they were willing to regard the loss they had suffered
as the just punishment of their crime; they were ready to do yet more if he
would but forgive them and give them his friendship again. It was to this
point that Johnston had wished to bring these people, whom he knew right
well. He showed himself touched by their appeal, but said that he could
grant nothing without the knowledge and consent of the other leaders in
Eden Vale. He would report to the great council the repentance of the Masai
people; and it was for the council to decide what was to be done. On the
19th and 20th of June, the days appointed for the commemoration of the
alliance with us, they were to come with their fellow-countrymen to the
place of rendezvous on the south shore of Naivasha lake; there should they
receive an answer.

It is unnecessary to say that Johnston's threats were not seriously meant.
The alliance with the Masai was of too much importance to us for us to wish
it dissolved. But Johnston had been instructed by the committee to use
every means to restrain the Masai from plundering in the future and to
induce them to keep the peace with all their neighbours. And the committee
were well aware that extreme measures were necessary to attain these ends,
for to convert the Masai into a peaceable people meant nothing less than to
divest them of their characteristic peculiarities. They are in truth a
purely military nation. War is their peculiar business--their organisation
and habits of life all have reference to war. They differ from all their
neighbours, being ethnographically distinct, for they are not negroes, but
a bronze-coloured Hamitic race evidently related to the original
inhabitants of Egypt. They carry on no industry, even their cattle-breeding
being in the hands of their captured slaves; while they themselves are in
youth exclusively warriors, and in age dignified idlers. The warriors, the
_el-moran_, live apart and unmarried--though by no means in celibacy--in
separate kraals; the older married men--the _el-morun_--also live in
separate villages. They buy their weapons of the Andorobbo who live among
them; and the small amount of corn which the married men and their wives
consume--for the _el-moran_ eat only milk and flesh--they buy of
neighbouring foreign tribes. Their morals are exceptionally loose, for the
warriors live in unrestrained fellowship with the unmarried girls--the
Dittos; and the married women allow themselves all conceivable liberties,
without any interference on the part of their husbands. Notwithstanding all
this, these dissolute plundering earls form the finest nation of the whole
district east of the Victoria Nyanza--brave, strong, ingenuous,
intelligent, and, when they are once won, trustworthy. To convert them into
industrious and moral men would be a grand work and would make our new
home, in which we could not go far without coming into collision with them,
truly habitable to us.

But it was very difficult to accomplish this. Their military organisation
had to be broken up, their immorality suppressed, their prejudice against
labour overcome. That this was by no means impossible was proved by many
past examples. The Wa-Kwafi, living to the south and west of them, as well
as the Njemps on the Baringo lake, are either of pure Masai extraction or
have much Masai blood in their veins; yet they practise agriculture and
know nothing of the _el-moran_ and Ditto abuse. But the change had been
effected among these by the agency of extreme want. It was only those Masai
tribes who were completely vanquished by other Masai and robbed of all
their cattle that were dispersed among agricultural negro tribes, whose
customs they had to adopt, while they unfortunately gave up their good
characteristics along with their bad ones. Johnston's task now was to see
if it wore not possible by rational compulsion to effect such a change in
them as in other instances had been effected by want. How he prosecuted his
attempt we have seen.

When Johnston released the Kavirondo and Nangi prisoners, he invited them
to send, on the 19th, as numerous an embassy as possible of their elders to
Naivasha, where we would confirm the newly formed alliance and seal it with
rich presents. He left the whole of his army at Naivasha, partly to cover
the retreat of the discharged prisoners, and partly to watch the booty (the
Masai still hesitated to take back the booty, and even forbade their
captured wives and children to leave our camp), while he himself,
accompanied by only a few horsemen, hastened to Eden Vale, there to get
further instructions. The proposal which he laid before the committee was
that everything should now be demanded from the Masai--the iron could be
forged if struck when it was hot; and as conditions of the renewal of
friendship he suggested the following three points: dissolution of the
_el-moran_ kraals, emancipation of all slaves whatever, formation of
agricultural associations. Of course we were not to be content with the
statement of these demands, but must ourselves take in hand the work of
carrying them out. Particularly would it be necessary to assist the Masai
in the organisation of the agricultural associations, to furnish them with
suitable agricultural implements, and to give them instruction in rational
agriculture. Finally, and chiefly, was it necessary to win over the
_el-moran_ by employing them in relays as soldiers for us. The ideal of
these brown braves was the routine of a military life. The alliance with
the Kavirondo and Nangi might lead to hostile complications with Uganda,
the country adjoining Kavirondo, when we could very well make use of a
Masai militia, and thus accomplish two ends at once--viz. the complete
pacification and civilisation of Masailand, and assistance against Uganda,
the great raiding State on the Victoria Nyanza, with which sooner or later
we must necessarily come into collision.

The committee adopted these suggestions after a short deliberation. Five
hundred fresh volunteers (as a matter of course, all our expeditions
consisted of volunteers) from among our agriculturists were placed under
Johnston's orders, as agricultural teachers for the Masai; whilst a part of
the five hundred men already at Naivasha were selected to superintend the
military training of the _el-moran_. Further, Johnston received for his
work the whole of the ploughs which had been thrown out of use in Freeland
by the introduction of steam-machinery. There were not less than 3,000 of
these ploughs, as well as a corresponding number of harrows and other
agricultural implements. With these were also granted 6,000 oxen accustomed
to the plough, as well as supplies of seeds, &c. The committee at once
telegraphed to Europe for 10,000 breechloaders and a million cartridges,
with 10,000 sidearms, which were supplied cheaply by the Austrian
Government out of the stock of disused Werndl rifles, and could reach
Naivasha by the end of June. Five complete field-batteries and eight
rocket-batteries were at the same time ordered in Europe; these, however,
were not for the Masai militia, but for our own use in any future
contingencies. An English firm promised to deliver two weeks later 10,000
very picturesque and strikingly designed complete uniforms, of which,
moreover, our Eden Vale sewing-factory speedily got ready several hundred
made of our large stores of brightly coloured woollen goods, so that the
_el-moran_ were able to see, on the 19th and 20th of June, the splendours
in store for them.

Thus furnished, Johnston left Eden Vale on the 12th of June, and reached
the shore of the Naivasha on the 16th, leaving his caravan of goods a few
days' march behind him. The elders and _leitunus_ of all the Masai tribes,
as well as the ambassadors of the Kavirondo and Nangi, already awaited him.
The negotiations with the latter were soon ended: the conditions of
alliance were again discussed, rich presents exchanged (the Kavirondo had
brought several thousand head of cattle for their magnanimous victors), and
on this side nothing further stood in the way of the approaching
covenant-feast. We had thus secured trustworthy friends as far as the
Victoria Nyanza, a great part of the shore of which was in the hands of the
Kavirondo; in return for which, it is true, we had undertaken--what we did
not for a moment overlook--the heavy responsibility of protecting the
Kavirondo against all foes, even against the powerful Uganda.

The Masai, on the other hand, were at first greatly troubled by the
conditions demanded of them. Johnston's eloquence, however, soon convinced
them that their acceptance of these conditions was not merely unavoidable,
but would be very profitable to themselves. He overcame their prejudice
against labour by showing them that an occupation to which we powerful and
rich white men were glad to devote ourselves could be neither degrading nor
burdensome. They were not to suppose that we intended them to grub about in
the earth, like the barbarous negroes, with wretched spades; the hard work
would be done by oxen; they need only walk behind the implements, which
were already on the way ready to be distributed among them. A few hours'
light work a day for a few months in the year would suffice to make them
richer than they had ever been made by the labour of their slaves. Even the
_el-moran_ were won over without very much difficulty by the promise that,
if they would only work a little in turns, they should now be trained to
become invincible warriors like ourselves, and should receive fine clothing
and yet finer weapons. And when at last the endless caravan with the oxen
and the agricultural implements arrived; when the wonderful celerity with
which tire ploughs cut through the ground was demonstrated; and when
Johnston dressed up a chosen band of _el-moran_ in the baggy red hose and
shirts, the green jackets, and the dandyish plumed hats, with rifle,
bayonet, and cartridge-box, and made them march out as models of the future
soldiery, the resignation which had hitherto been felt gave way to
unrestrained jubilation. The Masai had originally yielded out of fear of
our anger, and more still of the danger lest our friendship to the
surrounding tribes might lead to the unconditional deliverance of the Masai
into the hands of their hereditary foes. The numerous embassies which had
appeared from all points of the compass (for the Wa-Kikuyu, Wa-Taveta,
Wa-Teita, and Wa-Duruma--even the Wa-Kwafi and Swahili tribes--had sent
representatives laden with rich presents to take part in the Naivasha
festival) were significant reminders to them. But now they accepted our
terms with joy, and were not a little proud of being able to show to the
others that they were still the first in our favour.

And as the Masai, when they have made any engagement, are honourably
ambitious--unlike the negroes--to keep it, the carrying out of the
stipulations was a comparatively easy and speedy matter. A hasty census,
which we made for several purposes, showed that there were some 180,000
souls in the twelve Masai tribes scattered over a district of nearly 20,000
square miles, from Lykipia in the extreme north to Kilimanjaro in the
south. The country, although dry and sterile in the south-west, is
exuberantly fertile in the east and north, and--particularly around the
numerous ranges of hills, which rise to a height of 15,000 feet--equals in
beauty the Teita, Kilima, and Kenia districts, and could well support a
population a hundred times as large as the present one; but the perpetual
wars and the licentiousness of the people have hitherto limited the
increase of the population. Among the 180,000 were about 54,000 men capable
of labour, the _el-moran_ being included in that number. We handed over to
the Masai 12,000 yoke-oxen, in exchange for which we received the same
number of oxen for fattening. Our 500 agricultural instructors now looked
out for the most suitable arable ground for their pupils, whom they
organised into 280 associations similar to ours, without a right of
property in the soil and with the amount of labour as the sole measure of
the distribution of produce. The instructors taught them the use of the
implements; and were able, two months later, to report to Eden Vale, with
considerable satisfaction, that above 50,000 acres had been sown with all
kinds of field-produce. The harvest proved to be abundantly sufficient not
only to cover all the needs of the Masai, but also to secure to their white
teachers, both agricultural and military, the payment then customary in
Freeland.

While in this way, on the one hand, the agricultural associations were set
to work, on the other hand some 300 military instructors initiated relays
of 6,500 _el-moran_ into the mysteries of the European art of war. The
26,000 Masai warriors were divided into four companies, each of which was
put into uniform and exercised for a year. The rifles remained our
property, the uniforms became the property of the Masai warriors, but could
be worn only when the owners were on duty. There was no pay for peace
duty--rather, as above mentioned, the Masai defrayed the cost of their
military training out of the proceeds of their agriculture.

The agricultural as well as the military instructors made themselves useful
in other ways, by imparting to their pupils all kinds of skill and
knowledge. There were no specially learned men among them, but they opened
up a new world to the Masai, exercised a refining and ennobling influence
upon their habits and morals, and in a surprisingly short time made
tolerably civilised men of them. The Masai, on their part, enjoyed their
new lives very much. They were well aware that their altered condition made
them the object of all their neighbours' envy, whilst they were still more
highly respected than before. And, what was the main thing--at the
beginning at least--they enjoyed their new wealth and their increased
honour without finding their labour at all painful to those needs. For in
this fortunate country it required very little labour expended in a
rational way to get from the fruitful soil the little that was there looked
upon as extraordinary wealth. He who twice a year spent a few weeks in
sowing and harvesting could for the rest of the year indulge in the still
favourite luxury of _dolce far niente_. In later years, when the needs of
the Masai had been largely multiplied by their growing culture, more labour
was required to satisfy those needs; but in the meantime our pupils had got
rid of their former laziness; and it may be confidently asserted that not
one of them ever regretted that we had imposed our civilisation upon his
nation. On the contrary, the example of the Masai stimulated the
neighbouring peoples; and, in the course of the following years, the most
diverse tribes voluntarily came to us with the request that we would do
with them as we had done with the Masai. The suppression of property in the
soil among those negro races who--unlike the Masai and most of the other
peoples of Equatorial Africa--possessed such an institution in a developed
form, in no case presented any great difficulty: the land was voluntarily
either given up or redefined. Nowhere was property in land able to assert
itself along with labour organised according to our principles.




CHAPTER XI


The meeting of the International Free Society at the Hague had, as the
reader will remember, conferred full executive power upon the committee for
the period of two years. This period expired on the 20th of October, when
the Society would have to give itself a new and definitive constitution,
and the powers hitherto exercised by the committee would have to be taken
over by an administrative body freely elected by the people of Freeland. On
the 15th of September, therefore, the committee called together a
constituent assembly; and, as the inhabitants were too numerous all to meet
together for consultation, they divided the country into 500 sections,
according to the number of the inhabitants, and directed each section to
elect a deputy. The committee declared this representative assembly to be
the provisional source of sovereign authority, and required it to make
arrangements for the future, leaving it to decide whether it would empower
the committee to continue to exercise its executive functions until a
constitution had been agreed upon, or would at once entrust the
administration of Freeland to some new authority. After a short debate, the
assembly not only decided unanimously to adopt the former course, but also
charged the committee with the task of preparing a draft constitution. As
such a draft had already been prepared in view of contingencies, the
committee at once accepted the duty imposed upon it. Dr. Strahl, in the
name of the committee, laid the draft constitution 'upon the table of the
House.' The assembly ordered it to be printed, and three days after
proceeded to discuss it. As the proposed fundamental law and detailed
regulations were extremely simple, the debate was not very long-winded;
and, on the 2nd of October, the laws and regulations were declared to be
unanimously approved, and the new constitution was put in force.

The fundamental laws were thus expressed:

1. Every inhabitant of Freeland has an equal and inalienable claim upon the
whole of the land, and upon the means of production accumulated by the
community.

2. Women, children, old men, and men incapable of work, have a right to a
competent maintenance, fairly proportionate to the level of the average
wealth of the community.

3. No one can be hindered from the active exercise of his own free
individual will, so long as he does not infringe upon the rights of others.

4. Public affairs are to be administered as shall be determined by all the
adult (above twenty years of age) inhabitants of Freeland, without
distinction of sex, who shall all possess an equal active and passive right
of vote and of election in all matters that affect the commonwealth.

5. Both the legislative and the executive authority shall be divided into
departments, and in such a manner that the whole of the electors shall
choose special representatives for the principal public departments, who
shall give their decisions apart and watch over the action of the
administrative boards of the respective departments.

In these five points is contained the whole substance of the public law of
Freeland; everything else is merely the natural consequence or the more
detailed expression of these points. Thus the principles upon which the
associations were based--the right of the worker to the profit, the
division of the profit in proportion to the amount of work contributed, and
freedom of contract in view of special efficiency of labour--are naturally
and necessarily implied in the first and third fundamental laws. As the
whole of the means of labour were accessible to everyone, no one could be
compelled to forego the profit of his own labour; and as no one could be
forced to place his higher capabilities at the disposal of others, these
higher capabilities--so far as they were needed in the guidance and
direction of production--must find adequate recompense in the way of
freedom of contract.

With reference to the right of maintenance given to women, children, old
men, and men incapable of working, by the second section, it may be
remarked that this was regarded, in the spirit of our principles, as a
corollary from the truth that the wealth of the civilised man is not the
product of his own individual capabilities, but is the result of the
intellectual labour of numberless previous generations, _whose bequest
belongs as much to the weak and helpless as to the strong and capable_. All
that we enjoy we owe in an infinitely small degree to our own intelligence
and strength; thrown upon these as our only resources, we should be poor
savages vegetating in the deepest, most brutish misery; it is to the rich
inheritance received from our ancestors that we owe ninety-nine per cent.
of our enjoyments. If this is so--and no sane person has ever questioned
it--then all our brothers and sisters have a right to share in the common
heritage. That this heritage would be unproductive without the labour of us
who are strong is true, and it would be unfair--nay, foolish and
impracticable--for our weaker brethren to claim an _equal_ share. But they
have a right to claim a fraternal participation--not merely a charitable
one, but one based upon their right of inheritance--in the rich profits won
from the common heritage, even though it be by _our_ labour solely. They
stand towards us in the relation, not of medicant strangers, but of
co-heirs and members of our family. And of us, the stronger inheritors of a
clearly proved title, every member of the common family demands the
unreserved recognition of this good title. For we cannot prosper if we
dishonour and condemn to want and shame those who are our equals. A healthy
egoism forbids us to allow misery and its offspring--the vices--to harbour
anywhere among our fellows. Free, and 'of noble birth,' a king and lord of
this planet, must everyone be whose mother is a daughter of man, else will
his want grow to be a spreading ulcer which will consume even us--the
strong ones.

So much as to the right of maintenance in general. As to the provision for
women in particular, it was considered that woman was unfitted by her
physical and psychical characteristics for an active struggle for
existence; but was destined, on the one hand, to the function of
propagating the human race, and, on the other hand, to that of beautifying
and refining life. So long as we all, or at least the immense majority of
us, were painfully engaged in the unceasing and miserable struggle to
obtain the barest necessities of animal life, no regard could be paid to
the weakness and nobility of woman; her weakness, like that of every other
weak one, could not become a title to tender care, but became inevitably an
incitement to tyranny; the nobility of woman was dishonoured, as was all
purely human and genuine nobility. For unnumbered centuries woman was a
slave and a purchasable instrument of lust, and the much-vaunted
civilisation of the last few centuries has brought no real improvement.
Even among the so-called cultured nations of the present day, woman
remained without legal rights, and, what is worse, she was left, in order
to obtain subsistence, to sell herself to the first man she met who would
undertake to provide and 'care for' her for the sake of her attractions.
This prostitution, sanctioned by law and custom, is in its effects more
disastrous than that other, which stands forth undisguised and is
distinguished from the former only in the fact that here the shameful
bargain is made not for life, but only for years, weeks, hours. It is
common to both that the sweetest, most sacred treasure of humanity, woman's
heart, is made the subject of vulgar huckstering, a means of buying a
livelihood; and worse than the prostitution of the streets is that of the
marriage for a livelihood sanctioned by law and custom, because under its
pestilential poison-breath not only the dignity and happiness of the
living, but the sap and strength of future generations are blasted and
destroyed. As love, that sacred instinct which should lead the wife into
the arms of the husband, united with whom she might bequeath to the next
generation its worthiest members, had become the only means of gain within
her reach woman was compelled to dishonour herself, and in herself to
dishonour the future of the race.

Happiness and dignity, as well as the future salvation of humanity, equally
demanded that woman should be delivered from the dishonourable necessity of
seeing in her husband a provider, in marriage the only refuge from material
need. But neither should woman be consigned to common labour. This would be
in equal measure prejudicial both to the happiness of the living and to the
character and vigour of future generations. It is as useless as it is
injurious to wish to establish the equality of woman by allowing her to
compete with man in earning her bread--useless, because such a permission,
of which advantage could be taken only in exceptional cases, would afford
no help to the female sex as a whole; injurious, because woman cannot
compete with man and yet be true to her nobler and tenderer duties. And
those duties do not lie in the kitchen and the wardrobe, but in the
cultivation of the beautiful in the adult generation on the one hand, and
of the intellectual and physical development of the young on the other.
Therefore, in the interests not only of herself, but also of man, and in
particular of the future race, woman must be altogether withdrawn from the
struggle for the necessaries of life; she must be no wheel in the
bread-earning machinery, she must be a jewel in the heart of humanity. Only
one kind of 'work' is appropriate to woman--that of the education of
children and, at most, the care of the sick and infirm. In the school and
by the sick-bed can womanly tenderness and care find a suitable
apprenticeship for the duties of the future home, and in such work may the
single woman earn wages so far as she wishes to do so. At the same time,
our principles secured perfect liberty to woman. She was not forbidden to
engage in any occupation, and isolated instances have occurred of women
doing so, particularly in intellectual callings, but public opinion in
Freeland approved of this only in exceptional cases--that is, when special
gifts justified such action; and it was our women chiefly who upheld this
public opinion.

The fact that the maintenance allowance for women was fixed at one-fourth
less than that for men--and the constituent assembly confirmed not only the
principle, but the proposed ratio of the different maintenance
allowances--was not the expression of any lower estimate of the _claim_ of
woman, but was due simply to the consideration that the _requirements_ of
woman are less than those of man. We acted upon the calculation that a
woman with her thirty per cent. of the average labour-earnings of a
Freeland producer was as well provided for as a maintenance-receiving man
with his forty per cent.; and experience fully verified this calculation.

Not only had the single woman or the widow a right to a maintenance, but
the married woman also had a similar right, though only to one-half the
amount. This right was based upon the principle that even the wife ought
not to be thrown upon the husband for maintenance and made dependent upon
him. As in housekeeping the woman's activity is partly called forth by her
own personal needs, it was right that some of the burden of maintenance
should be taken from the husband, and only a part of it left as a common
charge to both. With the birth of children, the family burden is afresh
increased, and, as this is specially connected with the wife, we increase
her maintenance allowance until it reaches again the full allowance of a
single woman--that is, thirty per cent. The allowances would be as follows:

    A childless family                                   15 per cent.
    A family with one child                              20    "
        "     "   two children                           25    "
        "     "   three or more children                 30    "
    A working widow with a child                          5    "
        "       "    "   two children                    10    "
        "       "    "   three or more children          15    "
    An independent woman                                 30    "
     "      "       "    with a child                    35    "
     "      "       "    with two children               40    "
     "      "       "    with three or more children     45    "

Just as the women's and children's maintenance-claims accumulated according
to circumstances, so was it with those claims and the claims of men unable
to work, and old men. The maximum that could be drawn for maintenance was
not less than seventy per cent. of the average income, and this happened in
the cases--which were certainly rare--in which a married man who had a
claim had three or more children under age.

The fourth fundamental principle--the extension of the franchise to adult
women--calls for no special comment. It need only be remarked that this law
included the negroes residing in Freeland. This was conditioned, of course,
by the exclusion from the exercise of political rights of all who were
unable to read and write--an exclusion which was automatically secured by
requiring all votes to be given in the voter's own handwriting. We took
considerable pains not only to teach our negroes reading and writing, but
also to give them other kinds of knowledge; and as our efforts were in
general followed by good results, our black brethren gradually participated
in all our rights.

A more detailed explanation is, however, required by the fifth section of
the fundamental laws, according to which the community exercised their
control over all public affairs not through _one_, but through several
co-ordinated administrative boards, elected separately by the community. To
this regulation the administrative authorities of Freeland owed their
astonishing special knowledge of details, and the public life of Freeland
its equally unexampled quiet and the absence of any deeply felt, angry
party passions. In the States of Europe and America, only the executive
consists of men who are chosen--or are supposed to be thus chosen--on
account of their special knowledge and qualification for the branches of
the public service at the head of which they respectively stand. Even this
is subject to very important limitations; in fact, with respect to the
parliamentary constitutions of Europe and America, it can be truthfully
asserted that those who are placed at the head of the different branches of
the administration only too often know very little about the weighty
affairs which they have to superintend. The assemblies from which and by
whose choice parliamentary ministers are placed in office are, as a rule,
altogether incapable of choosing qualified men, for the reason that
frequently there are none such in their midst. It does not follow from this
that parliamentary orators and politicians by profession do not generally
understand the duties of their office better than those favourites of power
and of blind fortune who hold the helm in non-parliamentary countries; but
experts they are not, and cannot be. Yet, as has been said, the organs of
the executive at least _ought_, to be such, and by a current fiction they
are held to be such; and a man who specially distinguishes himself in any
department thereby earns a claim--though a subordinate one--to receive
further employment in that department of the public service. For the
legislative bodies outside of Freeland, on the other hand, special
knowledge is not even theoretically a qualification. The men who make laws
and control the administration of them, need, in theory, to have not the
least knowledge of the matters to which these laws refer. The support of
the electors is usually quite independent of the amount of such knowledge
possessed by the representatives, who are chosen not as men of special
knowledge, but as men of 'sound understanding.'

But this is followed by a twofold evil. In the first place, it converts the
public service into a private game of football, in which the players are
Ignorance and Incapacity. The words of Oxenstiern, 'You know not, my son,
with how little understanding the world is governed,' are true in a far
higher degree than is generally imagined. The average level of capacity and
special knowledge in many of the branches of public service in the
so-called civilised world is far below that to be found in the private
business of the same countries. In the second place, this centralised
organisation of the public administration, with an absence of persons of
special qualification, converts party spirit into an angry and bitter
struggle in which everything is risked, and the decision depends very
rarely upon practical considerations, but almost always upon already
accepted political opinions. Incessant conflict, continuous passionate
excitement, are therefore the second consequence of this preposterous
system.

An improvement is, however, simply impossible so long as the present social
system remains in force. For, so long as this is the case, the public
welfare is better looked after by ignorant persons who act independently of
professional knowledge than it would be if professional men had power to
further the interests of their own professions at the expense of the
general public. For the interests of specialists under an exploiting system
of society are not merely sometimes, but generally, opposed to those of the
great mass of the people. Imagine a European or American State in which the
manufacturers exercised legislative and executive control over
manufactures, agriculturists over agriculture, railway shareholders over
the means of transport, and so forth--the specialist representatives of
each separate interest making and administering the laws that particularly
concerned their own profession! As under the exploiting system of society
the struggle for existence is directed towards a mutual suppression and
supplanting, so must the consequences of such a 'constitution' as we have
just supposed be positively dreadful. In those cases which are grouped
together under the heading of 'political corruption,' where isolated
interests have succeeded in imposing their will upon the community, the
shamelessness of the exploitage has exceeded all bounds.

But it is different in Freeland. With us no separate interest is
antagonistic to or not in perfect harmony with the common interest.
Producers, for example, who in Freeland conceive the idea of increasing
their gains by laying an impost upon imports, must be idiotic. For, to
compel the consumers to pay more for their manufactures would not help
them, since the influx of labour would at once bring down their gains again
to the average level. On the other hand, to make it more difficult for
other producers to produce would certainly injure themselves, for the
average level of gain--above which their own cannot permanently rise--would
be thereby lowered. And exactly the same holds good for all our different
interests. In consequence of the arrangement whereby every interest is open
to everyone, and no one has either the right or the might to reserve any
advantage to himself alone, we are fortunately able to entrust the decision
of all questions affecting material interest to those who are the most
directly interested--therefore, to those who possess the most special
knowledge. Not merely do the legislature and the executive thereby acquire
in the highest degree a specialist character, but there disappears from
public life that passionate prepossession which elsewhere is the
characteristic note of party politics. As a well-understood public interest
and sound reason decide in all matters, we have no occasion to become
heated. At our elections our aim is not 'to get in one of our party,' but
the only thing about which opinions may differ is which of the candidates
happens to be the most experienced, the most apt for the post. And as, in
consequence of the organisation of our whole body of labour, the
capabilities of each one among us must in time be discovered, mistakes in
this determining point in our public life are scarcely possible.

As the constituent assembly retained the twelvefold division of the
governing authority, there were henceforth in Freeland, besides the twelve
different executive boards--which in their sphere of action were to some
extent analogous to the ministries of Western nations--twelve different
consultative, determining, and supervising assemblies, elected by the whole
people, in place of the single parliament of the Western nations. These
twelve assemblies were elected by the whole of the electors, each elector
having the right to give an equal vote in all the elections; but the
distribution of the constituencies was different, and the election for each
of the twelve representative bodies took place separately. Some of these
elections--those, namely, for the affairs of the chief executive and
finance, for maintenance, for education, for art and science, for
sanitation and justice--took place according to residence; the elections in
the other cases according to calling. For the latter purpose, the whole of
the inhabitants of Freeland were divided, according to their callings, into
larger or smaller constituencies, each of which elected one or more
deputies in proportion to its numbers. Of those callings which had but few
followers, several of the more nearly allied were united into one
constituency. Membership of the respective constituencies depended upon the
will of the elector--that is, every elector could get his or her name
entered in the list of any calling with which he or she preferred to vote,
and thus exercise the right of voting for the representative body elected
by the members of that calling.

The highest officers in the twelve branches of the executive were appointed
by the twelve representative bodies; the appointment of the other officers
was the business of the chiefs of the executive. In all the more important
matters all these had to consult together beforehand upon the measures that
were to be laid before the representative bodies.

The discussions of the different representative bodies, as a rule, took
place apart, and generally in sessions held at different periods. Several
of the bodies sat permanently, others met merely for a few days once a
year. The numerical strength of these specialist parliaments was different:
the smallest--that for statistics--consisted of no more than thirty
members, the four largest of a hundred and twenty members each. When
matters which interested equally several different representative bodies
had to be discussed, the bodies thus interested sat together. Disputes as
to the competency of the different bodies were impossible, as the mere wish
expressed by any representative body to take part in the debates of another
sufficed to make the subject under consideration a common one.

The natural result of this organisation was that every inhabitant of
Freeland confined his attention to those public affairs which he
understood, or thought he understood. In each branch of the administration
he gave his vote to that candidate who in his opinion was the best
qualified for a seat in that branch of the administration. And this, again,
had as a consequence a fact to Western ideas altogether incredible--namely,
that every branch of the public administration was in the hands of the most
expert specialists, and the best qualified men in all Freeland. Very soon
there was developed a highly remarkable kind of political honour,
altogether different from anything known in Western nations. Among the
latter, it is held to be a point of honour to stick to one's party
unconditionally through thick and thin, to support it by vote and influence
whether one understands the particular matter in question or not. The
political honour of a citizen of Freeland demands of him yet more
positively that he devote his attention and his energy to public affairs;
but public opinion condemns him severely if--from whatever motive--he
concerns himself with matters which he plainly does not understand. Thus it
is strictly required that the elector should have some professional
knowledge of that branch of the administration into which he throws the
weight of his vote. The elections, therefore, are in very good hands;
attempts to influence the electors by fallacious representations or by
promises would, even if they were to be made, prove resultless. There is no
elector who would vote in the elections of the whole twelve representative
bodies. The women, in particular, with very few exceptions, refrain from
voting in the elections in which the separate callings are specially
concerned; on the other hand, they take a lively interest in the elections
in which the electors vote according to residence; and in the elections for
the board of education their votes turn the scale. Their passive franchise
also comes into play, and in the representative bodies that have charge of
maintenance, of art and science, of sanitation and justice, women
frequently sit; and in that which has charge of education there are always
several women. They never take part in the executive. By way of completing
this description, it may be mentioned that the elected deputies are paid
for their work at the rate of an equivalent of eight labour-hours for each
day that they sit.

After the constituent assembly had passed the constitution it dissolved
itself, and the election of the twelve representative bodies was at once
proceeded with. Punctually on the 20th of October these bodies met, and the
committee handed its authority over into their hands. The members of the
committee were all re-elected as heads of the different branches of the
administration, except four who declined to take office afresh. The
government of Freeland was now definitively constituted.

In the meantime, the three expeditions sent to discover the best route for
a railway to the coast had returned. The expedition which had been
surveying the shortest route--that through the Dana valley to the Witu
coast--had met with no exceptional difficulty as to the land, and the
expectation that this, by far the shortest, would prove to be also
technically preferable had been verified. Nor in any other respect had any
serious difficulty been encountered within about 125 miles from Kenia. But
from thence to the coast the Galla tribes offered to the expedition such a
stubborn and vicious opposition that the hostilities had not ceased at the
end of two months, and several conflicts had taken place, in which the
Galla tribes had always been severely punished; but this did not prevent
the expedition from having to carry out its thoroughly peaceful mission in
perpetual readiness to fight. A railway through that region would have had
to be preceded by a formal campaign for the pacification or expulsion of
the Galla tribes, and could then have been constructed only in the midst of
a permanent preparedness for war. This route had therefore, provisionally
at least, to be rejected.

There were not less weighty reasons against the route over Ukumbani along
the Athi river. Along the river-valley the road could have been made
without special technical difficulty, but, particularly on the second half
of it, the route lay through unhealthy swamps and jungles, which could not
immediately be brought under cultivation. And if a route were chosen which
would leave the valley proper and pass among the adjoining hills, the
technical conditions would not be more favourable, nor the estimated cost
less, than a line along the third route following the old road to Mombasa.
This third route was therefore unanimously fixed upon. It had in its favour
the important circumstance that it passed through friendly districts, which
at no very distant future would most probably be settled by Freeland
colonists. That it was the longest and the most expensive of the three
could not, therefore, prevent us from giving it the preference, unless the
difference in cost proved to be too great--which, as the event showed, was
not the case.

The work was begun forthwith. Powerful and novel machines of all kinds
were, in the meantime, constructed in great number by our Freeland
machine-factories, and, furnished with these, 5,000 Freeland and 8,000
negro workers began the work at eighteen different points, not including
the eleven longer and the thirty-two shorter tunnels--with a total length
of twenty-four miles--each of which formed a separate part of tin work. The
rails, of the best Bessemer metal, were partly made by ourselves, and were
partly--those for the distance between Mombasa and Taveta--brought from
Europe. Two years after the turning of the first sod the part between Eden
Vale and Ngongo was ready for traffic; three months later the part between
Mombasa and Taveta; and nine months later still the middle portion between
Ngongo and Taveta. Thus exactly five years after our pioneers had first set
foot in Freeland, the first locomotive, which the day before had seen the
waves of the Indian Ocean breaking upon the shore at Mombasa, greeted the
glaciers of the Kenia with its shrill whistle.

That this extensive work could be completed in so short a time and with so
little expenditure of labour we owed to our machinery; which also enabled
us to keep the cost within comparatively moderate limits, despite the fact
that we had necessarily to pay our workers at a rate at which no railway
constructors were ever paid before. Our Freeland railway constructors, who
had at once formed themselves into a number of associations, earned in the
first year 22s. a day each, and in the third year 28s. a day, though they
worked only seven hours a day. Notwithstanding this, the whole 672 miles,
most of it tolerably difficult work through hills, cost only 9,500,000L, or
a little over 14,000L per mile. Our 13,000 workers did more with their
magnificent labour-sparing machines than 100,000 ordinary workers could
have done with pick and barrow; and the employment of this colossal
'capital'--valued at 4,000,000L--was profitable because labour was paid at
so high a rate.

As a matter of course, a telegraph was laid between Eden Vale and Mombasa
together with this double-railed railway.

Whilst these works were in progress and the incessantly growing population
of Freeland was brought into closer connection with the old home, important
changes had been brought about in our relations with our native African
neighbours--changes in part pacific, in part warlike, and which exercised a
not less important influence upon the course of development of our
commonwealth.

In the first place, the Masai of Lykipia and the lake districts between
Naivasha and Baringo, had, at their own initiative and at their own cost,
though under the direction of some of our engineers, constructed a good
waggon-road, 230 miles long, through their whole district from the Naivasha
lake northwards, and then eastwards through Lykipia as far as Eden Vale.
They declared that their honour and their pride were offended by having to
pass through a foreign district when they wished to visit us, the only
practicable road having been one through the country of the Wa-Kikuyu. So
strong was their desire to be in immediate touch with our district that,
when a part of the hired Wa-Taveta road-makers, on account of some
misunderstanding, left them in the lurch, the Masai themselves took their
places, and, taking turns to the number of 3,000, they carried on the work
with an energy which no one could have supposed to be possible in a people
who not long before had been so averse to labour. We decided to reward this
proof of strong attachment and of great capacity by an equally striking act
of recognition. When the Masai road was finished, and a deputation of the
elders and leaders of all the tribes made a jubilant and triumphant entry
by it into Eden Vale, we received them with great honour, and gave them
presents for the whole Masai people which were worth about as much as the
new road had cost. In addition, the 6,500 Werndl rifles, which had hitherto
been only lent to the Masai, and 2,000 horses were given them as their own
property in token of our friendship and respect. It goes without saying
that the weapons were received by this still martial people with great
enthusiasm. And the horses were almost more valuable still in their eyes;
for riding was the one among all our arts which the Masai most admired, and
among all our possessions which they esteemed most highly were our horses.
But we had hitherto been very frugal with our horses, and we had given away
only a few to individual natives in Masailand and Taveta in recognition of
special services. The number of horses in Freeland had, partly by breeding,
but mainly by continuous systematic importation, increased during the first
two years to 26,000; but we expected at first to make more use of horses
than was afterwards found to be necessary, and that was the reason why this
noble animal, which we had been the first to establish in Equatorial
Africa, was still a much-admired rarity everywhere outside of Freeland,
particularly in Masailand, where the horse was regarded as the ideal of
martial valour.

In the second place, it should be mentioned that the civilisation of the
Masai, as well as of the other tribes in alliance with us, made rapid
progress. The _el-moran_, when once they had become accustomed to light
work, and had given up their inactive camp-life, allowed themselves to be
induced by us to enter early upon the married state. Our women succeeded in
uprooting the Ditto abuse. Several of the ladies, with Mrs. Ney at their
head, undertook a tour through Masailand, and offered to every Masai girl
who made a solemn promise of chastity until marriage, admission into a
Freeland family for a year, and instruction in our manners, customs, and
various forms of skilled labour. So great was the number who accepted this
offer, that they could not all be received into Freeland at once, but had
to be divided into three yearly groups. Yet even those who could not be
immediately received were decorated with the insignia of their new
honour--a complete dress after the Freeland pattern, their barbarian wire
neck-bands, leg-chains, and ear-stretchers, as well as their coating of
grease, being discarded--and they were solemnly pronounced to be 'friends
of the white women.' So permanent was the influence of this distinction
upon the Masai girls, who had not given up their ambition along with their
licentious habits, that not one of them proved to be unworthy of the
friendship of the virtuous white ladies. The Masai youth were so zealous in
their efforts to win the favour of the girls who were thus distinguished,
that the latter were all very soon married. That at the end of the year
there was an eager competition for the girls who were returning home is as
much a matter of course as that those who in the meantime had married, even
if they had had children, had not forfeited their right to a residence in
Freeland--a circumstance that led to not a few embarrassments. The ultimate
result was that in a very short time the once so licentious Masailand was
changed into a model country of good morals. The hitherto prevalent
polygamy died out, and several hundred good schools arose in different
parts of the country, which in that way made gigantic strides towards
complete civilisation.

In the meantime, in the north-west, among our Kavirondo friends on the
north shore of the Victoria Nyanza, events of another kind were preparing.
The Kavirondo, a very numerous and peaceable agricultural and pastoral
tribe, touched Uganda, where, during recent years, there had been many
internal struggles and revolutions. Unlike the other peoples whom we have
become acquainted with, and who lived in independent, loosely connected,
small tribes under freely elected chiefs with little influence, the
Wangwana (the name of the inhabitants of Uganda) have been for centuries
united into a great despotically governed State under a _kabaka_ or
emperor. Their kingdom, whose original part stretches along the north bank
of the Victoria Nyanza, has been of varying dimensions, according as the
fierce policy of conquest of the _kabaka_ for the time being was more or
less successful; but Uganda has always been a scourge to all its
neighbours, who have suffered from the ceaseless raids, extortions, and
cruelties of the Wangwana. Broad and fertile stretches of country became
desert under this plague; and as for many years the _kabaka_ had been able,
by means of Arab dealers, to get possession of a few thousand (though very
miserable) guns, and a few cannons (with which latter he had certainly not
been able to effect much for want of suitable ammunition), the dread of the
cruel robber State grew very great. Just at the time of our arrival at the
Kenia there was an epoch of temporary calm, because the Wangwana were too
much occupied with their own internal quarrels to pay much attention to
their neighbours. After the death of the last _kabaka_ his numerous sons
terribly devastated the country by their ferocious struggles for the rule,
until in the previous year one of the rivals who was named Suna (after an
ancestor renowned both for his cruelty and for his conquests) had got rid
of most of his brothers by treachery. The power was thenceforward
concentrated more and more in the hands of this _kabaka_, and the raids and
extortions among the neighbouring tribes at once recommenced. Suna's anger
was directed particularly against the Kavirondo, because these had allowed
one of his brothers, who had fled to them, to escape, instead of having
delivered him up. Repeatedly had several thousand Wangwana fallen upon the
Kavirondo, carried off men and cattle, burnt villages, cut down the
bananas, destroyed the harvests, and thus inflicted inhuman cruelty. In
their necessity the Kavirondo appealed to the northern Masai tribes for
help. They had heard that we had supplied the Masai with guns and horses;
and they now begged the Masai to send a troop of warriors with European
equipments to guard their Uganda frontier. As payment, they promised to
give to every Masai warrior who came to their aid a liberal maintenance and
an ox monthly, and to every horseman, two oxen.

Less on account of this offer than to gratify their love of adventure, the
Masai, having first consulted us in Freeland, consented. We saw no
sufficient reason to keep them from rendering this assistance, although we
were by no means so certain as to the result as were our neighbours, who
considered themselves invincible now they were in possession of their new
weapons. We offered to place several experienced white leaders at the head
of the troops they sent to Kavirondo; but as we saw that our martial
friends looked upon this as a sign of distrust and were a little displeased
at the offer, we simply warned them to be cautious, and particularly not to
be wasteful of the ammunition they took with them.

At first everything went well. Wherever the Wangwana marauders showed
themselves they were sent home with bleeding heads, even when they appeared
in large numbers; and after a few months it seemed almost as if these
severe lessons had induced the Wangwana to leave the Kavirondo alone in
future, for a long time passed without any further raids. But suddenly,
when we were busy getting in our October harvest, there reached us the
startling news of a dreadful catastrophe which had befallen our Masai
friends in Kavirondo. The _kabaka_ Suna had only taken time to prepare for
an annihilating blow. While the former raids had been made by bodies of
only a few thousand men, this time Suna had collected 30,000, of whom 5,000
bore muskets; and, placing himself at their head, he had with these fallen
upon the Kavirondo and Masai unexpectedly. He surprised a frontier-camp of
900 Masai with 300 horses when they were asleep, and cut them to pieces
before they had time to recover from their surprise. The Masai thus not
only lost more than a third of their number, but the remainder of them were
divided into two independent parts, for the surprised camp was in the
middle of the cordon. But, instead of hastily retreating and waiting until
the remaining force had been able to unite before taking the offensive, one
of the Masai leaders, as soon as he had hurriedly got some 500 men
together, was led by his rage at the overthrow of so many of his comrades
to make a foolhardy attack upon the enormously over-numbering force of the
enemy; he thereby fell into an ambush, and, after having too rashly shot
away all his cartridges, was, together with his men, so fearfully cut down
that, after a most heroic resistance, only a very few escaped. Our friend
Mdango, who now took the command, was able to collect only 1,100 or 1,200
Masai on the other wing; and with these he succeeded in making a tolerably
orderly retreat into the interior of Kavirondo, being but little molested
by Suna, whose eye was kept mainly fixed upon collecting the colossal
booty.

Our ultimatum was despatched to Suna on the very day on which we received
this sad news. We told the Masai, who offered to send the whole body of
their warriors against Uganda, that 1,000 men, in addition to the 1,200 at
present in Kavirondo, would be sufficient. We placed these 2,200 Masai
under our Freeland officers, chose from among ourselves 900 volunteers,
including 500 horsemen, and added twelve cannons and sixteen rockets,
together with thirty elephants. On the 24th of October Johnston, the leader
of this campaign, started for Kavirondo along the Masai road.

There he found, around the camp of the _el-moran_--now, when it was too
late, very carefully entrenched and guarded--unnumbered thousands of
Kavirondo and Nangi, armed with spear and bow. These he sent home as a
useless crowd. On the 10th of November he crossed the Uganda frontier; six
days later Suna was totally overthrown in a brief engagement near the Ripon
falls, his host of 110,000 men scattered to the winds, and he himself, with
a few thousand of his bodyguard armed with muskets and officered by Arabs
from the coast, taken prisoner.

On the second day after the fight our men occupied Rubaga, the capital of
Uganda. Thither came in rapid succession all the chief men of the country,
promising unconditional submission and ready to agree to any terms we might
offer. But Johnston offered to receive them into the great alliance between
us and the other native nations--an offer which the Wangwana naturally
accepted with the greatest joy. The conditions laid upon them were:
emancipation of all slaves, peaceful admission of Freeland colonists and
teachers, and reparation for all the injury they had done to the Kavirondo
and the Masai. In this last respect the Wangwana people suffered nothing,
for the countless herds of cattle belonging to their _kabaka_ which had
fallen into our hands as booty amply sufficed to replace what had been
stolen from the Kavirondo and as indemnity for the slain Kavirondo and
Masai warriors. Suna himself was carried away as prisoner, and interned on
the banks of the Naivasha lake.

The subsequent pacific relations were uninterrupted except by an isolated
attempt at resistance by the Arabs that had been left in the country; but
this was promptly and vigorously put down by the Wangwana themselves
without any need of our intervention. What contributed largely to inspire
respect in the breasts of the Wangwana were a military road which the
Kavirondo and Nangi constructed from the Victoria Nyanza to the Masai road
on the Baringo lake, and a Masai colony of 3,000 _el-moran_ on the
Kavirondo and Uganda frontier. But on the whole, after the battle at the
Ripon falls, the mere sound of our name was sufficient to secure peace and
quiet in this part also of the interior of Equatorial Africa. All round the
Victoria Nyanza, whose shores from time immemorial had been the theatre of
savage, merciless fighting, humane sentiments and habits gradually
prevailed; and as a consequence a considerable degree of material
prosperity was developed with comparative rapidity among what had
previously been the wildest tribes.

Even apart from its size, the Victoria Nyanza is the most important among
the enormous lakes of Central Africa. It covers an area of more than 20,000
square miles, and is therefore, with the exception of the Caspian, the Sea
of Aral, and the group of large lakes in North America, the largest piece
of inland water in the world. It is larger than the whole of the kingdom of
Bavaria, and its depth is proportionate to its size, for the plummet in
places does not touch the ground until it has sunk 250 fathoms; it lies
4,400 feet above the sea-level--more than 650 feet above the Brocken, the
highest hill in Middle Germany. This lake is nearly encircled by ranges of
hills which rise from 1,500 to 5,000 feet above its surface; so that the
climate of the immediately contiguous country, which is healthy without
exception and quite free from swamp, is everywhere temperate, and in some
districts positively Arcadian. And this magnificent, picturesque, and in
many places highly romantic lake is the basin source of the sacred Nile,
which, leaving it at the extreme northern end by the Ripon falls, flows
thence to the Albert Nyanza, which is 1,500 feet lower, and thence
continues its course as the White Nile.

Two months after we had established ourselves in Kavirondo and Uganda a
screw steamer of 500 tons burden was ploughing the sea-like waves of the
Victoria Nyanza, and before the end of the next year our lake flotilla
consisted of five ships. These were well received everywhere on the coast,
and the brisk commerce created by them proved to be one of the most
effective of civilising agencies. The fertility of the lands surrounding
this splendid lake is positively unbounded. A few hundred square yards of
well-watered ground are sufficient to supply the needs of a large family;
and when we had once instructed the natives in the use of agricultural
implements, the abundance of the choicest field and garden produce was
unexampled. But the growth of higher needs, particularly among the tribes
that dwelt on the western shores of the lake, remained for a long time
remarkably behind the improvement in the means of production. These simple
tribes produced more than sufficient to supply their wants, almost without
any expenditure of labour, and often out of mere curiosity to see the
results of the improved implements which had been furnished to them. As
they had no conception of property in land, and the non-utilisable
over-production could not, therefore, with them--as would unquestionably
have happened elsewhere--beget misery among the masses, here for years
together the fable of the Castle of Indolence became a reality. The idea of
property was almost lost, the necessities of life became valueless,
everyone could take as much of them as he wished to have; strangers
travelling through found everywhere a well-spread table; in short, the
Golden Age seemed about to come to the Victoria Nyanza. This absolute lack
of a sense of higher needs, however, proved to be a check to further
progress, and we took pains--not altogether without regret--so far to
disturb this paradisiacal condition as to endeavour to excite in the tribes
a taste for what they had not got. Our endeavours succeeded, but the
success was long in coming. With the advent of more strongly felt needs a
higher morality and intellectual culture at once took root in this corner
of the earth.




CHAPTER XII


One of the principal tasks of the Freeland government, and one in which, as
a rule, the ministries for art and science and for public works
co-operated, was the thorough investigation and survey of our new home:
first of the narrower district of the Kenia, and then of the neighbouring
regions with which we were continually coming into closer relationship. The
orographic and hydrographic systems of the whole country were determined;
the soil and the climate were minutely examined. In doing this, both the
higher scientific standpoint and that of prosaic utility were kept in view.
For scientific purposes there was constructed an accurate map of the whole
of the Masai and Kikuyu territories, showing most of the geographical
details. All the more prominent eminences were measured and ascended, the
Kenia not excepted.

The view from the Kenia is magnificent above measure; but, apart from the
mountain itself and its glaciers, it offers little variety. In a circle, as
far as the eye can reach, spreads a most fertile country, intersected by
numerous watercourses, which nowhere, except in a great trough-like basin
of about 1,900 square miles in extent in the north-west, give rise to
swamps. The most striking feature of the whole region is the tableland
falling away in a number of terraces, and broken by the shoulders of
massive hills. The foot-hills proper of the Kenia begin with the highest
terrace, where they form a girdle of varying breadth and height around the
central mass of the mountain, which rises with a steep abrupt outline. This
central mass, at a height of from 16,000 to 18,000 feet, bears a number of
gigantic glacier-fields, from the midst of which the peak rises abruptly,
flanked at some distance by a yet steeper, but small, horn.

A very different character marks the next in importance of the
mountain-formations that belong to the district of Freeland--namely, the
Aberdare range, about forty-five miles west of the Kenia, and stretching
from north to south a distance of more than sixty miles, with an average
breadth of twelve and a-half miles. The highest peak of this chain reaches
nearly 15,000 feet above the sea; and while the Kenia everywhere bears an
impress of grandeur, a ravishing loveliness is the great characteristic of
the Aberdare landscapes. It is true that here also are not wanting colossal
hills that produce an overwhelming impression, but the chief peculiarity is
the charming variety of romantic billowy-outlined hills, intermingled with
broad valleys, covered in part with luxuriant but not too dense forests, in
part spreading out into emerald flowery pastures everywhere watered by
numberless crystal-clear brooks and rivers, lakes and pools. This
mountain-district of nearly 800 square miles resembles a magnificent park,
from whose eminences the mighty snow-sea of the Kenia is visible to the
east, and the emerald-and-sapphire sheen of the great Masai
lakes--Naivasha, El-Meteita, and Nakuro--to the west. And this marvellously
lovely landscape, which combines all the charms of Switzerland and India,
bears in the bosom of its hills immense mineral treasures. Here, and not at
the Kenia, as our geologists soon discovered, was the future seat of the
Freeland industry, particularly of the metallurgic industry. Beds of coal
which in extent and quality at least equalled the best of England,
magnetite containing from fifty to seventy per cent. of iron, copper, lead,
bismuth, antimony, sulphur in rich veins, a large bed of rock-salt on the
western declivity just above the salt lake of Nakuro, and a number of other
mineral treasures, were discovered in rapid succession, and the most
accessible of them were at once taken advantage of. In particular, the
newly opened copper-mines had a heavy demand made upon their resources when
the telegraph was laid to the coast; the demand was still heavier as
electricity became more and more largely used as a motive force.

For great changes had meantime taken place at the Kenia. New-comers
continued to arrive in greater and greater numbers. At the close of the
fourth year the population of Freeland had risen to 780,000 souls. A great
part of Eden Vale had become a city of villas, which covered forty square
miles and contained 58,000 dwelling-houses, whose 270,000 occupants devoted
themselves to gardening, industrial, or intellectual pursuits. The
population of the Dana plateau had risen to 140,000, who, besides
cultivating what land was still available there for agriculture, gave by
far the greater part of their attention to various kinds of industries. The
main part of the agriculture had been transferred to a plain some 650 feet
lower down, beyond the zone of forest. This lower plateau extended, with
occasional breaks, round the whole of the mountain, and offered in its
3,000 square miles of fertile soil abundant agricultural ground for the
immediate future.

Here some 240,000 acres were at first brought under the plough after they
had--like all the cultivated ground in Freeland--been protected against the
visits of wild animals by a strong timber fence. The smaller game, which
could not be kept away from the seed by fencing, had respect for the dogs,
of which many were bred and trained to keep watch at the fences as well as
to guard the cattle. This protection was amply sufficient to keep away all
the creatures that would have meddled with the seed, except the monkeys,
some of which had occasionally to be shot when, in their nocturnal raids,
they refused to be frightened away by the furious barking of the
four-footed guardians.

Steam was still provisionally employed as motive power in agriculture; but
provision was being made on a very large scale to substitute electric for
steam force. The motive power for the electric dynamos was derived from the
Dana river where, after being supplemented by two large streams from the
hills just below the great waterfall, it was broken into a series of strong
rapids and cataracts as it hurried down to the lower land. These rapids and
cataracts were at the lower end of the tableland which, as indicative of
the use we made of it, we named Cornland. It was these rapids and smaller
cataracts, and not the great waterfall of 800 feet, that were utilised for
agricultural purposes. These afforded a total fall of 870 feet; and, as the
river here already had a great body of water, it was possible, by a
well-arranged combination of turbines and electro-motors, to obtain a total
force of from 500,000 to 600,000 horse-power. This was far more than could
be required for the cultivation of the whole of Cornland even in the
intensest manner. The provision made for the next year was calculated at
40,000 horse-power. Well-isolated strong copper wires were to convey the
force generated by twenty gigantic turbines in two hundred dynamos to its
several destinations, where it had to perform all the labours of
agriculture, from ploughing to the threshing, dressing, and transport of
the corn. For a network of electrical railways was also a part of this
system of agricultural mechanism.

The great Dana cataract, with what was calculated to be a force of 124,000
horse-power, was utilised for the purposes of electric lighting in Eden
Vale and in the town on the Dana plateau. For the time being, for the
public lighting it sufficed to erect 5,000 contact-lamps a little more than
100 feet high, and each having a lighting power of 2,000 candles. These
used up a force of 12,000 horse-power. For lighting dwelling-houses and
isolated or night-working factories, 420,000 incandescent-lamps were
employed. This required a force of 40,000 horse-power; so that the great
cataract had to supply a force of 52,000 horse-power to the electro-motors.
This was employed during the day as the motive power of a net of railways,
with a total length of a little over 200 miles, which traversed the
principal streets and roads in the Dana plateau and Eden Vale. In the
evening and at night, when the electricity was used for lighting purposes,
the railways had to be worked by dynamos of several thousand horse-power.
In this way altogether nearly two-fifths of the available force was called
into requisition at the close of the fifth year; the remaining three-fifths
remained for the time unemployed, and formed a reserve for future needs.

The fourth and fifth years of Freeland were also marked by the construction
of a net of canals and aqueducts, both for Eden Vale and for the Dana
plateau. The canals served merely to carry the storm-water into the Dana;
whilst the refuse-water and the sewage were carried away in cast-iron pipes
by means of a system of pneumatic exhaust-tubes, and then disinfected and
utilised as manure. The aqueducts were connected with the best springs in
the upper hills, and possessed a provisional capacity of supplying
22,000,000 gallons daily, and were used for supplying a number of public
wells, as well as all the private houses. By the addition of fresh sources
this supply was in a short period doubled and trebled. At the same time all
the streets were macadamised; so that the cleanliness and health of the
young towns were duly cared for in all respects.

The board of education had made no less vigorous efforts. A public opinion
had grown up that the youth of Freeland, without distinction of sex and
without reference to future callings, ought to enjoy an education which,
with the exception of the knowledge of Greek and Latin, should correspond
to that obtainable, for example, in the six first classes in a German
gymnasium. Accordingly, boys and girls were to attend school from the age
of six to that of sixteen years, and, after acquiring the elements, were to
be taught grammar, the history of literature, general history, the history
of civilisation, physics, natural history, geometry, and algebra.

Not less importance was attached to physical education than to intellectual
and moral. Indeed, it was a principle in Freeland that physical education
should have precedence, since a healthy, harmoniously developed mind
presupposed a healthy harmoniously developed body. Moreover, in the
cultivation of the intellect less stress was laid upon the accumulation of
knowledge than upon the stimulation of the young mind to independent
thought; therefore nothing was more anxiously and carefully avoided than
over-pressure of mental work. No child was to be engaged in mental
work--home preparation included--longer than at most six hours a day; hence
the hours of teaching of any mental subject were limited to three a day,
whilst two other school hours were devoted daily to physical
exercises--gymnastics, running, dancing, swimming, riding; and for boys, in
addition, fencing, wrestling, and shooting. A further principle in Freeland
education was that the children should not be _forced_ into activity any
more than the adults. We held that a properly directed logical system of
education, not confined to the use of a too limited range of means, could
scarcely fail to bring the pliable mind of childhood to a voluntary and
eager fulfilment of reasonably allotted duties. And experience justified
our opinion. Our mode of instruction had to be such as would make school
exceedingly attractive; but, when this had been achieved, our boys and
girls learnt in half the time as much, and that as thoroughly, as the
physically and intellectually maltreated European boys and girls of the
same age. For health's sake, the teaching was carried on out of doors as
much as possible. With this in view, the schools were built either in large
gardens or on the border of the forest, and the lessons in natural history
were regularly, and other lessons frequently, given in connection with
excursions into the neighbourhood. Consequently our school children
presented a different appearance from that we had been accustomed to see in
our old home, and especially in its great cities. Rosy faces and figures
full of robust health, vigour, and the joy of living, self-reliance, and
strong intelligence were betrayed by every mien and every movement. Thus
were our children equipped for entering upon the serious duties of life.

Naturally such a system of instruction demanded a very numerous and highly
gifted staff of teachers. In Freeland there was on an average one teacher
to every fifteen scholars, and the best intelligence in the land was
secured for the teaching profession by the payment of high salaries. For
the first four classes, which were taught chiefly by young women--single or
widowed--the salaries ranged from 1,400 to 1,800 labour-hour equivalents;
for the other six classes from 1,800 to 2,400. In the fifth year of the
settlement these salaries, reckoned in money, amounted to from 350L to
600L.

But even such a demand for high intelligence Freeland was determined to
meet out of its own resources. In the third year, therefore, a high school
was founded, in which all those branches of knowledge were taught which in
Europe can be learnt at the universities, academies, and technical
colleges. All the faculties were endowed with a liberality of which those
outside of Freeland can have scarcely any conception. Our observatories,
laboratories, and museums had command of almost unlimited means, and no
stipend was too high to attract and retain a brilliant teacher. The same
held good of the technical, and not less of the agricultural and
commercial, professorial chairs and apparatus for teaching in our high
school. The instruction in all faculties was absolutely untrammelled, and,
like that in the lower schools, gratuitous. In the fifth year of the
settlement the high school had 7,500 students, the number of its chairs was
215; its annual budget reached as high as 2,500,000L, and was rapidly
increasing.

The means for all this enormous outlay was furnished in rich abundance by
the tax levied on the total income of all producers; for this income grew
amazingly under the double influence of the increasing population and the
increasing productiveness of labour. When the railway to the coast was
finished and its results had begun to make themselves felt, the value of
the average profit of a labour-hour quickly rose to 6s.; and as at this
time, the end of the fifth year in Freeland, 280,000 workers were
productively engaged for an average of six hours a day--that is, for 1,800
hours in the year--the total value of the profit of labour that year in
Freeland amounted to 280,000 x 1,800 x 6s.--that is, to a round sum of
150,000,000L. Of this the commonwealth reserved thirty-five per cent. as
tax--that is, in round figures, 52,500,000L; and this was the source from
which, after meeting the claims for the maintenance allowances--which
certainly absorbed more than half--all the expenses it was held desirable
to indulge in were defrayed.

In fact, the growth of revenue was so certain and had reached such large
proportions that, at the end of the fifth year, the executive resolved to
place before the representative bodies, meeting together for the purpose,
two measures of great importance: first, to make the granting of credits to
the associations independent of the central authority; and, secondly, to
return the free contributions of the members who had already joined, and in
future to accept no such contributions.

For the reasons given in the eighth chapter, the amount and order of the
loans for productive purposes had hitherto been dependent upon the decision
of the central authority. The stock of capitalistic aids to labour, and
consequently the productive means of the community, had now, however,
reached such a stage as to make any limit to the right of free and
independent decision by the workers themselves quite unnecessary. The
associations might ask for whatever they thought would be useful to
themselves, the capital of the country being considered equal to any
demands that could be reasonably anticipated. And this confidence in the
resources of Freeland proved to be well grounded. It is true that twice, in
the years that immediately followed this resolution, it happened that, in
consequence of unexpectedly large demands for capital, the portion of the
public revenue used for that purpose considerably exceeded the normal
proportion; but, thanks to the constant increase in all the profits of
production, this was borne without the slightest inconvenience. Later, the
reserves in the hands of the commonwealth sufficed to remove even this
element of fluctuation from the relations between the demand for capital
and the public revenue.

On the other hand, this resolution called forth a remarkable attempt to
swindle the commonwealth by means of the absolute freedom with which loans
were granted. In America a syndicate of speculative 'men of business' was
formed for the purpose of exploiting the simple-minded credulity of us
'stupid Freelanders.' Their plan was to draw as large a sum as possible
from our central bank under the pretence of requiring it to found an
association. Forty-six of the cleverest and most unscrupulous Yankees
joined in this campaign against our pockets. What they meant to do, and how
far they succeeded, can be best shown by giving the narrative written by
their leader, who is at present the honoured manager of the great saltworks
on the Nakuro lake:

'After we had arrived in Eden Vale, we decided to try the ground before we
proceeded to execute our design. We noticed, to our great satisfaction,
that the mistrust of the Freelanders would give us very little trouble. The
hotel in which we put up supplied us with everything on credit, and no one
took the trouble to ask we were. When I remarked to the host in a paternal
tone that it was a very careless procedure to keep a pump indiscriminately
free to any stroller who might come along, the host--I mean the director of
the Eden Vale Hotel Association--laughed and said there was no fear of
anyone's running away, for no one, whoever he might be, ever thought of
leaving Freeland. "So far, so good," thought I; but I asked further what
the Hotel Association would do if a guest _could_ not pay? "Nonsense," said
the director; "here everyone can pay as soon as he begins to work." "And if
he can't work?" "Then he gets a maintenance allowance from the
commonwealth." "And if he won't work?" The man smiled, slapped me on the
shoulder, and said, "Won't work won't last long here, you may rely upon it.
Besides, if one who has sound limbs _will_ be lazy--well, he still gets bed
and board among us. So don't trouble yourself about paying your score; you
may pay when you can and will."

'He made a curious impression upon us, this director. We said nothing, but
resolved to sound these Freelanders further. We went into the great
warehouses to get clothes, linen, &c., on credit. It succeeded admirably.
The salesmen--they were clerks, as we found--asked for a draft on the
central bank; and when we replied that we had no account there as yet, they
said it did not matter--it would be sufficient if we gave a written
statement of the amount of our purchases, and the bank, when we had an
account there, would honour it. It was the same everywhere. Mackay or Gould
cannot get credit in New York more readily than we did in Freeland.

'After a few days, we began to take steps towards establishing our
association. As I have said, we had at first no fear of exciting distrust.
But it was inconvenient that the Freeland constitution insisted upon
publicity in connection with every act, date, and circumstance connected
with business. We knew that we had nothing to fear from police or courts of
justice; but what should we do if the Freeland public were to acquire a
taste for the proposed association and wish to join it? Naturally we could
not admit outsiders as partners, but must keep the thing to ourselves,
otherwise our plan would be spoilt. We tried to find out if there were any
means of limiting the number of participators in our scheme. We minutely
questioned well-informed Freelanders upon the subject. We complained of the
abominable injustice of being compelled to share with everybody the benefit
of the splendid "idea" which we had conceived, to reveal our business
secrets, and so forth. But it was all of no use. The Freelanders remained
callous upon this point. They told us that no one would force us to reveal
our secrets if we were willing to work them out with our own resources; but
if we needed Freeland land and Freeland capital, then of course all
Freeland must know what we wanted to do. "And if our business can employ
only a small number of workers--if, for example, the goods that we wish to
make, though they yield a great profit, yet have a very limited
market--must we also in such a case let everybody come in?" "In such a
case," was the answer, "Freeland workers will not be so stupid as to force
themselves upon you in great numbers." "Good!" cried I, with dissembled
anger; "but if more should come in than are needed?" The people had an
answer even to this; for they said that those workers that were not needed
would withdraw, or, if they remained, they would have to work fewer hours,
or work in turns, or do something of that sort; opportunity of making
profitable use of spare time was never lacking in Freeland.

'What was to be done? We should be obliged to give our plans such a
character as to prevent the Freeland workers from having any wish to share
in them. But this must not be done too clumsily, as the people would after
all smell a rat, or perhaps join us out of pure philanthropy, in order to
save us from the consequences of our folly. We ultimately decided to set up
a needle-factory. Such a factory would be obviously--in the then condition
of trade--unprofitable, but the scheme was not so absolutely romantic as to
bring the inquisitive about our necks. We therefore organised ourselves,
and had the satisfaction of having no partners except a couple of
simpletons who, for some reason or other, fancied that needle-making was a
good business; and it was not very difficult to pet rid of these two. The
next thing was to fix the amount of capital to be required for the
business--that is, the amount of credit we should ask for at the central
bank. We should very naturally have preferred to ask at once for a million
pounds sterling; but that we could not do, as we should have to state what
we needed the money for, and a needle-factory for forty-eight workers could
not possibly have swallowed up so much without bringing upon us a whole
legion of investigating critics in the form of working partners. So we
limited our demand to 130,000L, and even this amount excited some surprise;
but we explained our demand by asserting that the new machines which we
intended to use were very dear.

'But now came the main anxiety. How were we to get this 130,000L, or the
greater part of it, into our pockets? Our people had elected me director of
the first "Eden Vale Needle-factory Association," and, as such, I went the
next day into the bank to open our account there and to obtain all the
necessary information. The cashier assured me that all payments authorised
by me should be at once made; but when I asked for a "small advance" of a
few thousand pounds, he asked in astonishment what was to be done with it.
"We must pay our small debts." "Unnecessary," was his answer; "all debts
are discharged here through the bank." "Yes, but what are my people and I
to live upon in the mean time, until our factory begins to work?" I asked
with some heat. "Upon your work in other undertakings, or upon your
savings, if you have any. Besides, you cannot fail to get credit; but we,
the central bank, give merely productive credit--we cannot advance to you
what you consume."

'There we were with nothing but our credit for 130,000L, and we began to
perceive that it was not so easy to carry off the money. Certainly we could
build and give orders for what we pleased. But what good would it do us to
spend money upon useless things?

'The worst was that we should have to begin to work in earnest if we would
not after all excite a general distrust; so we joined different
undertakings. But we would not admit that we were beaten, and after mature
reflection I hit upon the following as the only possible method of carrying
out the swindle we had planned. The central bank was the channel through
which all purchases and sales were made, but, as I soon detected, did not
interfere in the least with the buyer or the person who ordered goods in
the choice of such goods as he might think suitable. We had, therefore, the
right to order the machinery for our needle-factory of any manufacturers we
pleased in Europe or America, and the central bank would pay for it. We,
therefore, merely had to act in conjunction with some European or American
firm of swindlers, and share the profits with them, in order to carry off a
rich booty.

'At the same time, it occurred to me that it would be infinitely stupid to
make use of such a method. It was quite plain that very little was to be
gained in that way; but, even if it had been possible for each of us to
embezzle a fortune, I had lost all desire to leave Freeland. The chances
were that I should be a loser by leaving. I was a novice at honest work,
and any special exertion was not then to my taste. Yet I had earned as much
as 12s. a day, and that is 180L a year, with which one can live as well
here as with twice as much in America or England. Even if I continued to
work in the same way, merely enough to keep off _ennui_, my income would
very soon increase. In the worst case, I could live upon my earnings here
as well as 400L or 500L would enable me to live elsewhere; and there was
not the slightest prospect of being able to steal so much. The result was
that I declined to go away. Firstly, because I was very happy here;
intercourse with decent men was becoming more and more pleasant and
attractive to the scoundrel, which I then was; and then--it struck me as
rather comical--I began to get ashamed of my roguery. Even scoundrels have
their honour. In the other parts of the world, where _everyone_ fleeces his
neighbour if he can, I did not think myself worse than the so-called honest
people: the only difference was that I did not adhere so closely to the
law. There, all are engaged in hunting down their dear neighbours; that I
allowed myself to hunt without my chart did not trouble my conscience much,
especially as I only had the alternative of hunting or being hunted. But
here in Freeland no one hunted for his neighbour's goods; here every rogue
must confess himself to be worse than all the rest, and indeed a rascal
without necessity, out of pure delight in rascality. If one only had the
spur of danger which in the outer world clothed this hunting with so much
poetry! But here there was not a trace of it! The Freelanders would not
even have pursued us if we had bolted with our embezzled booty; we might
have run off as unmolested as so many mangy dogs. No; here I neither would
nor could be a rascal. I called my companions together to tell them that I
resigned my position as director, withdrew altogether from the company, and
meant to devote myself here to honest work. There was not one who did not
agree with me. Some of them were not quite reconciled to work, but they all
meant to remain. One specially persistent fellow asked whether, as we were
once more together by ourselves, and might not be so again, it would not be
a smart trick if we were to embezzle a few thousand pounds before we became
honest folks; but it did not even need a reference to the individual
responsibility of the members of the association for the debts that the
association contracted in order to dispose of the proposition of this last
adherent to our former rascality. Not only would they all stay here, but
they would become honest--these hardened rogues, who a few weeks before
were wont to use the words _honest_ and _stupid_ as synonyms. So it came to
pass that the fine plan, in devising which the "smartest fellows" of New
England had exhausted their invention, was silently dropped; and, if I am
well informed, not one of the forty-six of us has ever uttered a
complaint.'

The second proposal brought before the united representatives of
Freeland--the repayment of the larger or smaller contributions which most
of the members had up to then paid on admission into the Society--involved
the disbursement of not less than 43,000,000L. The members had always been
told that their contributions were not repayable, but were to be a
sacrifice towards the attainment of the objects of the Society.
Nevertheless, the government of Freeland considered that now, when the new
commonwealth no longer needed such a sacrifice, it was only just to
dispense with it, both prospectively and retrospectively. The generous
benefactors had never based any claim to special recognition or higher
honour upon the assistance they had so richly afforded to the poorer
members; in fact, most of them had even refused to be recognised as
benefactors. Neither was this assistance in any way inconsistent with the
principles upon which the new community was founded; on the contrary, it
was quite in harmony with those principles that the assistance afforded by
the wealthy to the helpless should be regarded as based upon sound rational
self-interest. But when the time had come when, as a consequence of this so
generously practised rational egoism, the commonwealth was strong enough to
dispense with extraneous aids, and to repay what had been already given, it
seemed to us just that this should be done.

This proposal was unanimously accepted without debate, and immediately
carried into execution. All the contributors received back their
contributions--that is, the amounts were placed to their credit in the
books of the central bank, and they could dispose of them as they pleased.

With this, the second epoch of the history of Freeland may be regarded as
closed. The founding of the commonwealth, which occupied the first epoch,
was effected entirely by the voluntary sacrifices of the individual
members. In the second period, this aid, though no longer absolutely
necessary, was a useful and effective means of promoting the rapid growth
of the commonwealth. Henceforth, grown to be a giant, this free
commonwealth rejected all aid of whatever kind that did not spring out of
its regular resources; and, recompensing past aid a thousand-fold, it was
now the great institution upon whose ever-inexhaustible means the want and
misery of every part of the world might with certainty reckon.




_BOOK III_




CHAPTER XIII


Twenty years have passed away--twenty-five years since the arrival of our
pioneers at the Kenia. The principles by which Freeland has been governed
have remained the same, and their results have not changed, except that the
intellectual and material culture, and the number and wealth of the
inhabitants have grown in a continually increasing ratio. The immigration,
by means of fifty-four of the largest ocean steamers of a total of 495,000
tons register, had reached in the twenty-fifth year the figure of 1,152,000
heads. In order to convey into the heart of the continent as quickly as
possible this influx to the African coast from all parts of the world, the
Freeland system of railways has been either carried to or connected with
other lines that reach the ocean at four different points. One line is that
which was constructed in the previous epoch between Eden Vale and Mombasa.
Four years later, after the pacification of the Galla tribes, the line to
the Witu coast through the Dana valley was constructed. Nine years after
that, a line--like all the other principal lines in Freeland,
double-railed--along the Nile valley from the Victoria Nyanza and the
Albert Nyanza, through the equatorial provinces of Egypt, Dongola, the
Soudan, and Nubia, was connected with the Egyptian railway system, and thus
brought Freeland into railway communication with the Mediterranean.
Finally, in the twenty-fourth year, the finishing touch was given to the
great Equatorial Trunk Railway, which, starting from Uganda on the Victoria
Nyanza, and crossing the Nile where it leaves the Albert Nyanza, reaches
the Atlantic Ocean through the valleys of the Aruwhimi and the Congo. Thus
we possess two direct railway communications with the Indian Ocean, and one
each with the Mediterranean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean. Naturally, the
Mombasa line was largely superseded by the much shorter Dana line; our
passenger trains run the 360 miles of the latter in nine hours, while the
Mombasa line, despite its shortening by the Athi branch line, cannot be
traversed in less than double that time. The distance by rail between Eden
Vale and Alexandria is 4,000 miles, the working of which is in our hands
from Assuan southward. On account of the slower rate of the trains on the
Egyptian portion, the journey consumes six days and a half; nevertheless,
this is the most frequented route, because it shortens the total journey by
nearly two weeks for all the immigrants who come by the Mediterranean
Sea--that is, for all Europeans and most of the Americans. The Grand
Equatorial Trunk Line--which, by agreement with the Congo State, was
constructed almost entirely at our cost and is worked entirely by us--has a
length of above 3,000 miles, and travellers by it from the mouth of the
Congo can reach Eden Vale in a little less than four days.

Eden Vale, and the Kenia district generally, have long since ceased to
receive the whole influx of immigrants. The densest Freeland population is
still to be found on the highlands between the Victoria Nyanza and the
Indian Ocean, and the seat of the supreme government is now, as formerly,
in Eden Vale; but Freeland has largely extended its boundaries on all
sides, particularly on the west. Freeland settlers have spread over the
whole of Masailand, Kavirondo, and Uganda, and all round the shores of the
Victoria Nyanza, the Mutanzige, and the Albert Nyanza, wherever healthy
elevated sites and fruitful soil were to be found. The provisional limits
of the territory over which we have spread are formed on the south-east by
the pleasant and fertile hill-districts of Teita; on the north by the
elevated tracts between the lakes Baringo and Victoria Nyanza and the Galla
countries; on the west by the extreme spurs of the Mountains of the Moon,
which begin at the Albert lake; and on the south by the hilly districts
stretching to the lake Tanganika. This makes an area of about 580,000
square miles. This area is not, however, everywhere covered with a compact
Freeland population; but in many places our colonists are scattered among
the natives, whom they are everywhere raising to a higher and freer
civilisation. The total population of the territory at this time under
Freeland influence amounts to 42,000,000 souls, of whom 26,000,000 are
whites and 10,000,000 black or brown natives. Of the whites 12,500,000
dwell in the original settlement on the Kenia and the Aberdare range;
1,500,000 are scattered about over the rest of Masailand, on the north
declivities of the Kilimanjaro and in Teita; the hills to the west and
north of Lake Baringo have a white population of 2,000,000; round the
Victoria Nyanza have settled 8,500,000; among the hills between that lake
and Lakes Mutanzige and Albert 1,500,000; on the Mountains of the Moon,
west of Lake Albert Nyanza, 3,000,000; and finally, to the south, between
these two lakes and Lake Tanganika, are scattered 2,000,000.

The products of Freeland industry comprehend almost all the articles
required by civilised men; but mechanical industry continues to be the
chief branch of production. This production is principally to meet the home
demand, though the productive capacity of Freeland has for years materially
surpassed that of all the machine-factories in the rest of the world. But
Freeland has employment for more machinery than the whole of the rest of
the world put together, for the work of its machines takes the place of
that of the slaves or she wage-labourers of other countries; and as our
26,000,000 whites--not to reckon the civilised negroes--are all
'employers,' we need very many steel and iron servants to satisfy our
needs, which increase step by step with the increase of our skill.
Therefore comparatively few of our machines--except certain specialties--go
over our frontiers. On the contrary, agriculture is pursued more largely
for export than for home consumption; indeed, it can with truth be asserted
that the whole of the Freeland corn-produce is available for export, since
the surplus of the corn-production of the negroes which reaches our markets
is on an average quite sufficient to cover our home demand. In the
twenty-fourth year there were 22,000,000 acres of land under the plough,
which in the two harvests produced 2,066,000,000 cwt. of grain and other
field-produce, worth in round figures 600,000,000L. To this quantity of
agricultural produce must be added other export goods worth 550,000,000L;
so that the total export was worth 1,150,000,000L. On the other hand, the
chief item of import goods was that of 'books and other printed matter';
and next to this followed works of art and objects of luxury. Of the
articles which in other countries make up the chief mass of outside
commerce, the Freeland list of imports shows only cotton goods, cotton
being grown at home scarcely at all. This item of import reached the value
of 57,000,000L. The import of books--newspapers included--reached in the
previous year 138,000,000L, considerably more than all the rest of the
world had in that same year paid for books. It must not be inferred that
the demand for books in Freeland is entirely, or even mainly, covered by
the import from without. The Freeland readers during the same year paid
more than twice as much to their home publishers as to the foreign ones. In
fact, at the date of our writing this, the Freelanders read more than three
times as much as the whole of the reading public outside of Freeland.

The above figures will show the degree of wealth to which Freeland has
attained. In fact, the total value of the productions of the 7,500,000
producers during the last year was nearly seven milliard pounds sterling
(7,000,000,000L.) Deducting from that amount two milliards and a-half to
cover the tax for the purposes of the commonwealth, there remained four
milliard and a-half as profit to be shared among the producers, giving an
average of 600L to each worker. And to produce this we worked only five
hours a day on the average, or 1,500 hours in the year; so that the average
net value of an hour's labour was 8s.--little less than the average weekly
wage of the common labourer in many parts of Europe.

Almost all articles of ordinary consumption are very much cheaper in
Freeland than in any other part of the civilised world. The average price
of a cwt. of wheat is 6s; a pound of beef about 2-1/2d., a hectolitre
(twenty-two gallons) of beer or light wine 10s., a complete suit of good
woollen clothing 20s. or 80s., a horse of splendid Arab stock 15L, a good
milch cow 2L, &c. A few articles of luxury imported from abroad are
dear--_e.g._ certain wines, and those goods which must be produced by
hand-labour--of which, however, there are very few. The latter were all
imported from abroad, as it would never occur to a Freelander to compete
with foreigners in hand-labour. For though the harmoniously developed,
vigorous, and intelligent workers of our country surpass two- or three-fold
the debilitated servants of Western nations in the strength and training of
their muscles, they cannot compete with hand-labour that is fifty- or a
hundred-fold cheaper than their own. Their superiority begins when they can
oppose their slaves of steel to the foreign ones of flesh and bone; with
these slaves of steel they can work cheaper than those of flesh and bone,
for the slaves which are set in motion by steam, electricity, and water are
more easily satisfied than even the wage-labourers of 'free' Europe. These
latter need potatoes to fill their stomach, and a few rags to cover their
nakedness; whilst coal or a stream of water stills the hunger of the
former, and a little grease suffices to keep their joints supple.

This superiority of Freeland in machinery, and that of foreign countries in
hand labour, merely confirms an old maxim of experience, which is none the
less true that it still escapes the notice of the so-called 'civilised
nations.' That only the relatively rich nations--that is, those whose
masses are relatively in the best condition--very largely employ machinery
in production, could not possibly long escape the most obtuse-minded; but
this undeniable phenomenon is wrongly explained. It is held that the
English or the American people live in a way more worthy of human nature
than, for example, the Chinese or the Russians, because they are richer;
and that for the same reason--namely, because the requisite capital is more
abundant--the English and Americans use machinery while the Chinese and
Russians employ merely human muscles. This leaves unexplained the principal
question, whence comes this difference in wealth? and also directly
contradicts the facts that the Chinese and the Russians make no use of the
capital so liberally and cheaply offered to them, and that machine-labour
is unprofitable in their hands as long as their wage-earners are satisfied
with a handful of rice or with half-rotten potatoes and a drop of spirits.
But it is a part of the _credo_ of the orthodox political economy, and is
therefore accepted without examination. Yet he who does not use his eyes
merely to shut them to facts, or his mind merely to harbour obstinately the
prejudices which he has once acquired, must sooner or later see that the
wealth of the nations is nothing else than their possession of the means of
production; that this wealth is great or small in proportion as the means
of production are many and great, or few and small; and that many or few
means of production are needed according as there is a great or a small use
of those things which are created by these means of production--therefore
solely in proportion to the large or small consumption. Where little is
used little can be produced, and there will therefore be few instruments of
production, and the people must remain poor.

Neither can the export trade make any alteration; for the things which are
exported must be exchanged for other things, whether food, or instruments
of labour, or money, or some other commodity, and for that which is
imported there must be some use; which, however, is impossible if there is
no consumption, for in such a case the imported articles will find as
little sale as the things produced at home. Certainly those commodities
which are produced by a people who use neither their own productions nor
those of other people, may be lent to other nations. But this again depends
upon whether foreigners have a use for such a surplus above what is
required at home; and as this is not generally the case, it remains, once
for all, that any nation can produce only so much as it has a use for, and
the measure of its wealth is therefore the extent of its requirements.

Naturally this applies to only those nations whose civilisation has reached
such a stage that the employment of complex instruments of labour is
prevented, not by their ignorance, but simply by their social political
helplessness. To such nations, however, applies in full the truth that they
are poor simply because they _cannot_ eat enough to satisfy themselves; and
that the increase of their wealth is conditioned by nothing else than the
degree of energy with which the working classes struggle against their
misery. The English and the Americans _will_ eat meat, and therefore do not
allow their wages to sink below the level at which the purchase of meat is
possible; this is the only reason why England and America employ more
machinery than China and Russia, where the people are contented with _rice_
or _potatoes_. But we in Freeland have brought it to pass that our working
classes are secure of obtaining the whole profit of their labour, however
great that profit may be; what, therefore, could be more natural than that
we should employ as much machinery as our mechanicians can invent?

Nothing can permanently prevent the operation of this first law of
economics. Production exists solely for the sake of consumption, and must
therefore--as ought long since to have been seen--depend, both in its
amount and in the character of its means, upon the amount of consumption.
And if some tricksy Puck were to carry off overnight to some European
country all our wealth and all our machinery, without taking to that
country our social institutions as well, it is as certain that that country
would not be a farthing richer than it was before, as it is that China
would not be richer if all the wealth of England and America were carried
thither without allowing the Chinese labourers more than boiled rice for
food and a loin-cloth for clothing. Just as in this case the English and
American machinery would become mere useless old iron in China, so in the
former case would our machinery in Europe or America. And just as the
English and the Americans, if their working classes only retained their
present habits, would very quickly produce fresh machinery to take the
place of that which had been spirited away to China, and would thereby
regain their former level of wealth, so it would not be difficult for us to
repeat what we have already effected--namely, to place ourselves afresh in
possession of all that wealth which corresponds to _our_ habits of life.
For the social institutions of Freeland are the true and only source of our
wealth; that we can _use_ our wealth is the _raison d'etre_ of all our
machinery.

Under the name of machinery we here include everything which on the one
hand is not a free gift of nature, but the outcome of human effort, and on
the other hand is intended to increase the productiveness of human labour.
This power has grown to colossal dimensions in Freeland. Our system of
railways--the lines above-named are only the four largest, which serve for
communication with other countries--has reached a total length of road of
about 358,000 miles, of which less than 112,000 miles are main lines, while
about 248,000 miles are lines for agricultural and industrial purposes. Our
canal system serves mainly for purposes of irrigation and draining, and the
total length of its numberless thousands of larger and smaller branches is
beyond all calculation, but these canals are navigable for a length of
86,000 miles. Besides the passenger ships already mentioned, there are
afloat upon the seas of the world nearly 3,000 of our freight steamers with
a total registered tonnage of 14,500,000. On the lakes and rivers of Africa
we possess 17,800 larger and smaller steamers with a total register of
5,200,000 tons. The motive power which drives these means of communication
and the numberless machines of our agriculture and our factories, our
public and private institutions, reaches a total of not less than
245,000,000 horse-power--that is, fully twice the mechanical force employed
by the whole of the rest of the world. In Freeland there is brought into
use a mechanical force of nearly nine and a-half horse-power per head of
the population; and as every registered horse-power is equal to the
mechanical force of twelve or thirteen men, the result in labour is the
same as if every Freelander without exception had about 120 slaves at his
disposal. What wonder that we can live like masters, notwithstanding that
servitude is not known in Freeland!

The value of the above enormous investments of all kinds can be calculated
to a farthing, because of the wonderful transparency of all our industrial
operations. The Freeland commonwealth, as such, has, during the twenty-five
years of its existence, disbursed eleven milliards sterling for investment
purposes. The disbursement through the medium of associations and of
individual workers (the latter in relatively insignificant numbers) has
amounted to twenty-three milliards sterling. So that the total investments
represent a sum of thirty-four milliards, all highly profitable capital,
despite--or rather because of--the fact that it belongs to no one
particular owner; for this very absence of private proprietorship of the
total productive capital is the reason why any labour power can avail
itself of those means of production by the use of which the highest
possible profit can be realised. Every Freelander is joint-possessor of
this immense wealth, which amounts--without taking into account the
incalculable value of the soil--to 1,300L per head, or 6,000L per family.
Thus, in these twenty-five years we have all become in a certain sense
quite respectable capitalists. This capital does not bear us interest; but,
on the other hand, we owe to it the labour-profit of seven milliards
sterling, which gives an average of 270L per head for the 26,000,000 souls
in Freeland.

But, before we describe the Freeland life which has developed itself upon
the foundation of this abundance of wealth and energy, it will be necessary
to give a brief outline of Freeland history during the last twenty years.

In the former section we had reached the first railway connection with the
Indian Ocean on the one hand, and the campaign against Uganda, with the
first colonisation of the shores of the Victoria Nyanza, on the other. The
attention of our explorers was next directed to the very interesting
hill-country north and north-west of Lake Baringo, particularly Elgon, the
district on the frontier of Uganda, which rises to an elevation of some
14,000 feet. Here was a large field for future settlement equal to the
Kenia and Aberdare ranges in fertility, climate, and beauty of scenery. In
variety, the view from the summit of Elgon surpassed anything we had before
seen. To the south-west stretched the sea-like expanse of the Victoria
Nyanza, bounded only by the horizon. To the north, forty miles away rose
the snow-covered peak of Lekakisera. To the east, the eye ranged over
immense stretches of forest-hills, whilst the smiling highlands of Uganda
closed the view to the west.

The very evident traces of the former activity of a highly developed
civilised people stimulated the spirit of investigation of our
archaeologists. The great caves which had been noticed by earlier
travellers in the foot-hills around the Elgon had every appearance of being
of an artificial origin. It was quite as evident that none of the races
dwelling within thousands of miles of these caves could have excavated
them. They are all in a hard agglomerate, and their capacity varies from
about 25,000 to 125,000 cubic yards. Their purpose was as enigmatical as
their origin. For the most part they are to be found on steep, scarcely
accessible, precipitous mountain-sides, but, without exception, only in a
thick layer of breccia or agglomerate interposed between a trachytic and a
volcanic stone. At that time they were inhabited by a race of a very low
type, subsisting solely upon the chase and pasturage, and who were utterly
incapable of making such dwellings, and declared that the caves had existed
from the beginning. But who made them, and for what purpose were they
originally made? That they were to be found only in one particular stratum
naturally gave rise to the supposition that they were made by mining
operations. They must have been opened in a past age for some kind of ore
or other mineral product, and have been worked with a great expenditure of
labour and for a very long period; for the caves are so many and so large
that, even with modern appliances, it would have needed thousands of men
for many decades to excavate them in the hard agglomerate of sand and
pebbles. The excavation had been made, however, not with powder and
dynamite, but with chisel and pickaxe; the caves must therefore have been
the work of thousands of years. There was only _one_ people who could here
have expended upon such a work sufficient strength for a sufficient
time--the Egyptian. This most ancient civilised people in the world, whose
history covers thousands of years, must have excavated these caves; of this
there was no doubt among our archaeologists.

That in the grey antiquity the Egyptians penetrated to the sources of their
holy river (it may be remarked in passing that the Ripon falls, where the
Nile flows out of the Victoria Nyanza, are in clear weather very plainly to
be seen from the Elgon) has nothing in it so remarkable, even though modern
historical investigation has not been able to find any trace of it. But
wherever the Egyptians penetrated, and particularly wherever they built,
one is accustomed to find unmistakable traces of their activity. It behoved
us, therefore, to search for such traces, and then to discover what the
Pharaohs of the ancient dynasties had sought for here. Our researches were
successful as to the first object, but not as to the second. In two places,
unfortunately outside of the entrances to the caves in question, where
atmospheric and perhaps other influences had been destructively at work,
there were found conically pointed basalt prisms, which exhibited
unmistakable traces of hieroglyphic writing. These inscriptions were no
longer legible; and though our Egyptologists, as well as those of London
and Paris, agreed in thinking that the inscription on one stone distinctly
referred to the goddess Hathor, this view is rather the verdict of a kind
of archaeological instinct than a conclusion based upon tangible evidence.
That the stones bore Egyptian inscriptions, and had stood for thousands of
years at the entrances to these caves, was plain enough, even to the eyes
of laymen. Parenthetically it may be remarked that this discovery throws
light upon the origin of the Masai, of whom it has already been said that
they were not negroes, but a bronze-coloured race showing the Hamitic type.
Plainly the Masai are Egyptians, who, in a forgotten past, were cut off
from the rest in the highlands south of the Baringo lake. Their martial
habits would suggest descent from the ancient Egyptian warrior caste,
possibly from those discontented warriors who, twenty-five centuries ago,
in the days of Psammetichus I., migrated to Ethiopia, when Pharaoh had
offended them by the employment of Greek mercenaries.

But this did not tell what the Egyptians, in honour either of Hathor or of
some other celestial or terrestrial majesty, were looking for on the Elgon.
We spared no pains in seeking further evidence; both in the caves and in
other parts of the agglomerate in which they were excavated, we diligently
looked for something to throw light upon the subject. But we found nothing,
at least nothing that appeared to be of any special use to the Egyptians,
either in the way of metals or of precious stones. We were finally
compelled to content ourselves with the supposition that some of the
variously coloured stones which were present in the formation in great
number and variety were highly valued in the days of the Pharaohs, without
the knowledge of the fact having descended to our days. There would be
nothing remarkable in this, for neither would it have been the first
instance in which men have for thousands of years reckoned as very precious
that upon which subsequent generations scarcely deigned to glance, nor do
we know enough of the life of the ancient Egyptians to be able positively
to assert that every object in the inscriptions and papyrus-rolls means
this or that. It is therefore very possible that in many of the Egyptian
inscriptions which have come down to us a great deal is told of the stones
found here on the Elgon, whilst we, misled by the great value which the
narrator ascribes to the said stones, think that some precious stone now
highly valued was referred to, and that generations of Egyptian slaves have
spent their lives here in cruel toil, in order to procure for their masters
an object of luxury which we to-day carelessly kick aside when it
accidentally comes in our way.

Let this be as it may, we found nothing of any value in the agglomerate in
which the Egyptians had excavated. But, in the immediate neighbourhood of
the cave-hills, we found something else: something that men coveted
thousands of years ago, as they do to-day, but which, singularly enough,
escaped the miners of the Pharaohs, and was not looked for by them on the
Elgon--namely, gold, and that in large rich veins. It was accidentally
discovered by one of the engineers engaged in the examination of the caves,
who, significantly, was at first seized with horror at his discovery. He
was an enthusiastic young Spaniard, who had only recently reached Freeland,
and he saw in his discovery a great danger for those Freeland principles
which were so passionately worshipped by him, and he therefore at first
resolved to keep it secret. He reflected, however, that some one else would
soon come upon the same trace, and that the evil which he dreaded would
become a fact. He therefore decided to confide in those under whom he was
acting, and to point out to them the danger that threatened the happiness
of Freeland. It was very difficult to make Nunez--as this young enthusiast
was named--understand that there would be little hope for the security and
permanent vitality of the institutions of Freeland if the richest possible
discovery of gold were able to put them in jeopardy, and to convince him
that gold-mining was like any other kind of work--that labour would flow to
the mines as long as it was possible to earn as much there as in any other
branch of production, and the result of his discovery could only be that of
slightly raising the average earnings of Freeland labour.

And so it was. Nunez had not erred in his estimate of the productiveness of
the mines; the newly opened gold-diggings soon yielded some 12,000,000L a
year.

The managers of the central bank utilised this new source of wealth in gold
for the establishment of an independent Freeland coinage. Hitherto the
English sovereign had been our gold currency, and we had reckoned in
English pounds, shillings, and pence. Now a mint was set up in Eden Vale,
and the coinage underwent a reform. We retained the sterling pound and the
shilling, but we minted our pound nearly one per cent. lighter than the
English one, so that it might be exactly equal to twenty-five francs of the
French or decimal system of coinage; the shilling we divided, not into
twelve parts, but into a hundred.

Of these Freeland pounds, which in the course of a few years acquired
undisputed rank as a cosmopolitan coin, and passed current everywhere, only
a comparatively small number circulated in Freeland itself. We needed in
our domestic transactions scarcely any cash. All payments were made through
the bank, where every one--our civilised negroes not excepted--had an
account, and which possessed branches all over the country. At first the
coins were used for paying small amounts, then cheques came into general
use for these, and later still it came to be sufficient, to write a simple
order on the bank. The coinage was therefore almost exclusively needed for
foreign use; in the course of sixteen years the mint has issued some
130,000,000L of which scarcely seven per cent. remained in Freeland, and
all except a very small portion of this lies in the bank cellars, where its
repose is never disturbed. For with us there are no fluctuations of the
money market, since there exists scarcely any demand for money in Freeland.
Gold is our measure of value, and will remain so as long as there is no
commodity discovered better fitted to perform this function--that is,
exposed to less variation in value--than this metal. The instrument of
_transferring_ value among us is not money, but paper, ink, and pen.
Scarcity and superfluity of gold are therefore in Freeland as meaningless
conceptions as would be a scarcity or superfluity of metres in Europe.

The gold discoveries on the Elgon at any rate contributed towards hastening
the settlement of those splendid highlands lying to the north-west of Lake
Baringo. The adjacent Uganda was used as a seat of agriculture, whilst the
towns, essentially copies of Eden Vale, whose wooden houses had meanwhile
given place to elegant villas of stone and brick, wore located on the
cooler heights of the wooded hills.

Our pioneers pursued their way ever farther and farther. There was still
abundant room in the older settlements; but the spirit of discovery,
together with the fascination of novelty that hung around the distant
districts, continually led new bands farther and farther into the 'Dark
Continent.' When the shores of the Victoria Nyanza no longer contained
anything unknown, our pathfinders penetrated the primitive forests of the
hilly districts between Lakes Mutanzige and Albert Nyanza. Here, for the
first time, we came into contact with cannibal races, the subjection of
whom was no small task and was not accomplished without bloodshed. From the
Albert Nyanza, the east shores of which are mostly bare and barren, we
obtained an enticing view of the Mountains of the Moon, whose highest point
rises above 13,000 feet, and in the cool season frequently shows a cap of
snow. Down the picturesque declivities that look towards the lake fall from
incredible heights a number of powerful cataracts, giving rise to pleasant
inferences as to the nature of the district in which the streams have their
source. Naturally they did not long remain unvisited, and the fame of the
new marvels of natural beauty found there soon drew hundreds of thousands
of settlers thither. There also we came into collision with cannibal races,
some of which still carry on their evil practices in secret. From hence our
pioneers turned southwards, everywhere making use of the hill-ranges as
highways. Six years ago our outposts had reached Lake Tanganika, where they
gave preference to the western heights that rise in places 3,000 feet above
the level of the lake, which is itself about 5,000 feet above the sea. At
present hundreds of thousands of our people are settled on the lovely
shores of this the longest, though only the second largest, of the
equatorial lakes. Lake Tanganika is not quite half so large as the Victoria
Nyanza, and is nowhere too broad for a good eye to see the opposite hills,
but its length reaches 360 miles, about three-fourths as long as the
Adriatic Sea, and the fastest of the 286 steamers which at this time
navigate it at our charge takes nearly twenty-four hours to go from end to
end.

We now came more and more into immediate contact with colonies under
European influence. In the south and east we touched German and English
interests and spheres of influence; in the north-east, more or less
directly, French and Italian; in the north Egyptian; in the west the
vigorously developing Congo State. Our intercourse was everywhere directed
by the best and most accommodating intentions, but a number of questions
sprang up which urgently demanded a definitive solution. For instance, the
neighbouring colonies found it inconvenient to be in close proximity to
Freeland settlements; their population was drawn away by us like iron
filings by a magnet. Wherever a Freeland association established itself
near a foreign colony, nothing of that colony was left after a little
while, except the empty dwellings and the forsaken plantations: the
colonists had settled among us and become Freelanders. At the same time,
the foreign governments neither could nor wished to do anything, since the
interests of their subjects were not damaged; but with respect to the
establishment of their power in the countries in question, the foreign
governments were necessarily made uncomfortable by the impossibility of
asserting themselves in our neighbourhood.

We were also compelled to moot the question, what would happen if
Freelanders wore to settle in any district belonging to a Western nation?
We had hitherto purposely avoided doing this, but ultimately it would be
unavoidable. What would happen then? Should we, in possession of the
stronger form of civilisation, yield to the weaker and more backward one?
Could we do so, even if we were willing? Freeland is not a state in the
ordinary sense of the word. Its character does not lie in dominion over a
definite territory, but in its social institutions. These institutions are
in themselves quite compatible with foreign forms of government, and for
the sake of keeping peace with our neighbours we were compelled to try to
obtain legal recognition of our institutions, in the first place, in the
neighbouring colonial districts.

And not merely upon the continent of Africa, but in other parts of the
world also, there came into existence a number of questions between
ourselves and various governments, which urgently needed settling. On
principle we avoided getting mixed up with any of the political affairs of
foreign countries; but we held it to be our right and our duty to help with
our wealth and power our needy brethren, in whatever part of the inhabited
world they might live. Freeland money was to be found wherever want had to
be relieved and the disinherited and wretched to be aided against
exploitage. Our offices and our ships were gratuitously at the service of
all who wished to flee to us out of the sorrow of the old system of
society; and we never wearied in our efforts to make the blessings of our
institutions more and more accessible to our suffering brethren. All this,
as has been said, we considered to be both our duty and our right, and we
were not disposed to allow ourselves to be turned aside from the fulfilment
of our mission by the protests of foreign Powers. But it became impossible
not to perceive that the relations between us and several European and
Asiatic governments were getting more and more strained. In the democratic
west of Europe, in America, and in Australia, public opinion was too strong
in our favour for us to fear any--even passive--resistance to our efforts
from those countries. But the case was different with several Eastern
States. Particularly since our means, and consequently our propagandist
activity, had attained the colossal dimensions of the last few years, with
a promise of continued growth, it had been here and there seriously asked
whether, and by what means, it was possible to keep out Freeland money and
to counteract Freeland influence. For a time the governments in question
avoided an open breach with us, partly on account of the public opinion
which was powerful in our favour even in their countries, and partly on
account of the large financial resources which were in our hands. They did
not wish to have us as avowed enemies, but they wished to control the
influx of Freeland money and the purposes to which it was applied, and to
check the emigration to Freeland.

We were not disposed to stand and look upon such attempts with folded arms.
The right to spring to the aid of our enslaved fellow-men, or to keep open
to them a refuge in Freeland, we were determined to defend to the utmost of
our strength; and no one in Freeland doubted that we were strong enough in
case of need to resist any attempts by foreign Powers to limit our
activity. But all in Freeland were agreed that every conceivable pacific
means must be tried before we appealed to arms. And the difficulty in the
way of a bloodless settlement of the quarrel lay in the fact that the
Freelanders and the foreigners held opposite views concerning the military
strength of Freeland. Whilst we, as has been said, were convinced that we
were as strong as any military State in the world--nay, as several of them
put together--those very foreign governments with whom we were at variance
looked upon us as powerless from a military point of view. We were
therefore convinced that a definitive threat by our plenipotentiaries would
not be taken seriously, and that on this very account any attempt
energetically to maintain our position could produce the requisite effect
only by actual war. And a war it was that confirmed our position everywhere
abroad, though not with either an European or an Asiatic, but with an
African power--a war which, though it had a very indirect bearing upon the
subject in question, yet brought this question to a decision.

How this came about will be told in the letters given in the following
chapters. These letters were written by Prince Carlo Falieri, a young
Italian diplomatist, who has since settled in Freeland, but who at the time
to which these letters refer was visiting Eden Vale in his country's
service. This correspondence will, at the same time, give a vivid picture
of Freeland manners and life in the twenty-fifth year of its history.




CHAPTER XIV


Eden Vale: July 12, ----

After a silence of several months I am writing to you from the chief city
in Freeland, where my father and I have already been for some days. What
has brought us to the country of social liberty? You know--or perhaps you
do not know--that my chiefs at Monte Citorio have for some time not known
how to deal with the brown Napoleon of the East Coast of Africa, the Negus
John V. of Abyssinia; and that our good friends in London and Paris have
experienced the same difficulty. So the cabinets of the three Western
Powers have agreed to seek an African remedy for the common African malady.
To find this we are here. Lord E---- and Sir W. B---- are sent on the part
of England; Madame Charles Delpart and M. Henri de Pons on the part of
France; while Italy is represented by Prince Falieri and his son--my
littleness. We are commissioned to represent to the Freelanders that it
would be to their interest as well as to ours if they allowed their country
to be the theatre of war against Abyssinia.

Those of us among Europeans who have possessions on the African coast of
the Red Sea and south of the Straits of Bab-el-Mandeb have had much trouble
with the Negus. During the late war he kept the allied armies of England,
France, and Italy in check; and, had it not been for the intervention of
our Italian fleet, those armies would narrowly have escaped the fate of
that Egyptian host which, according to the Bible, was drowned in the Red
Sea 3,300 years ago. The Negus--plainly with the aid of certain friends of
his in Europe--has utilised the five years' peace (which was not a very
creditable one for us) in perfecting his already powerful army and
organising it according to the Western pattern. He now possesses 300,000
men armed with weapons of the best and most modern construction, an
excellent cavalry of at least 40,000, and an artillery of 106 batteries,
which our representatives describe as quite equal to any European troops.
What John means to do with an armament so enormously beyond the needs of
poor Abyssinia has been rendered plain by the events of the last five
years. He wishes to take from us and the English the coast towns on the Red
Sea, and from the French their province south of Bab-el-Mandeb. Our coast
fortresses and fleet will not be able in the long run to prevent this,
unless we can defeat the Abyssinians in the open field. But how are armies,
equal to the reorganised Abyssinian forces, to be maintained on those
inhospitable coasts? How can a campaign be carried on, with nothing but the
sea at the rear, against an enemy of whose terrible offensive strength we
have already had only too good proof? Yet the Negus must be met, cost what
it will; for with the sacrifice of the coast towns the connection with East
Asia, and with that part of East Africa which during the last twenty years
has become one of the principal seats of commerce, will be lost to all
European Powers. We know only too well that John V. has been making the
most extensive preparations. To-day his agents in Greece, Dalmatia, and
even North America are engaging sailors by thousands, who are evidently
intended to man a fleet of war as soon as the possession of the points on
the coast makes it possible for the Abyssinians to keep one. Whether he
will buy his fleet abroad or build it himself is at present an enigma. If
he did the former, it could not possibly escape the knowledge of the Powers
threatened by this future fleet; but none of the great shipwrights of the
world have any warships of unknown destination, in course of construction.
If the Abyssinian fleet is to be built in the Red Sea after the coast has
passed into the possession of Abyssinia, why does he want so many sailors
at once? This enigma is by no means calculated to lay our fears as to the
ultimate aims of Abyssinia. In short, it has been decided in London, Paris,
and Rome to take the bull by the horns, and to begin offensive operations
against the East African conqueror. The three cabinets will together
furnish an expedition of at least 300,000 men, and immediately after the
close of the five years' peace--that is, at the end of September
next--attack Abyssinia. But Freeland, and not this time our own coast
possessions, is to form the basis of the operations. This will give the
allied armies a secure rear for provisioning and retreat; and our task as
diplomatists is to win over the Freeland government to this project. We ask
for nothing but passive co-operation--that is, a free passage for our
troops. Whether our instructions go so far as to compel this passive
assistance in case of need I do not know; for not I, but merely my father,
is initiated into the most secret views of the leaders of our foreign
politics; and though my well-known enthusiasm for this land of Socialists
has not prevented our government from appointing me as _attache_ to my
father's mission, yet I imagine I shall not be admitted to share the more
important secrets of our diplomacy.

Now you know, my friend, _why_ we have come to Freeland. If you are curious
to know _how_ we got here, I must tell you that we came from Brindisi to
Alexandria by the 'Uranus,' one of the enormous ships which Freeland keeps
afloat upon all seas for the mail and passenger service. With us came 2,300
immigrants to Freeland; and if these find in the new home only one-half of
what they promised themselves, Freeland must be a veritable paradise. My
father, who at first hesitated to entrust himself to a Freeland steamer
which carries all its passengers free of charge and, as is well known,
makes no distinction in the treatment of those on board, admitted, when he
had been two days on the voyage, that he did not regret having yielded to
my entreaty. Our cabins were not too small, were comfortable, and most
scrupulously clean; the cooking and commissariat in general left nothing to
be desired; and--what surprised us most--the intercourse with the very
miscellaneous immigrants proved to be by no means disagreeable. Among our
2,300 fellow-voyagers were persons of all classes and conditions, from
_savants_ to labourers; but even the latter showed themselves to be so
inspired by the consciousness that they were hastening to a new home in
which all men stood absolutely on an equality, that not the slightest
rowdyism or disturbance was witnessed during the whole voyage.

At Alexandria we took the first express-train to the Soudan, which,
however, until it reached Assuan--that is, as long as it was in the hands
of Egyptian conductors and drivers--was express in little more than the
name. At Assuan we entered a Freeland train; and we now went on with a
punctuality and speed elsewhere to be met with only in England or America.
Sleeping, dining, and conversation cars, furnished with every convenience
and luxury, took us rapidly up the Nile, the line crossing the giant stream
twice before we reached Dongola. It was characteristic that no fare was
charged above Assuan. The food and drink consumed in the dining-cars or in
the stations had to be paid for--on the 'Uranus' even the board was given
for nothing--but travelling accommodation is provided gratuitously by the
Freeland commonwealth, on land as well as at sea.

You will allow me to omit all description of land and people in Egypt and
its dependencies. In the last decade, and especially since the completion
of the Freeland Nile line, there has been some change for the better; but
on the whole I found the misery of the fellahs still very severe, and only
different in degree and not in essence from what has been so often
described by travellers in these regions. A picture of a totally different
kind presented itself to the eye when we neared the Albert Nyanza and
reached Freeland territory. I could scarcely trust my senses when, on
awaking on the morning of the fifth day of our railway journey, I looked
out of the car and, instead of the previous scenery, I caught sight of
endless cultivated fields pleasantly variegated by luxuriant gardens and
smiling groves, among which elegant villas, here scattered and there
collected into townships, were conspicuous. As the train stopped soon after
at a station the name of which was a friendly omen for an
Italian--Garibaldi--we saw for the first time some Freelanders in their
peculiar dress, as simple as it is becoming, and, as I at once perceived,
thoroughly suitable to the climate.

This costume is very similar to that of the ancient Greeks; even the
sandals instead of shoes are not wanting, only they are worn not on the
naked foot, but over stockings. The dresses of the Freeland women are, for
the most part, more brightly coloured than those of the men, which latter,
however, do not exhibit the dull and monotonous tints of the dress of men
in the West. In particular, the Freeland youths are fond of bright clear
colours, the younger women preferring white with coloured ornaments. The
impression which the Freelanders made upon me was quite a dazzling one.
Full of vigour and health, they moved about with cheerful grace in the
simile of the trees in the station-garden; they showed such an aristocratic
self-possessed bearing that I thought at first that this was the rendezvous
of the leaders of the best society of the place. This notion was
strengthened when several Freelanders entered the train, and I discovered,
in conversation with them as the train went on, that their culture fully
corresponded to their appearance. Yet these were but ordinary country
people--agriculturists and gardeners, with their wives, sons, and
daughters.

Not less astonishing was the respectability of the negroes scattered among
and freely mingling with the whites. Their dress was still lighter and
airier than that of the whites--mostly cotton garments instead of the
woollen clothes worn by the latter; for the rest, these natives had the
appearance of thoroughly civilised men. From a conversation which I held
with one in the train I found that their culture had reached a high
stage--at any rate, a much higher one than that of the rural population in
most parts of Europe. The black with whom I conversed spoke a fluent,
correct English, had a Freeland newspaper in his hand, and eagerly read it
during the journey; and he showed himself to be well acquainted with the
public affairs not only of his own country, but also of Europe. For
instance, he gave expression to the opinion that our difficulties with
Abyssinia had evidently been occasioned by the Russian government, who
necessarily wished to make it difficult for the Western Powers, and
particularly England, to communicate with India; and he justified this
opinion in a way that revealed as much knowledge as soundness of judgment.

Towards noon, at the station 'Baker,' we reached the Albert lake, just
where the White Nile flows out of it. Here a very agreeable surprise
awaited me. You remember David Ney, that young Freeland sculptor with whom
we trotted about Rome together last autumn, and to whom I in particular
became so much attached because the splendid young fellow charmed me both
by his outward appearance and by the nobility of his disposition. What you
probably did not know is that, after David left Europe at the close of his
art studies in Rome, we corresponded; and he was therefore informed of my
intended visit. My friend had taken the trouble to make the thirty hours'
journey from Eden Vale, where he lives with his parents--his father is, as
you know, a member of the Freeland government--to the Albert Nyanza, had
got as far as 'Baker' station, and the first thing I noticed as we entered
the station was his friendly, smiling face. He brought to my father and me
an invitation from his parents to be their guests while we remained in Eden
Vale. 'If you, your grace,' said he to my father, 'will be content with the
house and entertainment which a citizen of Freeland can offer you, you will
confer a very great favour upon all of us, and particularly upon me, who
would thus have the privilege of undisturbed intercourse with your son. The
splendour and magnificence to which you are accustomed at home you will
certainly miss in our house, which scarcely differs from that of the
simplest worker of our country; but this deprivation would be imposed upon
you everywhere in Freeland; and I can promise that you shall not want for
any real comfort.' To my great satisfaction, after a moment's reflection my
father cordially accepted this invitation.

I will not now enlarge upon what I saw during the day and a half's journey
from the Albert lake to Eden Vale, as I shall have occasion to refer to it
again. Indeed, this my first Freeland letter will swell to far too great a
size if I give you only a superficial report of what first interested me
here--that is, of the daily life of the Freelanders. Our express flew in
mad speed past the cornfields and plantations that clothe the plains of
Unyoro and the highlands of Uganda; then ran for several hours along the
banks of the billowy Victoria Nyanza, through a lovely country of hill and
mountain--the whole like one great garden. Leaving the lake at the Ripon
falls, we turned into the wildly romantic mountain district of Elgon, with
its countless herds and its rich manufacturing towns, skirted the
garden-fringed Lake Baringo, and sped through the Lykipia to the Alpine
scenery of the Kenia. Towards nine in the evening of the sixth day of our
railway journey we at length reached Eden Vale.

It was a splendid moonlit night when we left the station and entered the
town; but brighter than the moon shone the many powerful electric
arc-lamps, so that nothing escaped the curious eye. Even if I wished to do
it now, I could not describe to you in detail the impression made upon me
by this first Freeland town into which I had been. Imagine a fairy garden
covering a space of nearly forty square miles, filled with tens of
thousands of charming, tastily designed small houses and hundreds of
fabulously splendid palaces; add the intoxicating odours of all kinds of
flowers and the singing of innumerable nightingales--the latter were
imported from Europe and Asia in the early years of the settlement and have
multiplied to an incredible extent--and set all this in the framework of a
landscape as grand and as picturesque as any part of the world can show;
and then, if your fancy is vigorous enough, you may form some mild
conception of the delight with which this marvellous city filled me, and
fills me still more and more the longer I know it. The streets and open
places through which we passed were apparently empty; but David assured us
that the shores of the lake were full of life every evening until midnight.
In many of the houses which we passed could be heard sounds of mirth and
gaiety. On broad airy terraces and in the gardens around them sat or
sauntered the inhabitants in larger or smaller groups. The clinking of
glasses, music, silvery laughter, fell upon the ear: in short, everything
indicated that here the evenings were devoted to the most cheerful
sociality.

After a rapid ride of about half an hour, we reached the home of our hosts,
near the centre of the town and not far from the lake. The family Ney
received us in the most cordial manner; nevertheless their dignified
bearing very profoundly impressed even my proud father. The ladies in
particular were so much like princesses in disguise that my father at once
transformed himself into the inimitable gallant Paladin of chivalry you
have known him to be in Rome, London, and Vienna. Father Ney betrayed, at
the first glance, the profound thinker accustomed to serious work, but who
by no means lacked the mien of agreeable self-possession. Judging from the
fact that he had been six-and-twenty years in the service of the Freeland
commonwealth, he must be at least fifty years old, but he looks to be
scarcely forty. The younger of the sons, Emanuel, technician by calling, is
a complete duplicate of David, though a little darker and more robust than
the latter, who, as you know, is no weakling. The mother, Ellen by name, an
American by birth, who--thanks, evidently, to David's reports of
me--received me with a truly motherly welcome, must be, judging from the
age of her children, about forty-five, but her youthful freshness gives her
the appearance rather of a sister than a mother of her children. She is
brilliantly beautiful, but is rendered specially charming by the goodness
and nobility of mind impressed upon her features. She introduced to us
three girls between eighteen and twenty years of age as her daughters, of
whom only one--Bertha--resembled her and her sons. This one, a young copy
of the mother, at once embarrassed me by the indescribable charm of her
presence. She was so little like the others--Leonora and Clementina--that I
could not refrain from remarking upon it to David. 'These two are not
blood-relations to us, but pupil daughters of my mother; what that means I
will tell you by-and-by,' was his answer.

As, despite the comfort of Freeland cars, we were naturally somewhat
exhausted by our six days' railway journey, after a short conversation with
our hosts we begged to be allowed to retire to our rooms. David acted as
our guide. After leaving the spacious garden-terrace upon which we had
hitherto lingered, we passed through a simple but tastefully arranged
drawing-room and a stately dining-hall which communicated, as I noticed,
with a large room used as a library on the right, and with two smaller
rooms on the left. These latter rooms were, David told us, his parents'
workrooms. We then came into a richly decorated vestibule, from which
stairs led above to the bedrooms. Here David took us into two bedrooms with
a common anteroom.

Then followed a short explanation of the many provisions for the comfort of
the users of the rooms. 'Pressure upon this button on the right near the
door-post,' demonstrated David, 'lights the electric chandelier; a touch on
the button near the bedside-table lights the wall-lamp over the bed. Here
the telephone No. 1 is for use within the house and for communication with
the nearest watch-room of the Association for Personal Service. A simple
ringing--thus--means that some one is to come hither from the watch-room.
All these buttons--they are known by their distinctive borders--here and
there about the walls, there by the writing, desk and here by the bed, are
connected with this telephone-bell. Thus, whenever you wish to call a
member of this association, which always has persons on duty, you need not
move either from the arm-chair in which you may be sitting or from the bed
on which you are resting. Every telephone and every signal has its number
in the watch-room as well as on a list in the vestibule we have just left;
in two minutes at the longest after you have rung, a messenger of the
association will have hastened to wait on you.'

'That is a wonderful arrangement,' I remarked, 'which secures for you all
the convenience of having a _valet-de-chambre_ ready to obey every hint of
yours, without being obliged to put up with the trouble which our valets
cost us. But this luxury must be very costly, and therefore not commonly
enjoyed.'

'The cost is very moderate, just because everybody makes use of this public
service,' answered my friend. 'There is one such watch-room with three
watchers for every 600 or 800 houses. The attendance is paid for--or rather
calculated--according to the length of time during which it is required,
and, as is customary with us, the rate of payment is measured by the
average value of an hour's work as shown by the accounts published every
year by our central bank. In the past year, when an hour's work was worth
8s., we had to pay about 5d. for every three minutes--for that is the unit
upon which this association bases its calculation. Those who ring often and
keep the association busy have to pay a larger share at the end of the
year, and those who ring seldom a smaller share. But in all cases the
association must come upon them for its expenses and for the payment of its
nine watching members--for the three watchers change morning, noon, and
evening. Last year the amount required for each watch-room was in round
figures 6,000L; and as, for example, the time-bills of the 720 families of
our radius amounted to not quite two-thirds of that sum, the remaining
2,000L had to be assessed in proportion to the use made of the service by
each family. Our family makes comparatively little demand upon the service
of this association; we paid, for example, last year 6L in all--that is, 4L
direct payment for time, and 2L additional assessment--for we used the
service only 203 times during the whole year.'

'Why,' asked my father, 'is there comparatively less use of the service in
your house than elsewhere?'

'Because our household always contains two or three young women, who make
it their pleasant duty to give to my parents all that personal attendance
which is befitting well-bred cultured women. Those two girls--for a year
they have been assisted by my sister--are young Freelanders such as are to
be found in every Freeland house whose housewife has a special reputation
for intelligence and refined manners; pardon me for classing my mother
among these exceptions. Every young woman of Freeland esteems it a special
honour and a great privilege to be received into such a house for at least
a year, because it is universally acknowledged that nothing refines the
intellect and the manners of developing girls more than the most intimate
intercourse possible with superior women. As a matter of course such young
ladies are regarded and treated exactly as if they were children of the
family; and they render to their adoptive parents the same service as
thoughtful and affectionate daughters. Father and mother can scarcely feel
a wish which is not divined and gratified.'

'Ah, that is exactly our institution of royal maids of honour,' said my
father, smiling.

'Certainly; but I very much doubt whether your royal pair are so
thoroughly, and in particular so tenderly, confided in as my parents always
are by these pupil-daughters of my mother. During the past eighteen
years--which is the age of this institution in Freeland--not less than
twenty-four of these young ladies have passed through our house; and they
all still maintain filial relations with my parents and sisterly ones with
us. Those who are at present with us--Leonora and Clementina--you have
already seen.'

'You said just now,' said my father, 'that your whole household--four
ladies and three gentlemen--during a whole year, called for your
ministering spirits by means of this alarum only two hundred times three
minutes. You mentioned, besides, the service rendered by those charming
young ladies. But who does all that coarser work, which even the spirit of
Aladdin's lamp could scarcely get through in 600 minutes, or ten hours, a
year in such a house as this? It seems to me that you have some ten or
twelve dwelling-rooms. It is true the floor is of marble, but it must be
swept. Everywhere I see heavy carpets--who keeps these clean? In a word,
who does the coarser work in this comfortably furnished house, which one
can see at a glance is kept most carefully in order?'

'The association with whose watch-room I have already made you acquainted.
Only we do not need to ring in order to get our regular requirements
attended to. The household work is done on the basis of a common tariff
without any trouble on our part, and with a punctuality that leaves nothing
to be desired. The association possesses duplicates of the house-keys and
room-keys of all the houses that it serves. Early in the morning, when we
are most of us still asleep, its messengers come noiselessly, take the
clothing that has to be cleaned--or rather that has to be exchanged, for we
Freelanders never wear the same garment on two successive days--from where
they were left the previous evening, put the clean clothes in the proper
place, get ready the baths--for in most Freeland houses every member of the
family has a separate bath which is daily used, unless a bath in the lake
or the river is preferred--clean the outer spaces and some of the rooms,
take away the carpets, and disappear before most of us have had any
knowledge of their presence. And all this is done in a few minutes. It is
almost all done by machinery. Do you see that little apparatus yonder in
the corridor? That is a hydraulic machine brought into action by the
turning of that tap there, which places it in connection with the
high-pressure service from the Kenia cascades. (In other towns, where a
hydraulic pressure of thirty-five atmospheres is not so easily to be had,
electric or atmospheric motors are employed.) Here the steel shaft in the
hollow in the floor covered with that elegant grating, and there near the
ceiling the bronze shaft that might be mistaken for a rod on which to hang
mirrors or pictures--these transmit the motion of the hydraulic machine to
every room in the house, from the cellar to the rooms under the roof. And
there, in that room, are a number of machines whose uses I can scarcely
explain to you unless you see them at work. The three or four messengers of
the association bring a number of other implements with them, and when
these machines are brought into connection with the shafts above or below,
and the tap of the water-motor is opened, the room is swept and washed
while you can turn round, and the heaviest articles set in their places; in
short, everything is put right silently and with magical rapidity, though
human hands could have done it only slowly and with a great deal of
disagreeable noise.

'A little later the workers of the association reappear in order to clean
the rest of the rooms, to lay the carpets in their places, and prepare
everything in the kitchen and the breakfast-room for breakfast. And so
these people come and go several times during the day, as often as is
agreed upon, in order to see that all is right. Everything is done without
being asked for, silently, and with the speed of lightning. Our house
belongs to the larger, and our style of living to the better, in Freeland;
the association has, therefore, more to do in few houses than in ours;
nevertheless, last year, for all these services they charged us for not
more than 180 hours, for which, according to the tariff already mentioned,
we had to pay 72L. I question if any house equal to ours in Europe or
America could be kept in a like good condition for double or treble this
sum. And instead of having to do with troublesome "domestics," we are
served by intelligent, courteous, zealous men of business who are compelled
by competition--for we have six such associations in Eden Vale--to do their
utmost to satisfy the families that employ them. The members of these
associations are "gentlemen" with whom one can very properly sit at the
same table, the table which they have themselves just prepared, and neither
our two "maids of honour" nor my sister wou