The present story completes a series of three books in which I haveendeavoured to give impressions of life in the immense region known asEquatorial Africa. The scene of Tom Burnaby was laid in the centre,around the great lakes; Samba was concerned with the western or Congodistricts; Settlers and Scouts is a story of the east, moreespecially the magnificent highland region which seems destined tobecome one of the greatest provinces of the British African Empire.
The steady stream of emigration already flowing to British East Africais bound to swell when it is more generally recognized that in the hilldistricts of Kenya, Naivasha, and Kisumu there are vast areas ofagricultural land constituting an ideal "white man's country." In thefollowing pages I have attempted to show some of the conditions underwhich the pioneers of emigration must work. The development ofcommunications and the settlement of the remoter regions will soonrelegate such alarums and excursions as are here described to theromantic possibilities of the past. But it will be long before thelion, the rhinoceros, the hippopotamus and other more or lessformidable neighbours cease to be factors with which the emigrant hasto reckon.
For many facts, stranger by far th