Evening Republican, Volume 19, Number 31, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 5 February 1915 — Juja Farm [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Juja Farm

OUT in British East Africa, almost directly under the equar tor, lies Juja Farm, the immense ranch owned by William N. McMillan, once a business man in St. Louis. After twenty years of exploration and adventure, he ha« settled down there to the relatively quiet life of a farmer and hunter, and his greatest excitement nowar days comes in the entertainment of some noted hunter of big game, like Theodore Roosevelt, the sultan of Zanzibar, Lord Lonsdale, Aga Khan and Chase Osborn of Michigan.

The 40,000 acres of Juja Farm, and the smaller 15,000-acre holdings of Mrs. McMillan, Mua Farm, some 15 miles away, stand 5,500 feet above sea level, on the great Mua escarpment of Eastern Africa, 325 miles inland from Membasa, principal British African port in the Indian ocean. Here, in a long, low, one-story farmhouse, with vine-covered verandas and numerous outbuildings, Mr. McMillan lives the life of a British landed proprietor, in almost feudal splepdor, ruling the natives residing on his holdings, hunting the elephant, the rhinoceros and the lion, and protecting his herds and flocks and people from their ravages. On his broad acres, the lordly lion and his vicious spouse, king it over their follow creatures; here are rhinoceros, hideous hyena and beautiful leopard; here graceful gazelle and powerful, ungainly gnus, alert and wary, cross the endless flats; from the vine-covered veranda of the lowbeamed house can be seen black and white striped zebra and ruddy hartebeest, reed buck and waterbuck, immense eland and tiny dikdik, and all the other half hundred antelope varieties that disport on the equatorial plains. In the papyrus marshes dotting the bosom of the swamps and rimming every sea-green* lake, the terrible

buffalo and the queer, strange looking wart hogs make sinuous lanes of passage, while in the deeper waters lie sluggish hippopotami and voracious, insatiable crocodiles. The mincing oatrich preens itself among the flattopped acacias, and in the taller, sturdier mimosa growths the giraffe keeps keen-eyed vigil for the approaching foe. Overhead, from the taller branches and under foot in the jungle growths, come the trills and calls and reed-like notes of the bewildering wealth of bird life that fills the tropic forests, while threading serenely through this nature’s wonderland, pass to and fro the natives of the estate, the well-nigh naked savage, primitive Wakamba, and unsmiling, serious Kikuyu, warlike Masai and more civilixed Mohammedan Somali. An Army of Servants. There are some 600 natives of the various tribes employed on Juja Farm, house servants and farm hands, laborers, horse boys, shepherds, porters and askari, or native soldiery. Over these Mr. McMillan rules with a kindly rein, being mayor and chief of police, board of city fathers and municipal justice, all bound up in one stalwart, impressive presence, for under the colonial system of British government, as a landed proprietor, holding acreage under purchase from the crown, and more than 15 miles from town or other seat-of permanent justice, he is endowed with magisterial powers, and may settle all cases of minor misdemeanors, theft and petty savage knavery, which carry with them no deprivation of liberty. Of this vast plantation only a small

part is under cultivation, but the wide fields of sprouting maize, the great stretches of sisal hemp and coffee, the clustering blossoms of the American orchard and the sweet fragrance of the gardens all testify to the wealth and generosity of the soil of the farmstead. Cattle and sheep, horses and monkeys graze in the thick lush grass of the high slopes, beside the queer, beehive huts of the natives, under the care of Masai shepherds. Buffalo Most Dangerous. Unlike Mr. Roosevelt, who has e» pressed the opinion that the lion is the most dangerous of African animals to hunt, and Sir Samuel Baker and other mighty hunters, who yield the palm to the elephant, Mr. McMillan, after almost 15 years’ experience, unhesitating places the water buffalo as the most dangerous foe to human life, when wounded and brought to bay by the huntsman.

The rhinoceros, in Mr. McMillan’s opinion is of little actual danger to an experienced and thoroughly alert man. of the most savage and eiratic temper of any of the larger animals, it can see but poorly out of those red, pig-like eyes, being scarcely able to distinguish a man a sho t distance away. Then, when he charges, he runs blindly, throwing his huge bulk forward in a straight line from which he seldom deviates. The hunter, if he be sure-footed and collected, should his fire fail to stop the gigantic beast, can easily evade him by dodging, stepping aside when the charge is almost upon him, and there is but little likelihood of the rhino returning to the attack. These animals are much given to wanton attacks, seemingly running amuck at times. On one such occasion, a rhino came out of the nearby brush and charged wildly through the Juja Farm garden. Coming upon one

of the native laborers who, squatting savage style on his haunches, was weeding the flower beds, he impaled the unsuspecting negro on his long horn, tossed him high into the air, and trampled on in his errand*of destruction. He reached* the road outside, charged lengthwise through a 16-yoke oxen team, upsetting the wagon, and then, going out to the plain beyond, charged the’ farm overseer and was promptly shot by that experienced huntsman.Future of East Africa. Mr. McMillan sees a great future ahead for that part of Africa in which he is settled. Though at present there are dangerous beasts that prey upon the flesh of man, and he finds fresh dangers wherever he may go, overhead and underfoot, foes that crawl and bite and sting and poison, that kin his flocks and ruin his growing grain, 'yet for all that he is positive in his belief that It la essentially a white man’s, country. It Is almost directly under the equator, yet with Its high altitude, its clear, cool nights, and It* dry, bracing atmosphere, there is but little of the tropic sicknesses, malaria is unknown, the terrible sleeping sickness is being rapidly eliminated, and the soil is so amazingly fertile that in a few generations it should prove the granary of the world. Almost any ordinary European and American fruit or vegetable will flourish cotton is already being extensively cultivated along the coast lewlands; sisaJ hemp, com and apples have proved most successful crops, and he think* the coffee of the future will all ship out of Mombasa and other East Afri can ports.

RHINOCEROS HUNTING ON JUJA FARM