December 16, 1866.

Karatu, the capital of the Northern Highlands region.

To the northwest of Karatu is the famous Serengeti savannah, a true animal world.

At present, every region of the East African colonies, except for the Upper Coastal District, which has undergone a thorough purge, is basically the territory of wild beasts.

Even the indigenous people, whose populations are relatively large compared to immigrants, are too small to be mentioned in the face of the sheer fauna of East Africa.

These abundant animal resources allow these natives to live a prosperous life only by hunting.

After hunting every day, I will sing and dance, and go to bed after dark, without other worries, after all, the animals really can't finish fighting, and there is no need to worry about tomorrow's food source.

As immigrants who came to Africa to farm, they naturally could not learn from these natives to live by hunting.

Their ideology is influenced by thousands of years of farming culture, and they pay attention to hard work and prosperity.

In fact, people's concepts are given by social characteristics, for example, the indigenous people did not develop a country, but the environment in Africa makes them live very well under the most primitive tribal system, and once they enter a relatively advanced social system, they develop half-dead.

After all, the human beings who walked out of East Africa millions of years ago were faced with the problem of survival, so they took the initiative to learn to plant and breed.

For example, in the vast desert of Egypt, if you don't rely on the Nile River to engage in some planting, survival is a problem, and the human beings who go out of Africa finally embark on the road of "King of Volumes".

After a million years, the Europeans came back and directly "rolled" these African indigenous tribes to death.

……

Settlers from the East African colonies had to clean up the local beasts and the threatening indigenous tribes at each new location.

In order to prevent accidents, migrants work and do activities in groups to avoid attacks on migrants by fish that slip through the net.

The area around Karatu is lush with vegetation, but in the dry season it is mostly yellow, and yellow vines and weeds cover a thick layer of land.

The newcomers first burned the yellowed vegetation with fire, leaving a thin layer of ash on the ground after the fire.

Shovels and hoes are then used to clean up the roots of the plants buried in the soil, and when the soil is turned over, the light red soil comes into view.

Therefore, the immigrant settlements and the renovated land in Karatu are all dazzling red, with the withered yellow vegetation all around, and the hazy low sky under the strong sunlight, it looks a little oppressive.

The Karatu region receives less precipitation because of its inland and highland topography, which makes it difficult for water vapor from the Atlantic and Indian Oceans to penetrate deep into the region.

There are two large lakes in the east and west of Karatu, of which Lake Aiya in the west is a seasonal shallow internal salt lake, and Lake Manyara in the east is also a saltwater lake.

Both are lakes formed in the Great Rift Valley, where flocks of flamingos and other waterfowl can be seen.

To the north of Karatu is the mountainous region of Rogorongoro, a plateau volcano, and Karatu is located on the southern edge of the mountainous area of Rogorongoro.

Ngorongoro is a very unique area, with a concentration of grasslands, forests, hills, lakes, swamps and other ecological landforms, where countless species of wild animals live, gradually forming an independent ecological chain system.

Rogorongoro means "big hole" in the indigenous language of Africa.

Lake Manyara is the gateway to the Ngorongoro Crater Nature Reserve, which Hemingway described as "the loveliest place in Africa".

The famous Maasai people in Africa live a nomadic life in the area near the crater of Rogorongoro.

During the dry season, the crater lake becomes a source of water for nearby animals, and herds of animals live here.

As the newly established regional capital of the East African colonies, Karatu is by no means outstanding, and its future development potential is not as good as that of other regional capitals.

The reason why it was separately designated as the capital of the Northern Plateau is because of its location, which is located in the center of the Northern Plateau District.

In Africa like Mwanza, Kigoma is a place with superior natural conditions, Dodoma is a prominent transportation advantage, and the first town in the east is the earliest place to start a colony.

Only Caratu and Ronroda in the Lower Marina became the administrative centres of the region because of the circles that Ernst had drawn at random on the map.

In the East African colonies, all the cities are basically on the same starting line, all starting from scratch, so the future development of Caratu and Ronroda still depends on whether the two capitals can give full play to the first-mover advantage.

Karatu has less precipitation, so instead of rice and wheat, potatoes were chosen for crop selection.

Potatoes are a typical lazy crop and don't require careful care like sisal.

Potatoes prefer cold and heat, while the Karatu region has a high altitude and temperatures range from the teens to twenty degrees.

The light conditions in the plateau area are basically the most suitable for crop growth, with a thin atmosphere, shallow clouds, and strong sunlight.

At the same time, the soil is acidic, and the reason for adding plant ash before reclamation is weakly acidic.

The soil of Karatu is also relatively loose and not sticky, which is convenient for the expansion of the rhizomes of potatoes in the later stage.

There is no need to worry about the water needed to grow potatoes, although there is less precipitation, but there is enough water in the river.

The migrants use tools to turn over the soil, then ridge it, divide the sprouted potato stems into groups of every two buds, and insert the potato sprouts into the ploughed soil with the potato sprouts facing upwards, and finally sprinkle fertilizer on them.

In the choice of cash crops, Caratu still chooses sisal.

The relatively abundant forest resources in the mountainous area of Rogorongoro facilitated the construction of Karatu.

Wooden structures are often used for the construction of houses, and it is convenient to build some production tools, such as waterwheels and windmill grinding discs.

At present, Karatu migrants are only active in the southeastern part of the Rogorongoro Mountains and do not penetrate deep into the interior of the Rogorongoro Mountains.

So the northwest of the entire northern highlands, mainly the Serengeti steppe area, was not entered by the East African colonial forces.

Instead, to the west is the Great Lakes region, where the immigrant population is second only to the Upper Coastal Region, and there is no natural barrier between the Great Lakes and the Serengeti.

So the Serengeti is classified as the Great Lakes, but the animals of the Serengeti are a real animal paradise.

In the documentary, tens of thousands of wildebeest horses cross the river in the Serengeti grassland, the river is called the Mara River, which is a river between Kenya and Tanzania, and every year wildebeest and other animals migrate between the Saimara in Kenya and the Serengeti in Tanzania.

Such a large piece of land was not effectively developed in Tanzania in previous generations, but was used as a national park, and the East African colonies would not be the first to develop the Serengeti.

It's really hard to deal with so much wildlife, and the early colonies of East Africa must have been savage, and wildlife in other parts of the world has already suffered.

It is better to leave the Serengeti grassland behind, so as to leave a pure land for the wildlife of East Africa, which is most indispensable in the East African colonies, and can also develop to the north and west.

Therefore, although the Serengeti is not small, its impact on the East African colonies is very limited.