Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1908-02-22
AN AMERICAN ALADDIN BECOMES A MAI
Copyright. 1908. by Frank G. CarpenterJ
Special Correspondence Of The Star.

MARRIOTT.
RITISH East Africa has an
American Aladdin. He comes
from ST. Louis and. like his
IL prototype of Bagdad in the days
of Haroun AL Raschid. he has
created great estate in a night. He mas
rubbed the golden lamp of his fortune and
the genii who serve it have chopped down
thu jungle and fenced in the wilds A year
ago all was a wilderness. Now 2O.OO
acres are under his pastoral or agricul-
tural control, and many miles of wire
fences have gone up about it. He has
erected stables for hundreds of horses and
ponies has a dairy supplied by over one
hundred cows. and a magnificent bunga-
low home with electric lights. ice-making
machines and the other comforts which
the nabObs of st. Louis most love. All
this is In one of the widest parts of the
black continent. where antelope are as
thick as sheep in Ohio, where there are
more zebras than there are cows in Ken
lucky. where the gnus are more numer-
GUS than horses in Virginia, and where the
. lion still roars night after night and the
leopard lies in wait for his prey. The
tate itself teens with wild animals: and
1t is one of the great private game pre-
serves of the world.
A Pike County Millionaire.
The man l refer to is Mr. William n.
Macmillan of Missouri. / have called him
a Pike county millionaire. although 1 am
not sure that he comes from Pike Like
all Missourians he usually registers from
ST. Louis. He is about thirty-three years
old. is dark of complexion. tall. straight
and fine looking. and he weighs. 1 judge.
about 10 pounds. He is a man of culture
as we'll man of muscle and enterprise
and he is also evidently a man of great
wealth He has already spent a fortune
on his African estate, and 1 am told that
he is now putting out from So, 600 to
100000 year in improvements. He Is
supposed by the citizens here to be worth
some tens of millions of dollars and to
pave an income running into the hundreds
of thousands a year.
As to these things. however. / know. only
from hearsay. Mr.. Macmillan is a modest
man. and when i took tea with him at his
city home here in Nairobi the other day 1
did not feel at liberty to ask him personal
questions. Indeed a large part of the in
formation which l give in this letter con-
corning his farm and his operations comes
from other sources, although considerable
cropped out in our chat about farming
land holding and big game hunting on this
great African plateau.
The Juja Ranch.
abe name of Mr.. MacMillan's big ranch
10 the Juja farm. / see posting notice
concerning 1t in the Nairobi Globe Trotter
OF this week. stating that its boundaries
are unmistakable. that shooting is abso-
lutely prohibited and that trespassers will
be prosecuted. The farm lies right in the
heart of the big game country. 1t is on
the Athi plains more than a mile above
the sea, In d region which is hgh and
healthy.
The Juja ranch is bounded by three riv-
ers and Is now surrounded By wire
fence Inside the fence are thousands OF
antelopes. great droves of Zebras and
large number of gnus Wild beeste
which are a combination between a horse
and a cow and are of the antelope spaci s.
There are also rhinos ard hippos unnum-
bered. The appropriateness infest the
lands along the rivers. and these streams
are also Inhabited by crocodles. The
other day Mrs. MacMillans favorite ter
r1er attempted to swim creek not far
from the house and was gobbled up by a
crocodile. A day two before that u
rhinoceros attacked one of the negroes
who was hoeing the lettuce In the gar
den and damaged him considerably and
every now and then hippopotamus from
the SwampS OF the Athi river breaks in
and has meal off the peanuts o. sweet
potatoes. The amount that these animals
eat Is not SO great, but they tramp over
the gard2n. crushing the vege tables into
mUsh with their giant feet ard they are
apt to wallow in the flowers.
l don't suppose l ought to call Mr.. Mac
Millan's country home palace. 1t would