Author(s): Mary Anne Fitzgerald

BIOGRAPHY

Victor Marra Newland OBE MC DCM – hunter, soldier and entrepreneur – was descended from Australian pioneers. At the dawn of the 20th century, with Australia’s unknown frontiers already
claimed, Marra looked to Africa to make his fortune. In 1904 he started British East Africa’s first safari company and along the way he fought in the Boer War and later in the East Africa campaign in World War One.
Marra settled in Nairobi when it was a railway staging post where drunks who staggered home in the dark were liable to be eaten by a lion. There were no rules, no safety nets and tantalising possibilities.
Marra’s tales of shipwrecks, charging rhino, hunting elephant for their
ivory and the settlers’ increasingly frustrated attempts to stake land claims make for fascinating and well-paced tales. This book vividly sketches a portrait of a country in the making and the man who embraced and was
transformed by his adopted land.