My story concerns Christmas on the Kenyan coast in 1963. Despite the atrocities committed by the Mau Mau during their uprising and equal atrocities that have recently come to light associated with its suppression, race relations in Kenya have been surprisingly good when compared to other parts of the world where black and white live side by side.

I believe there are several reasons for this. First, at the height of the administration of the Kenya colony, impartial liberal observers accused the white settlers of treating their black servants like they treated their horses. The criticism floundered when it was agreed by all that the whites treated their horses extremely well. The black-white relationships in the Southern United States and South Africa seemed to have hate as the chief factor (Ku Klux Klan and lynching for example), but the paternal despotism of the white settler in Kenya was based on a feeling of superiority, more than on...