Chapter I: Introductory

Kilima-njaro[1] is the name currently given to a huge mountain-mass in Eastern Africa, consisting of two giant peaks and many lesser ones, situated below the third parallel south of the Equator, and at a distance, in a straight line, of about 175 miles from the coast. The highest of the two principal summits—Kibô—reaches an elevation 18,880 feet above the sea, and the lesser peak—Kimawenzi—attains to 16,250 feet. Both ascend above the snow-line, no other point in the same clump of mountains doing so, and both are the craters of extinct volcanoes. The entire mass of Kilima-njaro seems to be due to volcanic upheaval, and it was doubtless at one time, and that geologically recent, the great vent of the volcanic forces of Eastern Equatorial Africa, which are still active in regions further to the north or west in the district lying between the Victoria Nyanza and the Indian Ocean.

Kilima-njaro, ever since its existence was positively known to modern geographers, has been claimed as the highest of African mountains, its chief summit reaching an altitude of nearly 19,000 feet. It is just possible that in the unknown region stretching between the Victoria Nyanza and Abyssinia loftier peaks may be discovered, or that Mount Kenia, which lies about 200 miles due north of Kilima-njaro, may be found after accurate measurement to exceed the height of the latter mountain by a few feet, but until this is done, the geography-books may still continue to put forward Kilima-njaro as the highest peak in Africa. Indeed, this they are likely to do for the next decade or so, whether he is superseded or not, for I have remarked that in all geographical questions, physical or political, it takes a sadly long time for increase of knowledge to penetrate the school manuals used in the instruction of the British youth. They always seem separated from the progress of discovery as the fixed stars are separated from our powers of vision. Just as the rays of light now reaching us from Sirius would be found illustrating a condition of things going on many years ago, so in most of the school geography-books, geographical knowledge is reflected a decade or so in arrears. I _think_ in most of them France is now deprived of Alsace and Lorraine, and the territorial unity of Italy is a _fait accompli_; but I fancy the Congo is as yet undiscovered, and Turkey in Europe still extends its suzerainty over “the Danubian Principalities,” Servia, Bulgaria, and Montenegro. I took up one of these school class-books the other day and found that Mount Miltsin (12,000 odd feet) in Morocco was the highest known peak in Africa. Doubtless next year, in a later edition, the claims of Kilima-njaro will be considered, and just as these receive a tardy recognition, some adventurous traveller will bring to our knowledge another African Alp of mightier proportions and loftier summit destined to oust from his proud position the object of my recent journey, who, displaced from the homage of the eager geographer, must be content to linger still a few years longer in possession of the vague respect of the British schoolboy.

Although the mass of Kilima-njaro rises rather abruptly from a fairly level plain, it is hardly to be called isolated, and indeed it may be said that an almost continuous chain of mountain-ranges and independent peaks connect it with Abyssinia on the north, Natal on the south, and, possibly, also with the Cameroons on the west. Judged by the flora which clothes its higher regions, it may be almost regarded as the common meeting-ground of many forms peculiarly characteristic of these three widely separated mountain-districts.

To ascertain the relationships of the fauna and flora of Kilima-njaro, two learned societies—the British Association for the Advancement of Science and the Royal Society—at the instigation, I believe, of Mr. Sclater, the Secretary of the Zoological Society of London, delegated certain of their members to form a Kilima-njaro Expedition Committee, and funds to the extent of 1000_l._ were placed at their disposal. The great height attained by Kilima-njaro, and the fact that this snow-clad mountain-mass lies in the Equatorial zone, and exhibits an extraordinary range of climates on its broad slopes, were thought sufficient causes to give rise to or explain many curious features in its fauna and flora; moreover, a like condition of things—perpetual snow under the Equator—was only to be met with elsewhere in Central and South America, no mountains in other parts of the tropics reaching to the snow-line. In all cases lofty ranges lying in little-known regions are interesting to students of natural history. Isolated mountains of great height are often like oceanic islands, and serve as a refuge and a last abiding-place for low types or peculiar forms, which in larger and more densely-populated areas find the competition too keen, and are extinguished in the struggle for life. Or, it may be, some species or genus, originally of a generalized type, becomes by various circumstances the inhabitant of an alpine range or a sea-girt island, and being thus removed and protected from the natural checks to its peculiar development offered by the contemporaneous evolution of its fellows, may, as it were, run riot in the absence of rivalry, and assume very eccentric and singular forms. Thus we can imagine that a pigeon something like the modern didunculus of the South Sea Islands once arrived in Mauritius, having perhaps hitherto had to contend with the usual dangers which naturally menace the existence of a meek-spirited, plump bird that is good to eat. But this pigeon, either chancing on Mauritius in the course of its long flights, or dwelling on the island at a date when its connection with a pre-existing continent was being severed, found itself in singularly favourable circumstances, plenty to eat and nothing to attack it—no animals of prey being left on the island. So in the course of time, no longer obliged to fly from foes or take long journeys in search of food, this pigeon became a dodo, huge, fat, and inert, with atrophied and useless pinions. Again, on the mountain-ranges of Sumatra, of Japan, of North America, also on the Alps of Europe, dwell queer, old-fashioned ruminants—goat-antelopes, capricorns, chamois—which would have long since perished in the fierce, hustling life of the plains, or more probably have become moulded into some advanced and perfected type, like the great ruminants of the lowlands. There were these possibilities of zoology to encourage exploration; and another interesting feature in the fauna and flora of high mountains is that they often retain vestiges of an older nature, that has long since been supplanted in lower levels by a new reign. In this way Kini Balu, the lofty mountain of Borneo, preserves on its upper slopes an Australian flora long since superseded in the plains below by the vegetation of India. On the Alps reappear the butterflies of Arctic Europe. The Abyssinian mountains can show genera and species of animals and plants from temperate countries north and south, from Europe and the Cape of Good Hope, and consequently the question as to the relations of the fauna and flora of Kilima-njaro, the highest mountain known in Africa, with that of other regions, was one of great interest, and one which, however decided, might solve many curious puzzles as to the geographical distribution of living forms.

If we should discover around the snows of this huge mass of extinct volcanoes the gentians and edelweiss of the Alps, or even other semi-Arctic forms, these would arouse a supposition that during some past glacial epoch the frigid North had sent its children into Central Africa, following the ice and snow. Or should we find, as we ascended Kilima-njaro, the birds, beetles, butterflies, and plants of the Cape of Good Hope, or even the antique types of Madagascar, this might show that the clump of snow mountains had served as one of the last footholds of the older autochthonous African nature, which was dispossessed and driven into distant islands and remote corners of the continent by recent inroads of the lustier things of Europe; by the advent of the apes, and lions, and huge herbivora, which scattered and extinguished the feeble lemurs, insectivores, and edentates that heretofore prevailed. It might also be, in a lesser way, with man as it had been with lower forms of life, that the fastnesses of Kilima-njaro should prove the shelter of some poor type, some human relic of a race long passed away, whose speech, whose handicraft, whose superstitions would arouse new problems for the anthropologist, or serve as a happy link to strengthen imperfect chains of evidence.

Questions like these, which the existence of snow-clad mountains in Central Africa inevitably suggested, were of sufficient importance to warrant the despatch of an expedition, which should obtain information and material to aid in their solution; and at one time it was proposed that Mr. Joseph Thomson should endeavour to combine with his journey across the Masai country (since so splendidly carried out) a prolonged journey on Kilima-njaro, and a consequent investigation of its fauna and flora. But for many reasons this plan had to be abandoned, and the British Association and Royal Society combined to organize a separate expedition, with the command of which I was entrusted some months after my return from the River Congo.

Kilima-njaro is supposed to have been vaguely known to the Portuguese as early as the sixteenth century, and inasmuch as these people held Mombasa for nearly 200 years, and Mombasa lies within 180 miles of the mountain, and is the point of departure and return of many Swahili and Arab trading parties, who visit the base of the snow peaks, it would indeed be curious if no rumours of the existence of such a mighty object of wonder ever reached the ears of the Portuguese.

Enciso,[2] a Spanish writer of the sixteenth century, mentions its existence, and calls it “Mount Olympus.” Others have supposed that the legendary Mountains of the Moon had their basis of actual existence in Kilima-njaro; however this may be, putting aside vague rumours which in this case had a just foundation and in many other cases had no foundation at all, the first European who discovered Kilima-njaro and made its existence known to the civilized world, was Rebmann, a German missionary, who, wandering inland from Mombasa, first descried the wonderful snowy dome of Kibô, the highest summit of the mass, on the 11th of May, 1848. Being a simple-minded man, and overawed by the unexpected beauty and majesty of the spectacle which the distant snow-clad summit offered as it rose from a base of sombre forest into the clear blue sky, he fell on his knees and recited the 111th Psalm, seeming almost to think that a little pimple on the surface of our tiny planet was one of the chief and most glorious productions of the Creator. Rebmann had the good fortune to alight on Kilima-njaro in times of peace before the Arab traders and the slave trade had brought the curse of internecine war to the industrious and thrifty agriculturists who inhabited the fertile mountain-slopes. He consequently wandered about freely, through most of the little Čaga[3] states, with a small following of some ten porters and but little baggage. On his return to the coast he communicated his discovery to Krapf, who shortly afterwards started himself for the interior, and discovered Mount Kenia, but only saw Kilima-njaro from a distance of forty miles. The results of these two remarkable expeditions were modestly made known to the geographical societies of Europe, but in Paris alone did the discovery of Kenia and Kilima-njaro meet with any practical recognition. The silver medal of the Geographical Society in that city was awarded to Messrs. Krapf and Rebmann, for making known the existence of snow-clad mountains in Eastern Equatorial Africa.

In England the missionaries’ information was greatly discredited, because they had not been able to map out their journeys by observations for latitude and longitude, and could only fix the position of the mountains, of which they alleged the existence, by dead reckoning. As a matter of fact, they placed them with wonderful accuracy, considering the rough methods employed, and subsequent discoveries have corroborated their statements. Krapf only saw Mount Kenia from a distance of over forty miles, and Rebmann probably approached no nearer than fifteen miles to the snows of Kilima-njaro. Both could only asseverate that they had _seen_ snow, and both were accused of being deceived by their vivid imaginations. Their most relentless critic was a redoubtable person, for long years a terror to real explorers, Mr. Desborough Cooley, a kind of geographical ogre, who used to sit in his study in England, shaping and planning out the map of Africa (basing his arrangements of rivers, lakes, and mountains on ridiculous and fantastic linguistic coincidences and resemblances of his own imagination), and who rushed out and tore in pieces all unheeding explorers in the field who brought to light actual facts which upset his elaborate geographical schemes. Mr. Cooley proved in the most exhaustive and conclusive manner, that Messrs. Krapf and Rebmann could _not_ have seen mountains capped with perpetual snow in Equatorial Africa, and, _ergo_, they did not exist.

However, Nature and Truth are relentless. They will not stifle or modify their accomplished facts to please any one. You would have thought that after the beautiful and logical manner in which Mr. Cooley had set forth that snow-clad mountains could _not_ exist near the Equator (I suppose he forgot those of America), that Nature would have felt ashamed of producing anything unnatural and would have backed up Mr. Cooley’s statements by whipping Kilima-njaro and Kenia off the land of Africa before any adventurous explorer could conclusively prove their existence. But no; after an interval[4] of about ten years, in 1861, Baron von der Decken, a Hanoverian, went to Kilima-njaro and stayed there from the end of July to the beginning of September, and was able entirely to corroborate the statements of the much-maligned Rebmann.

He was not able to ascend higher than 8000 feet, but on a succeeding visit in December, 1862, he attained an altitude of 10,500 feet, although on neither occasion did he approach anywhere near the snow. He made, however, an admirable survey of the whole southern slope of the mountain, which is still and has been our chief authority for the delineation of Kilima-njaro on the map. His researches were rather added to than superseded by the journeys of Thomson and myself. Von der Decken calculated the height of the two great peaks, Kibô and Kimawenzi, and considerably reduced the exaggerated estimate of their respective altitudes. He, however, erred slightly in under-estimating the height of Kibô, which he gives as only 18,700. My own observations make it 18,800, and Thomson gives it as 18,880. Von der Decken (still traditionally known on the mountain as the “Baroni”) received the gold medal of the Royal Geographical Society for his careful surveys of Kilima-njaro and its vicinity.

In 1871, the Rev. Charles New, a missionary, who had been sent out to East Africa by the United Methodist Free Church Mission, made a journey to Moši, in Čaga, and thence ascended Kilima-njaro to the verge of the snow, reaching an altitude of about 14,500 feet. He spent the month of August on the mountain, but did not go over much new ground. Encouraged by his pleasant experiences during this trip and filled with a craving for further exploits in the same field of fascinating mystery, he returned to Čaga two years later, with the intention of pursuing his investigations. But this time his former host, Mandara, chief of Moši, disappointed in the quantity and quality of the presents brought to him by Mr. New, robbed the explorer of nearly all he possessed, including his gold chronometer (given him by the Royal Geographical Society) and his silver aneroid. Then poor New, broken-hearted, and sick with anxiety and fatigue, turned his steps towards the coast, and died ere he reached Mombasa. I have an impression from what Mandara himself has told me, that his animosity and rapacity were aroused with respect to New by the latter’s too vehement and perhaps injudicious harangues against slavery. Mandara declared that Mr. New had incited openly his subjects to rebel against him, but this I think highly improbable. It is possible that the missionary inveighed against slavery in such a way that Mandara dreaded lest his utterances should have the effect of arousing his serfs to a wish for freedom, and that he therefore robbed him and cast him out of his kingdom. This view of the case is supported by the accounts given by an old friend of New’s, Kapitau, an intelligent and pleasant-mannered coast trader, with whom I have had much conversation. This man retains an earnest respect for the missionary, and accuses Mandara of having wished to poison him.

After New’s death, Kilima-njaro remained unvisited until quite recently, when, in 1883, Mr. Joseph Thomson arrived there, on his journey across Masai-land. He also visited Mandara, and was also robbed by that rapacious chieftain. Starting from Moši he ascended to an altitude of nearly 9000 feet, made a small collection of plants, and pursued his journeys, which ultimately led him nearly all round the base of the mountain. Mr. Thomson was the first who saw the northern aspects of Kilima-njaro.

I might also mention that Dr. Fischer, a German traveller, passed within some thirty miles of Kilima-njaro a little while before Mr. Thomson. He subsequently penetrated Masai-land as far as Lake Naivaša.

All these above-mentioned travellers had paid visits of a more or less fleeting character to Kilima-njaro, and few had studied in any way its natural history, or had attempted to make collections of any importance. Von der Decken brought back some beetles and one or two plants. New gathered and sent home a few specimens of the flora growing on the upper slopes. Dr. Fischer introduced us to a new Touraco[5] dwelling in the vicinity of the mountain, and Thomson in his hurried ascent procured some twenty plants, nearly all of which were new to science. But in the main little of the flora or fauna of Kilima-njaro had been made known, and the object of my mission was to make collections which would materially aid us in settling the relations which this clump of mountains bore to other lofty African ranges in its peculiar forms of life. The Kilima-njaro Committee, taking into consideration the peculiar difficulties of African travel, hesitated to send out on this expedition any one who, though a trained naturalist, should yet have had no previous experience of the climate and mode of life in the dark continent; and although I professed little skill or capacity in natural history collecting (for you may be enthusiastically fond of the study of botany and zoology, and yet be a very poor taxidermist or herbalist), it was thought that my acquaintance with the difficulties of African expedition and the exigencies of travel in a barbarous country would enable me to conduct the expedition to Kilima-njaro with some chance of success. Unfortunately the sum of 1000_l._ placed at my disposal, although sufficient with due economy to meet the ordinary expenses of the expedition, would not permit of European collectors being taken, the cost of the passage-money, salary, and keep of two men amounting to nearly half the sum already mentioned. However, this difficulty did not much concern me at the time, as one or two collectors were promised from the Calcutta Botanical Gardens, whose expenses would have been defrayed by their employers in return for a set of specimens collected. But on arriving at Zanzibar I was disappointed of their aid, for it was found at the last moment impossible to induce any Indian collectors to join an expedition to Central Africa. Consequently I had to depend on the chance aid of such natives of Zanzibar accompanying my caravan as might evince any taste for a collector’s duties. Sir John Kirk, indeed, procured for me two men who had been with Dr. Fischer during his recent expedition, and who had an elementary knowledge of drying plants and skinning birds; but these men, on account of their superior attainments, were so exacting and difficult to deal with, that when they deserted me soon after my arrival on the mountain and went to a neighbouring chief to organize his slave-trading caravans, I did not miss them keenly. Nevertheless, after this, the entire charge of collecting fell upon me, adding to the already existing and by no means perfunctory cares of superintending the expedition. I not only had to conduct long and wearisome palavers with native chiefs, and talk them into acquiescence with my plans, I not only had to show the men how to build houses, where to construct roads and bridges, and lay out plantations, but I must also shoot and skin birds, gather and press plants, collect beetles, and catch butterflies. In a moist climate like that of Kilima-njaro the labour involved in making good botanical collections alone was very great, and in all this I had no help. My Zanzibar porters, although excellent, hardworking, faithful fellows, evinced no aptitude whatever for natural history collecting. In spite of my repeated and painstaking instructions, they _would_ bring me flowers without leaves, and leaves without flowers. They preferred catching butterflies with their fingers to using a net, and thought that an insect in fragments was quite as satisfactory as a whole specimen. In short I found that if any work was to be of use in collecting, it must proceed solely from my own efforts. I merely mention these difficulties so that my readers may properly appreciate the character of the task I was called on to perform.

The instructions given me by the Kilima-njaro Committee were to proceed direct to Mount Kilima-njaro, reside in the vicinity of the mountain for at least six months, and collect as much as possible near the snow-line. As already mentioned, funds to the extent of 1000_l._ were granted me, and besides that, the Royal Geographical Society generously provided me with a complete set of instruments for making astronomical and meteorological observations. I ought also to mention that Messrs. Howard and Son made me a most liberal present of quinine, an item of the outfit which would have amounted under ordinary circumstances to a considerable expense, and other leading purveyors treated me with great generosity, so that I was altogether most kindly supported in my undertaking. Having previously despatched my heavy luggage by British India steamship, I left London in the beginning of March, 1884, and travelled overland to Egypt, spent a week or two rambling about the highways and byeways of that unhappy land, joined my steamer at Suez, and quitted her at Aden with heartfelt joy, after a horribly uncomfortable voyage of eight days. At Aden I had a delightful experience of what British hospitality can do to cast a halo round the most unattractive spots. At the house of the Resident and Governor, General Blair, V.C., I spent a most enjoyable interval whilst awaiting the Zanzibar steamer.

I somewhat dreaded the advent of this vessel, for after my experience of cockroaches, rats, bad smells, and bad food in the steamer which had carried me to Aden, I anticipated a renewal of this purgatory on board the steamship of the same company which was to complete the journey to Zanzibar. But this was fortunately not the case. The _Java_, though an old-fashioned and not too speedy boat, was scrupulously clean, and her staff of officers were all that could be desired in kindness and skill. The fare was excellent, the weather perfect, the fellow-passengers few and agreeable; and our journey to Zanzibar was more like a trip on a friend’s yacht. We stopped at Lamu, and lunched with Lieutenant Haggard, her Britannic Majesty’s vice-consul, and then at Mombasa, where I went off for a lengthy conference with Captain Gissing, our vice-consul at that port, who was already kindly interesting himself in the equipment of my expedition, and engaging porters from the vicinity of that place to accompany me, for it was considered best by Sir John Kirk that I should start from Mombasa for Kilima-njaro. After my first brief visit to the place, however, I continued on my way to Zanzibar, to confer with Sir John Kirk, and to engage a certain number of men. Accordingly, one day in the middle of April, 1884, I awoke in the early sunshine, and looked forth on a crescent of white buildings rising above an irregular line of black shipping and black mud, and later on in the day landed at Zanzibar, and found myself in that busy mart of East African trade, whence so many expeditions and explorers have started for the conquest of Africa’s secrets. Here I was soon enjoying the kind hospitality of Sir John Kirk, and feeling in the contemplation of the strange, varied life around me that the first chapter of my experiences in East Africa had pleasantly begun.

Map 2.—Route to Kilima-njaro.
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