ABSTRACT
M o u n t K e n y a was first seen by a European on the 3rd December 1849, when a break in its veil of clouds enabled Dr. Ludwig Krapf to discern its snow-capped summit, from a hill above the Wa-kamba village of Kitui. Krapf admittedly saw it from a distance of about ninety miles, and though he stayed in the same district for some weeks he only saw it once, and then, but for a few minutes at sunset. European geographers, at this time, were not convinced of the existence of snow on Kilima Njaro, which had been discovered the year before by Rebmann. The evidence in the case of this more accessible mountain was far more definite, and it is therefore not surprising that Krapfs stoŗy was discredited, in spite of his description of the appropriate emotions that overcame him. To silence his traducers Krapf returned to the same district in 18 5 1. He reached Kitui, but Kenya1-as he called the mountain-was not to be seen. He went forty miles nearer than on the previous occasion, but in vain. His small caravan was dispersed by a raiding party of Wa-kamba on the banks of the Tana, and he had to return to the coast without having
seen the object of his quest. Hildebrandt followed on Krapf’s footsteps in 1877, and spent some weeks making botanical collections in Kitui ; but he also does not appear to have seen the mountain,1 and the suspicions as to Krapfs veracity were strengthened. It was not seen, indeed, for the second time by a European until, in 1883, Joseph Thomson saw its western face across the plateau of Laikipia. The doubts as to the existence of the mountain had previously been removed by Wakefield and Denhardťs collections of the routes of various Arab and Suahili traders, to whom it was a familiar landmark. Thomson was the first to give any information about its structure, for he had the good fortune to enjoy several clear views of the mountain, from which, with his usual acumen, he correctly concluded it to be the denuded remnant of an old volcano. This peak, he tells us, “ without a doubt represents the column of lava which closed the volcanic life of the mountain. . . . The crater has been gradually washed away.” 2
Four years later Kenya was visited by Count Teleki. He camped at Ndoro, marched through the bamboo forests to the Alpine meadows above, and reached the height of a little over 13,800 feet. Here the failure of his food supply, and the sufferings of his men, compelled him to return. Count Telekľs account of his ascent gives us the first definite information we possess about the mountain. He made a small collection of plants, which proved the occurrence on it of representatives of the Alpine flora of Kilima Njaro and Abyssinia. Unfortunately his conclusions as to its structure are less satisfactory. According to Teleki, Kenya is a well-preserved volcano, having a crater of from 4 to 4į· kilometres in diameter, and from 200 to 300 metres in depth,8 while the highest point is only a tooth on the northern wall. Moreover, from his collections and descriptions it was concluded that the mountain was a dome of phonolite, and resemblances were detected between it and the phonolite peaks of Central Europe.
