NATIVE EXPLORERS 



The list of travellers who have worked in this area is a 

 fairly long one, but the names of six men stand out pre- 

 eminent, — Dr. Ludwig Krapf, Baron Carl Claus von der 

 Decken, Dr. Gustav Fischer, Mr, Joseph Thomson, Count 

 Samuel Teleki, and Lieut. Ludwig von Hohnel. 



The Rift Valley was not first reached in British East 

 Africa, but far to the south, toward the end of its two main 

 branches. Of these, the western was entered by Burton and 

 Speke on Tanganyika in 1857, and the eastern by Livingstone 

 on the Nyasa in 1859. These pioneers were soon followed by 

 others, and that district became familiar owing to the explora- 

 tions and descriptions of many travellers and traders. Our 

 knowledge of the equatorial regions of East Africa was, how- 

 ever, for long allowed to flag. Considerable attention had been 

 previously attracted to them by the discovery there of two 

 snow-capped mountains, Kilima Njaro and Kenya. The first 

 was discovered by Rebmann in 1848 ; the second by Krapf in 

 1849. But little work of much scientific value was done till the 

 journeys of Baron von der Decken in 1862-65. After his 

 murder at Barderah on the Juba in 1865, scientific explora- 

 tion stopped, and the next important additions to our know- 

 ledge of the region were based on native information. From 

 time immemorial Arab and Suahili traders have sent caravans 

 into the interior, and they discovered the main facts in its 

 geography. Their information was collected by T. Wakefield 

 of Mombasa and Clemens Denhardt of Lamu, and maps con- 

 structed therefrom. The map issued by the latter was 

 based on thirty-three carefully recorded itineraries. It marked 

 every important lake, river, and mountain in Masailand before 

 a single European had set foot in that country. The outlines 

 of the lakes and the courses of the rivers are often very in- 

 correct, but the amount of information this map gave was 

 enormous, and the facts are often remarkably accurate. In 

 many points the structure of the country and the relations of 

 the rivers are more fully and correctly represented than on the 

 maps of later authors who have actually traversed the country. 

 Thus in 1881 we find Lake Losuguta (Lake Hannington) in- 

 serted, whereas it was omitted from all other maps until that of 

 von Hohnel in 1892. Settima is correctly mapped; and the 

 separation of Lake Lorian from the Tana, proved by Chanler 



