INTRODUCTION 



and Hohnel in 1893, was then shown, though it was not 

 accepted by geographers. 



The two most fundamental errors in Denhardt's map were 

 the omission of the Rift Valley and the exaggeration of the 

 size of Lake Baringo, These were serious, and most of the 

 minor mistakes in the map result from them. They were 

 corrected by Fischer and Thomson, with whom rests the credit 

 of having first broken down the barrier of mystery and fear 

 that for so long kept Europeans out of the Masai country. To 

 Fischer belongs the honour of having first entered Masailand 

 and demonstrated the occurrence of the Rift Valley in Equa- 

 torial Africa. He entered this valley in 1883, west of Mount 

 Meru, near Kilima Njaro, and tracked it northward, past the 

 still steaming volcano of Doenyo Ngai, and along the shores 

 of Lake Natron, until he was stopped by the exhaustion of his 

 food supply, on the steppes to the north of Lake Naivasha. 

 His valuable ethnographical observations and collections, and 

 his vocabulary of the language of the Masai, were the first 

 reliable contributions to our knowledge of this tribe. His 

 botanical and geological collections, moreover, gave important 

 evidence as to the structure and natural history of this region. 



Later in the same year Thomson continued the exploration 

 of the Rift Valley still farther to the north. He determined 

 the real size and position of Lake Baringo, discovered the 

 temperate affinities of the flora of the high plateau of Laikipia, 

 and was the first European to see Kenya from the west. He 

 proved, moreover, the occurrence of a double series of volcanic 

 rocks in the district, and gave a geological sketch map of the 

 region. 



In 1887-88 followed the most important of all the 

 expeditions undertaken in British East Africa. Count Teleki, 

 the faipous Hungarian sportsman, then marched along the Rift 

 Valley for three hundred miles farther to the north than had pre- 

 viously been reached. He discovered the two lakes. Basso Narok 

 and Basso Ebor, which he named Lakes Rudolf and Stephanie. 

 His discoveries were recorded by his accomplished companion 

 Lieut, von Hohnel, on a map which is probably the best 

 ever prepared by an African traveller. The map is so precise 

 and instructive that, with the aid of the author's descriptions 

 and sketches, and a small collection of rocks, it has enabled a 



