CHAPTER X 



ON THE SNOWFIELDS AND GLACIERS OF KENYA 



" The only two essentials to happiness are a sound digestion and a hard heart." 



" There shall he see 

 No enemy, 

 But winter and rough weather." 



As Von Like It, ii. 5. 



Mount Kenya 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 sur- 

 prising that Krapfs story 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 I 85 I. He reached Kitui, but Kenya ^ — 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 



1 The name Kenya was given to the mountain owing to a misunderstanding. The 

 proper Kikuyu name is Kilinyaga. The Masai call it Doenyo Ebor — the White Moun- 

 tain ; the " Wanderobbo " Doenyo Egeri — the Spotted Mountain; the Wa-kamba 

 "Njalo," a term they also apply to Kilima Njaro ; and the Zanzibari "Meru," a name 

 accepted in Europe for the peak west of Kilima Njaro. 



