CHAP. X THE EXPLORATION OF KENYA 163 



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,^ 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 

 Denhardt's 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." '^ 



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 Teleki's 

 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. Accord- 

 ing to Teleki, Kenya is a well-preserved volcano, having a 

 crater of from 4 to 4^ kilometres in diameter, and from 200 to 

 300 metres in depth,^ 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, 



This was absolutely different from Thomson's conclusions, 

 but as it was based on an actual visit to the mountain, and not 



^ Vide Proc. Roy. Geog. Soc. new ser. vol. iv, (1882), p. 747, footnote. 



^ Through Masai Land, p. 224. 



^ Teleki is perfectly right as to the existence of this hollow ; his actual observations 

 are all correct as matters of fact ; it is only in his interpretation of those facts that I cannot 

 follow him. 



