2 AFRICAN GAME ANIMALS 



ing coast for the following two hundred years was subject 

 to the control of various peoples. Sovereignty fluctuated 

 at various times between Portuguese, Turks, Arabs, and 

 negro tribes. Throughout much of this long period, during 

 which the country remained unknown, the seaports were at 

 war with civilized powers or besieged by the tribes living 

 near the coast and were effectually prevented from sending 

 any trading or exploring caravans into the wilderness. One 

 of the most powerful deterrents to inland travel were the 

 fierce Masai, who harassed and controlled the interior high- 

 lands. The occasional looting of the coast districts by 

 wandering bands of Masai kept the tribes who were in 

 touch with civilization in mortal fear of these savage 

 warriors. 



The first Englishman to reach the coast was Commo- 

 dore Blankett, who touched at the mouth of the Juba 

 River in 1799, where a landing party from his fleet were 

 treacherously murdered by the natives. After this incident 

 he sailed southward to the island of Zanzibar, where his 

 fleet was well received. A half century later, in 1844, a 

 German missionary, Ludwig Krapf, recently expelled from 

 Abyssinia, entered Mombasa and established the first Chris- 

 tian mission. A year later he was joined by another Ger- 

 man missionary, John Rebmann, who founded a second 

 mission a few miles inland, among the Warabai tribe. Reb- 

 mann, with a few native followers, and armed only with the 

 faith he represented, penetrated inland in 1848 and dis- 

 covered the giant snow-capped mountain of Kilimanjaro, 

 journeying to within fifteen miles of the great volcano. 

 The dome or crater attains a height of nineteen thousand 

 seven hundred feet and can be seen from a few score miles 



