NAIROBI AND MT. KENYA 



loS 



tion a large consignment of specimens collected by the party had been 

 shipped to the Smithsonian Institution, a second lot being sent to 

 Mombasa to be shipped on the steamship Admiral on August i6. The 

 casks and cases sent contained skins, bones and skulls of the following 

 animals : Lion, seven ; leopard, one ; cheetah, one ; spotted hyena, one ; 

 cape hartebeest, fourteen; white-bearded wildebeest, five; Neumann 

 steinbuck, five ; Kirk dik-dik, one ; common waterbuck, three ; Chanler 

 reedbuck, four ; Grant gazelle, nine ; Thomson gazelle, five ; eland, one ; 

 cape buffalo, four; giraffe, three; hippopotamus, one; wart-hog, six; 

 Burchell zebra, seven; black rhinoceros, two; impalla, two. 



The cheetah is similar to a leopard, the wildebeest Is the African 

 gnoo and the hartebeest, steinbuck, dik-dik, impalla and eland are 

 varieties of antelope. The beasts were shot under the licenses granted 

 Colonel Roosevelt and his son Kermit, and were packed by Dr. Mearns. 

 They formed a principal part of the contribution to science made by 

 the expedition, and, variously prepared and preserved, will be of util- 

 ity in the study of zoology for many years to come. 



On ascending the slopes of Mount Kenya the Roosevelt party 

 found abundant evidence of the rapid progress of civilization in this 

 region. The fertile soil of the mountain sides has attracted numbers 

 of planters from England, South Africa and elsewhere, and many 

 plants suitable to the climate are being cultivated, with promise of 

 large yield. 



After crossing the Tana River by aid of a rope ferry, they came 

 within view of a most magnificent country. Before them rose in 

 majesty Mount Kenya, occupying always the center of the picture, 

 but never doing justice to its great height. It rises by long gentle 

 slopes, more like a swelling of ground than a peak, from a broad up- 

 land plain, and so gradual is the ascent that, but for the sudden out- 

 crop of snow-clad rock which crowns the summit, no one would believe 

 it over seventeen thousand feet high. It is its gradual rise that imparts 

 so great a value to this noble mountain ; for about its enormous base 

 and upon its slopes, traversed by hundreds of streams of clear, ever- 

 flowing water, there grows, or may grow, in successive, concentric 

 belts, every kind of crop and forest known in the world, from the 

 Equator to the Arctic circle. 



