GEOGRAPHICAL PROGRESS IN 1890. 



355 



other ascents of the two peaks were made on 

 different sides. 



On the northern side of Kibo, at a height of 

 18,700 feet, a two-tongued glacier was discovered, 

 and also far out in the plain three long swampy 

 lakes reaching to the large Nyiri marsh. The 

 view of the mountain from the western side is 

 thus described : 



The mountain mass rises in a typical volcanic curve 

 with such unbroken regularity irorn the southern 

 plain, which lies at an elevation of 2,600 feet to the 

 brim of Kibo, an altitude of 19,700 feet, that no single 

 detail escapes a searching eye. While the interven- 

 ing saddle hides the view of the base of the Kibo 

 cone from Marangu and Moji in the southeast, an un- 

 interrupted prospect is obtained from the west. The 

 dark belt of the primeval forest extends here farther 

 up the mountain while the brighter zone of grass 

 lands above it is narrower, and almost touches the 

 fringe of the ice mantle, which reaches from the sum- 

 mit to the base of the Kibo cone. This coat of icy 

 mail, more than 6,000 feet in height, and about the 

 same in breadth, adapts itself to the volcanic shape of 

 the mountain and forms a spectacle probably not to 

 be met with elsewhere on the earth's surface in simi- 

 lar grandeur. 



To the west of this ice mantle Kibo is cloven from 

 head to foot by a stupendous rift, with precipitous 

 walls, down which the great crater on the summit 

 pours an ice stream through its western cleft already 

 mentioned, and which issues from its mouth as a com- 

 pact glacier. This is the largest glacier on Kilima- 

 njaro. From its end the most important water chan- 

 nel from the ice of Kibo, the Weriweri river, takes its 

 rise, while from the sheet of ice on the southern face, 

 the Ngombere stream, carries down the melted ice to 

 the all-gathering waters of the Pangani. 



On the southwestern side of Mawenzi flowers 

 and grasses were found at an altitude of 15,750 

 feet, sheltered from the wind and watered by 

 bubbling springs, and elks and antelopes were 

 seen browsing on the young grass on the heights 

 above the saddle of the mountain. The forest 

 region on the south and east sides of the mount- 

 ain fills the belt between 6,500 and 9,750 feet of 

 altitude ; on the north side of Mawenzi it forms 

 only a narrow belt, broken in many places, and 

 growing thinner toward the west it vanishes 

 altogether on the northern side of Kibo. The 

 success of the expedition was largely due to the 

 perfect arrangements for supplies and the favor- 

 able season, October being the month when the 

 summit is most clear, the atmospheric precipita- 

 tions light, and the ice covering at its lowest. 



Interest in the Stanley expedition has been 

 maintained through the year, partly by the 

 lecture tour of Mr. Stanley, but more in conse- 

 quence of the personal controversies that have 

 arisen over his accounts of the incidents of the 

 journey, involving the conduct of the officers in 

 charge of the rear column and the ability and in- 

 fluence of Emm Pasha as Governor of Equa- 

 toria. These controversies affect only the char- 

 acter of the explorers and their treatment of the 

 natives, and have no place here, though the 

 character of their relations with the natives may 

 have an important influence on the future ex- 

 ploration and civilization of the interior of the 

 continent. 



In the " Annual Cyclopaedia " for 1889 was 

 given an account of Stanley's journey with de- 

 tails of the discoveries of the great forest, the sup- 

 posed Mountains of the Moon, Lake Albert Ed- 

 ward, and the extension of the Victoria Nyanza. 



To this may be added some particulars of his 

 description of the pygmies of the great forest, 

 from " Scribner's Magazine " for January, 1891. 



Mr. Stanley says that intellectually the pyg- 

 mies of the African forest are the equals of 

 about 50 per cent, of the inhabitants of any great 

 American city of to-day. He continues : 



And yet there has been no change or progress of 

 any kind among the pygmies of the forest since the 

 time of Herodotus. As the bird has builded its nest, 

 the bee its cell, and the ant its new colony, the pyg- 

 mies have survived the lapse of twenty-three cent- 

 uries, and have continued, to build their beehive 

 huts after the same skill less fashion as they built 

 them in the days when Herodotus recited the story of 

 his travels before the Council of Athens, 445 years be- 

 fore the birth of Christ. The reason of this is ob- 

 vious from my point of view, which is, that the same 

 causes which operated before the time of Herodotus 

 to drive them out of their original lands continue to 

 operate to-day to keep them in the low, degraded 

 state they are now in. 



Herodotus is credited with the discovery of 

 the pygmies. In modern times Battel, Mo'ffat, 

 Livingstone, Schweinfurth, and Piaggia saw 

 them. In his journey down the Congo in 1876 

 and 1877 Stanley captured one specimen. In 

 1881 and 1882 this explorer heard of the dwarfs 

 from the natives who had evidently been familiar 

 with them. But on his recent journey for the 

 relief of Emiii Pasha, Stanley traveled through 

 the center of the region inhabited by the Wam- 

 butti dwarfs, captured about fifty of them of 

 various ages, and had an excellent chance to 

 study their characteristics. A section of the 

 forest region situated between the Ihuru and 

 Ituri rivers, about 30,000 square miles in extent, 

 simply swarms with pygmies, according to Stan- 

 ley. There are three distinct races in the forest. 

 The aborigines who fell the woods, make clear- 

 ings, and plant bananas and grain, are finely 

 formed men and women of the ordinary stand- 

 ard. But they are head and shoulders above the 

 tallest pygmies. The dwarfs, like ordinary hu- 

 manity, vary considerably in height. Some are 

 only 33 inches high, and the tallest of the un- 

 mixed specimens measured by Mr. Stanley would 

 not exceed 4 feet 4 inches. Mr. Stanley says : 



Their arms and ornaments were similar to those of 

 the agricultural aborigines, and were evidently ob- 

 tained from them in exchange for the produce of the 

 forest, such as honey, furs of monkeys and baboons, 

 antelope and leopard skins, and feathers, especially 

 the red tail feathers of the gray parrot, and for the 

 dried meats of such animals 'as they trapped or 

 speared. . . . Nomad tribes of pygmies are often by 

 pinching necessity compelled to feed on a diet which 

 would be poisonous, or would be utterly nauseous to 

 men bred upon grain and vegetables. The snails, 

 tortoises, squirrels, mice, civets, ichneumons, snakes, 

 large and small caterpillars, white ants, crickets, 

 grasshoppers, monkeys, chimpanzees, leopards, wild 

 cats, wart hogs, crocodiles, iguanas, lizards, antelopes, 

 buffaloes, and elephants form a considerable variety 

 for communities that are not too fastidious as to what 

 they eat ; and our experience of the pygmies leads me 

 to believe that they relish each and all equally. . . . 

 Such people as these, then, would have no hesitation 

 to add human meat to their fare. It is a current fact 

 everywhere through the forest region, and I am 

 forced to believe it, although I have never seen the 

 cannibals indulging in their repasts. The graves of 

 our dead have been opened, and the bodies have been 

 exhumed. Members of our expedition have been 

 slain, and their bodies have been carved and carried 



