The Virunga Volcanoes 



The Virunga or Mfumbiro* volcanic mountain chain, as 

 will be seen by an examination of the accompanying map, 

 is divided into three groups. The most easterly consisting 

 of three volcanoes — Sabinyo, Mgahinga and Muhavura. The 

 central group of three more named respectively Karisimbi, 

 Mikeno and Visoke, and the western, also the most active, 

 composed of Ninagongo (a triple cone), Namlagira and three 

 small cones of quite recent formation. 



Whereas the central group may be said to be quite 

 extinct, this is by no means the case with the western end 

 of the range, or, let it be said, with the eastern portion. In 

 reference to the latter, the discovery made by the vulcanologist 

 attached to the Duke of Mecklenburg's Expedition of 1907 

 of the comparatively recent flow of lava from the Muhavura 

 volcano, which displaced the theory that the oldest formed 

 and most extinct volcanoes were to be found in the eastern 

 group — is in part borne out by a report lately to hand and 

 recently published in the journal of the Royal Geographical 

 Society. The report says that in a small valley called Kim- 

 bugu, a little to the north of the eastern group (viz., 29° 58' 

 E. long, by 0° 58' S. lat.), a lake welled up during the night, 

 having an area of about one hundred yards square, with a 

 maximum depth of fourteen feet, where previously there had 

 been neither a stream nor a pool. There was a collection 

 of native huts in the valley, and although the water did not 

 touch these, thirty-two people were found dead in them in 



• Regarding the name Mfumbiro, I must say that I never heard it used 

 by any native. Virunga was the name always used when any member of my 

 " safari " referred to the volcanoes. 



Note by Sir Harry Johnston : " Umu-fumbiro in Luganda and perhaps 

 Runyoro means ' a cooking pot,' and was the term applied to this region by 

 the Baganda in conversation with Speke. Captain Speke was the first white 

 man to see and report these volcanoes in 1861. — H. H. J." 



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