376 



OUR STAY AT NDOKO 



we could only have done so with very great difficulty, the 

 bank on that side rising perpendicularly to a height of some 

 300 to 450 feet. An equally deep ravine which would, how- 

 ever, have been easier to scale, and part of the wall of the crater 

 alone separated me now from the crater itself, but as that wall 

 was lower than where I stood, my view was not interrupted. 



4 The Kenia crater must be from 10,000 to 12,000 feet in 

 circumference, and the bottom, which is pretty uniformly 

 covered with snow and ice, is some 650 feet lower than the 

 rim. The melted snow in the crater finds an outlet at the foot 

 of the wall of rock and feeds the brook along which I had 

 ascended. It would not have been difficult to climb to the 

 crater, but I hesitated on account of the loose debris on the 

 wall being covered with a deep layer of snow. On my left 

 rose the rugged peak of Kenia, all that was left of the original 

 cone. From its steep sides quantities of ice must often roll 

 down to form the chaotic masses piled up at its base. The 

 columnar-like phonolithic rock of the highest peak is of a light- 

 brown colour, and the actual peak is split and rises up in two 

 pillars. The western slopes are exceedingly abrupt, but 

 towards the north-east and the interior of the crater the 

 declivities are gentler. These slopes are covered with a 

 uniform mantle of snow. On the north-east side of the crater- 

 brim rises an unimportant snow-capped peak with apparently 

 a steep outer slope. On the south and east certain portions of 

 the inner crater-wall are quite perpendicular and free from 

 ice, but elsewhere these walls slope down to the bottom of the 

 crater at a gentle angle. On my right at the outer base of the 

 western crater-wall was a little lake, the extent of which south- 

 wards I could not make out from where I stood, on account of 

 the intervening walls of rock, but an outlet would only be 

 possible on the south. According to the reading of my aneroid 

 I was now at a height of 15,355 feet above the sea-level, and 



