CHAPTER XIII. 
THE JOURNEY TO KILIMA NJARO : THE START. 
^ROM my earliest arrival in East Africa I had 
-L felt a deep interest in the peoples to the west 
and north-west of Mombasa, especially in those of 
Taita and Chaga, and I resolved that, before I should 
leave the country, I would, if possible, pay them a 
visit. 
But besides interesting peoples there was the great 
Equatorial Snow-mountain Kilima Njaro, about which 
the most wonderful, though no doubt to some extent 
fabulous, things had been said. Rebmann had seen it, 
but geographers doubted its existence ; at any rate, 
they doubted the existence of what was reported to 
be its eternal snows." 
Now the presence of such a mountain suggested to 
me many things of the utmost importance in relation 
to the future of East Africa. If Africa," I thought, 
" is to take a position with other nations in the march 
of progress, she will have to be put in motion ; an 
impetus will have to be given her by some more 
civilized people — by westerns, and probably by the 
English. But there is her deadly climate ; that is sadly 
against her. If Europeans are to do her good, some 
