MASAI LAND. 
547 
CHAPTER XIX, 
Masai Land. 
One of the most successful of recent travellers in Africa 
is Mr. Joseph Thomson, who has a right to boast that 
during his 20,000 miles journeyings over the Continent, 
he has never shecl a drop of blood. His first journey was 
undertaken when he was only twenty years of age. He 
went out under the leadership of the late Mr. Keith 
Johnston. But Mr. Johnston died soon after leaving 
the East Coast, and Mr. Thomson, little more than a boy, 
was left in command. Without hesitation, he pushed 
onwards ; past the north end of Lake Nyanza he made 
for Lake Tanganika, and after exploring the unknown 
countries to the west, returned to the coast with a vast 
budget of new information. So successful was the ex- 
pedition, that in 1882 he was commissioned by the 
Royal Geographical Society to undertake an explora- 
tion in the region lying between the East Coast and 
Victoria Nyanza, the country partly inhabited by the 
dreaded Masai. There also Mr. Thomson met with re- 
markable success, opening up many hundreds of miles 
of new country, and bringing back information concern- 
ing its remarkable lakes and mountains. One of the 
most striking features of the region is the snow-capped 
mountain Kilimanjaro, and Mr. Thomson’s account of the 
mountain is worth quoting. 
Kilimanjaro, in its horizontal and vertical extension, 
may be described as a great, irregular, pear-shaped mass, 
with its major axis in a line running north-west and 
south-east, the tapering point running into the heart of 
the Masai country. On this line it is nearly sixty miles 
long. Its minor axis, running at right angles, reaches 
only to some thirty miles. As we have already had 
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