Chapter II. 
year, it seemed that one single rainy season reigned supreme 
among the mountains without any break of fair weather. 
MOMBASA—PORT KILINDINI. 
The fact is that the great mountain range, rising like an 
island from the vast marshy plains of Uganda and the 
boundless forest of the Congo, becomes a centre of attraction 
for the mass of vapours sucked up by the tropical sun, which, 
condensing around the frozen peaks, form a permanent veil of fog 
and cloud. Thus it has come about that many a traveller has 
spent months and months in the immediate neighbourhood 
of the chain without once having sight of the peaks, or, at 
best, fugitive glimpses only. 
Stairs and Stuhlmann in June, and David in April appear to 
have found climatic conditions slightly more tolerable than the 
other explorers. Wollaston, however, had very bad luck in 
April. Sir Henry Stanley writes in May that he saw the snow 
26 
