126 
In the Heart of Africa 
sizes to be found. We caught one large specimen in a trap 
and discovered it to be identical with the species discovered 
by the Duke d’Abruzzi on Ruwenzori. Then there are wild 
cats and different kinds of long-tailed monkeys, of which the 
most common is the fine red and grey-green coloured Cercofithe- 
kus Kandti. We also found quite a new sort of bush-buck, one 
of which I shot in a forest glade close to swampy ground. 
The natives’ talk ran a good deal on a beast of prey said 
to be something midway between a lion and a leopard, and 
which the people called “kimisi.” Up till now no European 
has sighted this creature: it would probably be some kind of 
large-sized wild cat. 
Whilst in the district. Lieutenant von Wiese, accompanied 
only by an Askari and a native, achieved the distinction of 
being the first European to climb Mount Sabinjo. It is probable 
that no man had trodden the summit before, for Captain von 
Beringe, who in 1903 reached to within 150 metres of the peak, 
had to turn back owing to the steepness of the rock, whilst his 
companion. Dr. Engeland, had stopped at an altitude of 3,150 
metres on account of an attack of vertigo. It would never enter 
the head of a native to undergo such a seemingly purposeless 
fatigue, which, according to his faith, would serve only to draw 
down the wrath of the mountain spirits. Kirschstein also 
ascended Sabinjo later, right to the summit. On that occasion he 
established the fact that the geological character of the mountain 
had up to that time been entirely misunderstood. 
“ Sabinjo,” writes Kirschstein, “ is not, as reported by von 
Beringe and Herrmann, the jagged remains of the wall of a 
crater which has been torn up in the east and west, but rather 
an old peak of trachytic-andesitic stone formation, deeply 
eroded—a homogeneous lava cone. In contradistinction to the 
stratified type of volcano, made up of overlying layers of ashes 
and lava masses, like Ninagongo, with broad crater summits, 
no loose volcanic matter plays any part in the creation of such 
masses as Sabinjo. Sabinjo owes its existence solely to a con¬ 
sistent flow of lava. The viscous fluid, a stony, yet paste-like 
