June 13, 1885 
THE GRAPHIC 
607 
resemble stone in their colour and polish. Oden the severity of 
these broad wooden bulwarks will be tempered with rich masses of 
foliage depending from the smaller boughs above, and breaking up 
with graceful and fanciful detail the somewhat formal outlines of the 
vista. The tree trunks that border tfte stream are many of them 
singularly broad in girth. In one or two cases they 
are grappled with by parasitic figs that wind them¬ 
selves round their stout victim like vegetable boa- 
constrictors, or, as in the example illustrated, like 
some huge, long-bodied lizard. In the shade of this 
green tunnel, where the little river—which the Swa¬ 
hili traders call the Mto wa Habari, or “ River of 
News ”—bores its way through the forest belt, we cast 
down our burdens and prepare to rest and eat our 
midday meal. After the white glare of the shade¬ 
less open country this sweet and cool retreat beneath 
a dense over-arching canopy of foliage is inexpressibly 
soothing after our weary walk from Taveita. The 
men go off to the other side of the stream, and are lost 
to sight in the woodland, I only know of their pre¬ 
sence by the occasional murmur of voices coming 
from their camp, and by the blue curling smoke of 
their cooking fires, which ascends in gentle puffs 
through the network of leafy boughs. My portable 
table and camp-chair have been unfastened, and the 
former is set up on a level patch of sward by the 
waterside, and is quickly covered with a snowy cloth 
from the canteen, while my servant further lays it with 
the enamelled iron plates and knife and fork and nap¬ 
kin for my solitary meal. To pass the time and 
forget my impatient hunger whilst the repast is being 
prepared, I sit down on my camp-stool and make the 
rough sketch of the stream which is presented oppo¬ 
site : but my artistic labours are gladly laid aside at 
the announcement that lunch is ready, and I sit down 
with keen satisfaction to my tempting table, which has 
been further brightened by a little bouquet of wild 
flowers gathered and arranged by Virapan. What do 
you think I eat? Well now, I will just take the 
trouble to describe this one meal, so that you may 
better realise how I ordinarily fare in Africa while on 
the road. Here is a plate of fowl soup to begin with, 
nicely flavoured with onions, thickened with a little 
maize-flour and rice. Two thin slices of toast lie 
beside it, made from some loaves my cook baked 
while we rested at Taveita. After the soup is finished 
comes a little good curry made from the soup meat, 
and flavoured with cocoa-nut milk (for we have carried 
a sack of cocoa-nuts from the coast). Then, when the 
curry is eaten, a fresh plate is brought me, and a dear 
old battered calabash about half-full of delicious honey, 
which tastes like the smell of mimosa blossoms ; and 
after eating some of this spread on a slice of Taveitan 
bread (which deserves its recipe in brackets : 2 lbs. 
of maize-flour, half-a-cup of palm wine, a quarter of 
an ostrich egg, a pinch of salt, and a spoonful of 
butter), I wind up my lunch with a cup of fragrant 
tea, and sit over an old book, while my men pack 
up the impedimenta once more, and start again on the 
road towards Moshi. 
The afternoon is sultry, and we feel so merito¬ 
rious in having accomplished our ten miles before 
lunch, that there is a general disposition to take things 
easily ; besides which, our path takes us through 
much more pleasing country than in the morning. We 
cross a biggish stream (which rises near the summit of Kilima-njaro, 
and is called the Kilema River), then a smaller one, and at last, 
near our preordained camping place for the night—a charming 
“ almost-island ” (this term sounds more expressive than peninsula), 
nearly surrounded by the little Mkuyuni River. You can hardly 
imagine a more romantically beautiful spot than this in which I 
camp. It is only approachable at one point—where a huge tree 
trunk spans the tiny gulf between the bank and the island, and 
forms a bridge over which to pass to and fro. It is this fallen tree 
which has made our camping place a peninsula, for in lying across 
the stream its lower branches acted as a kind of dam by stopping 
all the stones, earth, and refuse washed down-by-the rivulet, and so 
forming in time a firm barrier that sent all the water careering 
round the other side of the island. In the centre of this pretty 
peninsula rises a gigantic sycamore fig tree (which among the 
Swahili traders gives its name to this stream— Mkuyu —a sycamore ; 
Mkuyuni —the place by the sycamore)—and under the vast canopy 
of its mighty branches the whole caravan encamps, feeling tolerably 
protected from the weather by the leafy thatch o’er head. Lions 
roar at us all night long from across the water, but we sleep 
securely. Soon after dawn I am aroused from a labyrinth of 
dreams, and have to dress hurriedly while my tent is pulled down 
and packed up, and my coffee is being prepared. By seven we are 
on the road once more, following in the spoor of the lions who 
visited us last night. Their foot-marks continue along the path for 
several miles before they are lost in the bush. I have already 
observed in Africa how much wild animals avail themselves of the 
natives’ paths as convenient highways along which to pass, whether 
seeking water or foraging for food. 
The path now divides into two tracks, one going still due west 
and keeping to the plains, the other turning round towards the 
southern flank of Kilima-njaro, and mounting upwards. Here, at 
this junction, we encounter some rather disreputable Wa-Swahili, 
shabbily clothed (it is the wearing clothes, by-the-bye, which enables 
one in this country to distinguish between the Wa-swahili, or 
natives of the coast, and the people of the interior), and armed with 
Snider guns. They are courtiers of Mandara’s, sent thoughtfully 
by that chief to meet us, and see we don’t take the w rong road, 
Their greeting, however, is too familiar and impudent, to my taste, 
and I begin to have a lurking presentiment that these scampish 
parasites of the chief of Moshi may prove inimical to my mission ; 
for, in the interior here, white men are looked upon by the coast- 
traders as spies on the slave trade, and though outwardly fawned on 
and flattered from fear, yet are secretly thwarted and hindered in 
every possible way, especially as regards the native chiefs, whom the 
Um-swahili are desirous of -alienating from enlightenment. How¬ 
ever, keeping these reflections to myself, I toil along the ascending 
path, and after an hour’s stiff pull, catch a glimpse of an enchanting 
land. Hitherto our track has led through thick bush, with every 
view of the surrounding country shut out. Now we have entered 
a clearing, near to cultivation, and nothing impedes our view. 
Northwards the vast mass of the mountain stretches upwards into 
the heavens, its twin peaks shrouded in heavy cumulus clouds, and 
below the clouds, the billowy swell of hill upon hill and ridge suc¬ 
ceeding ridge is a deep sullen blue under the heavy shadow of 
lowering cumuli. Then come a few lines of dark purple-green 
forest, still in shade, and, in the middle distance, where the sun¬ 
light breaks upon the scene, the gentle, rounded hills gleam out 
against the sombre background with their groves of emerald green 
bananas marking the commencement of the cultivated zone. Nearer 
to us succeed deep ravine's,With thread-like" cascades, clumps of 
tidy forest—just a few tall trees left growing out of religious venera¬ 
tion—smooth, sunny downs, whereon flocks of goats are grazing 
patches of freshly-tilled soil, cultivated fields, hedge-lined lanes. 
and lastly, the red denuded hill, the No-man’s land, the Pisgah, on 
which we are standing to gaze on this Promised Land, towards 
which for thirteen days we have been toiling through the wilderness. 
There is, however, no pre-ordained restriction to my entering it, 
nor is my lieutenant qualified to play the part of Joshua, so I, who 
KIBO IN THE EARLY MORNING 
have been pausing here to let all my followers come up with me and 
regain their breath, once more take up my staff and march into 
Mandara’s country. We descend one hill, cross a stream, and 
mount another, following a slippery red-clay path, 
which leads us over a village green into the col¬ 
lection of bee-hive huts and gardens which 
forms Mandara’s capital. 
Some soldiers, decorated with white and 
black monkey skins, and armed with tremen¬ 
dous broad-bladed spears, come forward to 
greet 11s, and indicate a cleared space of 
ground whereon we may encamp. Mandara 
does not make his appearance until the 
tent is up, and everything in order. When 
I hear that he has arrived I go forth a little 
way to meet him, and see standing in front 
of a semicircle of warriors a man of tall 
commanding figure clothed in a garment looking like a long 
and very dirty nightgown. I see at once by his face that it is 
Mandara, as his mien is so singularly king-like, and differs so 
strikingly from the mean physiognomies around. His face is oval 
and full, with somewhat aquiline nose, wide mouth, perfect teeth, 
and thin lips, a firm, well-modelled chin, prominent cheek bones, 
and one eye of wonderful fire and brilliance, the other optic being 
steeped in darkness. His eyebrows are contracted in half amused 
wonderment, and he regards me in rather a. critical quizzical 
manner. However, I favourably impress him during our first 
in erview. The letters from Sir John Kirk to the chief are duly 
read and presented, and I then 
retire to rest in my camp. 
We are here about 3,500 feet 
in altitude, relatively at the 
foot of the mountain, but yet 
with splendid views over the 
plains, which lie fifteen hun¬ 
dred feet below. All around 
are signs of agriculture of a 
high order, and though the 
people are naked, one can 
see they are anything but 
savages. There is nowhere a 
congeries of houses that can 
be called a town, but the 
whole country, where it is 
cultivated, is equally inha¬ 
bited. Here and there the 
yellow thatch of a bee-hive 
hut peeps out from the green 
fronds of the banana groves. 
The fields are intersected with 
numerous runnels of water, 
diverted at different levels 
from the parent streams in 
the ravines above. The air is 
musical with the murmur of 
trickling, rivulets and tinkling 
bells, for the flocks and herds 
are now being driven in from 
the pastures to the natives’ 
compounds, to be shut up for 
the night. Wherever the ground is not in cultivation it is covered with 
brilliantly-coloured wildflowers—balsams, hibiscus, dissotis, greenand 
white ground orchids, scarlet aloes, and numberless species whose 
names I know not, and from all these the bees are taking toll. 
The mild-eyed kine driven from the pastures' suggest supplies of 
milk ; the throng of bees about the blossoms imply that honey is 
also to be had. On the branches of all the big trees hereabouts are 
hung oblong cases—boxes—made of bark, in which these half- 
domesticated bees construct their hives and store their honey. 
These “ Honey-boxes,” called by the natives “ Miz- 
inga,” which word is also applied to cannons on the 
coast, are familiar objects in East Africa, and may 
generally be met within the vicinity of villages. 
On the day after our arrival Mandara sends me 
guides to point out the site of land on which I am to 
settle and build my first station. It lies ' about two 
miles to the north-east of the chief’s residence on the 
brow of a fine hill nearly 5,000 feet high, but of course 
not much elevated above the surrounding country. 
On either side lies a deep ravine with a stream flowing 
through each ; but at the back the hill, which is only 
one of the many spurs of the mountain side, joins the 
parent mass, and may thus be easily approached 
without much climbing. It would be a splendid site 
for a city ! On the summit of this elongated hill— 
cotline, or “little neck,” is a French word which 
describes it well—is a nearly level and broad plateau, 
three sides of which descend almost precipitously into 
the valleys below. With a very little work it might 
be made unapproachable save from the north, where 
it joins on to higher ground. Along one side and 
then across and down the other side flows a tiny 
artificial canal of clear water brought from a tumbling 
stream higher up the mountain, and carried along this 
hill from above in a very gently descending channel. 
Thus you have water at your very door, and need 
not seek it in the ravine a thousand feet below. It 
seems so strange and quaint to find a placid brook¬ 
let flowing along high ground up in the clouds and 
at the edge of a precipice. All this is due to the 
patient industry of the Wa-chaga of Kilima-njaro, 
who prefer to live on the tops of hills for safety, and 
therefore carry their water in artificial channels from 
the heights above, and make it flow the whole length 
of these inhabited spurs, while the parent strcamS* go 
dashing down the valleys, descending in cascades of 
seventy and a hundred feet, till they flow far, far 
below the placid canals which water the hill crests 
stretching out into the plains. Sometimes, as in the 
sketch here given, the mountain stream wall be dam¬ 
med up at certain points along its course, and the 
water raised to the requisite level for filling the hill 
canals. The dam is usually made of a wattle frame¬ 
work, over which clay and turf are plastered. 
The morning after our arrival at Kitimbiriu (as 
our hill-site is called) I have so much to do that there 
is no time to contemplate the beauties of the scenery. 
There are ninety men of Mombasa, who have carried 
my goods hither, to be discharged and sent back to 
the coast. There are all the necessary preparations to 
be made for commencing our settlement, and each 
of the men remaining with me must have his work 
told off to him. This one is to set to and clear the 
ground for a kitchen garden, that one must drive our 
milch cow and her calf, our goats and sheep to the 
green pastures, and follow them as they browse, and 
bring them home at sunset. Another takes the fowls 
under his care (all these live creatures have been bought 
immediately after our arrival), and so each of the thirty 
men who remain with me must have his appointed task. The cooks 
set to work to organise a kitchen, the builders seek for poles in the 
forest to make the framework of our dwellings, the road-makers ply 
TREES WITH HONEY 
BOXES 
out the hours of dayligiit. When the red- disc of the sun dips below 
the blue horizon of- the plain I ring a bell, and the men with gleeful 
shouts acknowledge the signal for suspension of labours and return 
the implements to the tent before they troop off to their cooking fires. 
