6 o8 
THE GRAPHIC 
June 13, 1SS5 
But after a day or two, when things are going smoothly, when all 
palavers with Mandara and his subjects are at an end, when the 
seeds have been planted in my gardens, and 1 can trust 
the immediate superintendence of my men to my 
lieutenant, when I have set my two collectors at 
work pressing plants, and collecting insects, I am able 
to spend a few hours of the day in invigorating, 
health-giving rambles round the neighbourhood of my 
settlement, 
I extend my walks, gun in hand, and a collecting port¬ 
folio on my back, in all directions, but my first favourite 
stroll is up the valley of our little stream. Following 
the tiny path which runs parallel with our irrigating 
channel, I come to the place where the latter branches 
off from the parent stream. Here, at will, a passing 
native can cut off our water supply by laying a packet 
of grass and mud athwart the little channel, and, there¬ 
fore, bearing this in mind, and regarding also the ferti¬ 
lity and beauty of the rich valley (full of the alluvial 
soil washed down from the hill-sides by the rain), I 
resolve that hereabouts my principal plantations shall 
be made. I obtain Mandara’s consent to the plan, and 
accordingly set my man, Kadu Stanley, to work at once, 
directing him to clear away the brushwood, burn it, mix 
the ashes with the soil, and then plough the whole 
field up and break the clods of soil. Soon many a rich 
bed of dark red earth is sown with seed, and separated 
from its fellows by little runnels, along which, once 
a day or oftener, water, diverted from the nearest water¬ 
fall, is turned. Indeed, perpetual irrigation is here 
much simplified. The plenteous stream goes bounding 
through the valley, with a cascade every hundred yards 
or so. From the head of these waterfalls nothing is 
easier than to divert a stream on either side, carry it 
along a banked up channel above your plantations, and 
turn the water wherever you will into the network of 
tiny trenches which intersect the plots of ground. 
However, artificial irrigation seems almost a super¬ 
fluity in Chaga, where never a month passes without rain, and 
where the climate is as moist as that of Devonshire. I soon 
begin to find that my first care must be to get a rain-proof 
not always on view. For weeks together he will be swathed in 
clothes. But should you be an early riser you will hardly fail to 
catch a glimpse of him just at sunrise, when before the cold 
roof 
to sieep 
under. Our 
primal houses are 
roughly made in a 
very few days. The men proceed 
to the forest, cut a certain number of 
poles, use those that are forked at one 
extremity as “uprights,” and lay the hori¬ 
zontal rods across them, tying everything securely ' !r4S5 "'"' FS 
with long lithe strips of wetted banana fibre. 
Then to this rough frame-work they affix a num¬ 
ber of smaller sticks, until a rough lattice-work is formed, 
and finally tile whole, roof and all, will be neatly thatched 
with the old fronds of the banana tree, resembling brown 
paper in look and texture. (By the bye, when civilisation 
extends to Africa and people have got beyond the stage when 
they only seek for gold or diamonds, it strikes me that sun- 
dried banana leaves would form an admirable material for paper¬ 
making, superior to esparto grass.) Provided the roof is done 
with care, it ought to be completely rain-tight. As it is, a 
little patching generally has to take place after the first 
shower. No' windows, of course, are made. Light is obtained 
from the open doorway, which is closed at night by a mackin¬ 
tosh curtain and a door of wooden framework. Inside, the 
earthen floor is Stamped hard by men’s feet, and before inhabiting 
the house numerous fires are burnt on the ground and their ashes 
pounded into the beaten earth. Of course a trench or moat, to 
carry off the heavy rain, is dug all round the house, so that it 
generally happens that these hastily-constructed abodes are wonder¬ 
fully dry and snug. When the house is built for my own occupation 
I have a large mat made from plaited strips of the useful 
“ migomba ” (dried banana leaves), and thrown down on the bare 
floor of beaten earth. Then, on this, one or two wild beasts’ skins 
MOUNT MEEU 
breath of morning the unfolding clouds part and scatter and dis¬ 
close his splendid crown of virgin snow irradiated with the pink 
morning sunshine. Thus it was that within a few days of my arrival 
I had my first good stare at 
and began my first detailed 
sketch of Kilima-njaro. I 
hurried a short distance 
from my camp to the 
edge of the ravine, whence 
there was little to obstruct 
the view, and there, squatted 
amid the crushed bracken 
fronds at the commencement 
of the precipitous descent, [ 
looked across first to the 
opposite hill, crested with 
feathery trees, mimosas, sy¬ 
camores, and palms, and then 
to the swelling forest clad 
heights beyond, gloomy and 
sombre in the shade, as yet 
untouched by the sloping sun¬ 
shine. Above these a vast 
white sheet of fleecy cloud, 
uniform and flat, and crown¬ 
ing all, as if cut off from the 
lower earth, and floating 
majestically in the pale blue 
heaven, the snow-covered 
dome, with its blemishes of 
shadow and blaze of prepon¬ 
derating light like that of 
the disc of the moon. 
The jealous clouds, however, grant me but a 
poor half-hour in which to sketch the features of 
their monarch, and I am compelled to defer the 
completion of my work to other opportunities. 
Meantime I go right and left in search of studies. 
There is Merit, for instance, scarcely less ma¬ 
jestic than Kilima-njaro, lying some thirty miles 
away to the west, a vast pyramidal mountain, 
reaching to nearly 15,000 feet, with a lesser peak at 
the side. Meru is visible across the plains for a distance of at least 
seventy miles, and is at all times a majestic object. It is said to be 
inhabited by a gentle race of agriculturists, akin in origin and 
tongue to the Wa-cha of Klilima-njaro. At its base dwell tribes 
of Masai, who are great cattle-keepers,' and whose herds of kine 
range over the vast green plains that lie between Meru and Kili¬ 
ma-njaro at the upper waters of the Luvu River. 
The Luvu, although hearing a large body of water to the ocean, is 
quite unnavigable, owing to the rapidity of its current. 
Many fine views over the surrounding country may be had from the 
neighbourhood of my station. Looking westward we may 
gaze over the whole belt of inhabited country as far as 
M achame, near the great western shoulder of Kilima-njaro, 
which stretches towards Meru. Many a forest-crowned hill 
intervenes ; and in the foreground the scenery is a 
bewildering maze of banana plantations in their glint¬ 
ing, vivid green, of maize fields, of patches of red 
anti freshly turned-up soil, and dark purple blots, 
which are isolated trees left standing in the cultivated 
land. Then there are the bare, sheep-cropped downs 
forming stretches of pale green colour, and the hill 
sides clothed with feathery bracken which at this season 
(June) is dried to a vivid yellow. All these varied 
tones, too crude and startling in the foreground, be¬ 
come harmonised into a beautiful green and purple 
patchwork in the middle distance, and fade away near 
the horizon into a calm and tender violet, broken 
here and there by the blue puffs of smoke which 
everywhere mark the inhabited zone ; for the natives 
of Chaga are perpetually clearing the land of weeds 
and burning the refuse in great bonfires to fertilise 
the soil with the ashes. 
Southward and eastward I look across to the beau¬ 
tiful blue hills of Ugweno, at the base of which lies 
Lake J ipe. The lake cannot be seen from the eleva¬ 
tion, but mount a thousand feet higher and you will 
descry it like an oblong mirror at the base of the 
purple hills. The country of Ugweno is very inte¬ 
resting, and offers the most lovely landscapes in its 
midst, combining peaks of 7,000 feet, rich forests, 
cascades, green lawns, and peeps at the lake below 
and the silver windings of the Luvu. The Wagweno 
speak a tongue that is evidently more archaic than 
that of the Wachaga. They are an inoffensive but 
very timid, wild people ; much harried formerly by the 
cruel Masai. Now they live so h : gh up in the hills that they are in 
safety, but, on the other hand, lack good soil for their crops and 
pasture for their cattle. 
A VIEW TOWARDS 
UGWENO 
or a bright-coloured Zanzibar “ mkeka ” (dyed grass mat), add 
quite a comfortable look to the interior. My bed is mounted in one 
corner, my portable table stands in the centre of the dwelling, boxes 
of necessaries are ranged along the walls, my washing-basin is 
poised on a roughly-made tripod, shelves are hastily rigged up lo 
support the lighter articles of my equipment, and lastly, nails and 
hooks are knocked into the accommodating rafters, and from these 
depend all the heterogeneous articles that will let themselves be 
hung up. 
Happy time this is 1 Everything is fresh to me. The cares 
of journeying, the weary tramps of twenty miles a day are over. 
I can be sure of water and food, and know at stated hours in the 
day a tempting meal will be awaiting me. So with a light heart I 
set out to explore the beauties of my African Switzerland. First 
of course, I crave for a good view of the giant dome of Kibo, 
the highest summit of the mass, the “Kilima-njaro” (“Mountain 
of the Snow Fiend ”), as the coast people call it, the “ Home of 
God ” (Engaji Engai) as it is more reverently termed by the Masai 
of the plains. This, the highest peak in Africa (18,800 feet high) is 
A NATIVE DAM 
Nearly all the streams flowing from Kilima-njaro, except two or 
three in the west and east (there are apparently none on the northern 
slope), ultimately unite to form this great stream which enters the 
Indian Ocean at Pangani. (vide map), nearly opposite Zanzibar. 
It is most delightful thus to look forth from my eyrie on the many 
lands spread before me as on a huge and living map, and also to 
feel that I am safe from all attack on the part of the lawless rovers 
of the plains. My gaze stretches away, even into parts of Africa 
that are unknown and unvisited of white men, and I can scan the 
natural features of these countries at a glance, and correct the dis¬ 
position of their rivers and mountain ranges on the map. Some¬ 
times, when the partial mists rise over the nearer hills and valleys, 
and the brow of my hill seems to be an island floating in the air, 
the effect is a most pleasing and novel one. I, my men, my huts, 
and my domestic animals seem to be sailing over Africa in a giant 
balloon. Below us, beyond the mists, are the sunlit plains, the 
lines of velvet forest bordering the winding streams, the stretches of 
open pasture-land like lakes of grass, green amid the darker forest 
and the purple hills. Then, at our feet, rolling clouds of grey 
vapour, and, standing out in strong relief against this vacuous back¬ 
ground, the soaring kites who wheel and poise with outspread 
pinions just below' my feet, seeming like the birds which accom¬ 
panied Solomon when he flew through the air on his magic carpet as 
the Arab legends tell us. 
Throughout the four months of my residence on Kitimbiriu the 
beauties of the scenery never palled and never grew monotonous. 
With such varied atmospheric agencies the effects around us changed 
like the designs of a kaleidoscope, and rarely came two alike. 
Sometimes, perhaps at early dawn, everything would be veiled in 
blank mist, save only the summit of Kibo, and this would gleam 
out above the clouds, like some supernatural vision, rosy in the 
effulgence of the coming dawn. Or, it may be, in the noontide 
every trace of vapour will have vanished, and the velvet forest lies 
glowing in gold-green light and dusky purple shadows, every detail 
strongly marked, while the precipices, jutting rocks, and shining 
nevees of Kibo are discernible with startling dearness, though the 
peak lies distant nearly fifteen miles. In the afternoon, perhaps, 
the sky is hung with dense curtains of purple grey cloud, and the 
plain below lies in monotonous blue shadow ; only away to the 
west, behind the pyramid of Meru, the heavens exhibit one clear 
cloudless belt, which the descending sun turns to refulgent gold, 
and against this relief, as on some antique illumination or decorative 
design, the peak of Meru and the jagged hill tops at its base stand 
out in a simple tone of indigo. 
So passed my first few weeks in Kilima-njaro ; in planting, 
building, scheming ; sketching landscapes, and skinning birds. No 
troubles as yet overcast my horizon, and if, afterwards, I was 
harassed with anxious fears and worried with intolerable suspense, 
the memory of those darker days is overborne by the vivid 
impression I retain of this first and brightest period of my sojourn 
in Kilima-njaro, which I find noted in my diary as “ The happiest 
time I ever spent in Africa.” H. H. Johnston 
( To be' continued) 
