JUNE 20, 1SS5 
THE GRAPHIC 
6 
* 
JO 
A JOURNEY TO MOUNT KILIMA-NJARO, AFRICA 
In Jfonr f JarIs—-(I art 11. 
LIFE AT MOSHI 
DRAWN AND WRITTEN BY MR. H. H. JOHNSTON, F.R.G.S, 
A SOLDIER OF MANDARA S 
A FEW WEEKS’ LABOUR made a great difference in our 
surroundings. "Whilst some sixteen of my men were 
despatched to Ta'ita to fetch the goods I had left behind, 
the others were employed in all the works necessary to the proper 
development of our station, which at that 
time I intended to become my principal 
land permanent abode on the mountain. 
In the preceding supplement I have 
1 given some account of the preliminary 
steps taken to render our little colony of 
Kitimbiriu not only habit¬ 
able but comfortable, 
and fitted for a white 
man’s residence. We 
will presume, therefore, 
that most of my ideas 
have been carried 
out, that some 
of the roads are 
made, the gar¬ 
dens not only 
planted but 
producing, the 
hens laying, the 
cow and goats 
in full milk, the 
houses built, 
. and the leader 
"of the expedi¬ 
tion, now that 
the first cares 
of installation 
are over, with 
sufficientleisure 
on his hands to devote much of his time to natural history pursuits. I 
think, therefore (my object being to convey 10 you a clear conception 
of my mode of life in Chaga), I might adopt a somewhat hackneyed 
method, now common in travel books, and attempt to describe in 
detail the events and incidents occurring—or supposed to occur—in 
one day. Remembering, however, that one day must be taken 
with another, the good with the bad, and that if a mean is struck 
between two extremes the most correct general impression may be 
formed, I shall not describe one day only but two—two typical 
days taken from my diary, with a little filling in of details and 
addition of explanatory information, necessary to my readers but 
superfluous in my own journal, when I write from one day to 
another with due regard for my memory of recorded events and 
observations. One day shall show me lulled in 
contentment, satisfied with my surroundings, and 
seemingly as safe as though I were in an English 
county; and the other shall exhibit the reverse of 
the picture, the anxieties, suspense, and disappoint¬ 
ment I occasionally had to undergo. Let us begin 
with 
THE HArPY DAY 
About seven in the morning (in these equatorial 
regions it is scarcely light till nearly six) I hear 
the plashing of water in my sitz-batb, mingling with 
the last echoes of some fantastic dream—perchance 
some incongruous vision of English life that has come 
upon me in my heavy morning slumber—and I gra¬ 
dually awake, with many a sigh and groan, to find 
my servant Virapari filling my bath with several 
kettlefuls of warm water and a pail of cold from 
the stream, whose murmur I occasionally hear 
coming as a second to the treble of the cackling hens 
and bleating goats. Ah ! how I hesitate to leave 
my nice warm bed ! Though the slanting morning 
sunbeams pierce the crevices of the thatched wall, and 
fall in golden paillettes on the matted floor, the ther¬ 
mometer still marks little over fifty, and the air is 
sharp and keen, even within my sheltered hut. 
Nevertheless, the steaming bath will soon be luke¬ 
warm if I dally, and moreover breakfast—and in 
this healthy life I love my meals, and look forward to them with 
tender longing—cannot be laid until the bath is out of the way, so 
with one impetuous bound I am out of the sheets, my pyjamas are 
flung oft, and I can sponge myself with the warm water which, in 
the tropics, is so much healthier and 
more beneficial than the icy douche 
which strong-minded, generally dis¬ 
agreeable, people affect in England. 
I find my pen was leading me into 
a detailed description of my toilet, 
an act so purely superfluous and un¬ 
interesting to the reader that I am 
glad I stopped short in time. Give 
me a quarter of an hour after my 
bath, and I am clothed, and brushed, 
and spruce, and standing at my cot¬ 
tage door lustily ringing a small hand¬ 
bell. When its last brazen tinkle is 
silent, cries are heard from the distant 
huts of my Swahili porters. “ Tayari, 
Bwana, Tayari. Aya ! Kazi, ICazi ! ” 
“Ready, master, ready. Work, to 
work ! ” These ejaculations are meant 
somewhat to appease me while the 
utterers are turning regretfully from 
their couches or their firesides, and 
donning their scanty garments. Then 
nine or ten men come running down 
the incline, for their quarters are 
higher up the hill than mine, and 
hastily form themselves into a line in 
front of my door. 
I call over the roll:—“Cephas?” 
(Cephas is the chief cook, and is 
engaged in cooking my breakfast, so 
I excuse his reply.) “Faraji?” 
“ Ndimi, Bwana—Here I am, sir,” 
comes a cry from the cowshed, where 
milking is going on. “Abdallah?” 
(Abdallah is for the time being head¬ 
man, and Minister of Public Works in 
my Cabinet. He is slightly deceitful, 
invariably courteous, always tidy and 
smartly dressed, rather a rogue but an 
accomplished one). “ Hapa, Bwana 
—Here, sir.” “ Farijala?” “Yes,sir.” 
(Farijala has been an old mission boy, and retains “Yes, sir,” as the 
last fragment of the English tongue. He also sings “ Te Deums ” 
when at work, imagining them to be popular English melodies. 
He is a good, willing fellow, thoroughly honest.) “Ibrahim?” 
(Ibrahim is the best man in the caravan. He is short, fat, 
“KITIMBIRIU” (OUR FIRST SETTLEMENT ON KILIMA-NJARO) 
with an enormous mouth, and always in a good temper). And 
so I go through the list of names till all the twelve are accounted 
for. This task over I then have to attend to the small ailments 
of some. This man has an ulcer, that a stomach-ache, another 
A CORNER OF OUR SETTLEMENT 
complains of a cough, more often the maladies suddenly assumed 
are of a less tangible character, like the neuralgia of civilisa¬ 
tion. “A pain here, sir, oh! so bad. I’m afraid I cant 
work to-day.” , “Oh nonsense ! you ate too much yesterday. Go 
and chop some firewood, that’ll do you more good than medicine.” 
And so all are finally told off to their tasks—two to 
attend to the gardens, one to get firewood, one to 
herd the goats, sheep, and cow, another to look after 
the fowls, five to build the big house or cut the 
roads, as the case may be. Faraji and Cephas of 
course attend to the cooking, and nothing else. 
Now I am a free man, and may go for a stroll in the 
fresh morning air before breakfast is served, walking 
along the path that fringes the crest of the narrow¬ 
ing . hill spur on which the settlement is placed, 
gazing, perhaps, at the majestic snow peak of Kibo 
which rises sharp and clear above the morning mists, 
or gathering wild flowers to deck my breakfast-table. 
Here grow gorgeous dissotises, large-petalled mauve- 
red flowers, primrose-yellow and purple-centred hibis¬ 
cuses, creamy-white clematis, with thick, woolly 
petals, and many lovely blossoms of balsams, and a 
mauve-white thing like phlox—quite a glowing mass 
of colour in my natural garden, which makes me 
hotly refute the theory that the tropics cannot pro¬ 
duce flower-shows equal to those of the temperate 
zone. 
I come back in answer to the earnest appeals of 
Virapari, who assures me breakfast is getting cold, but 
I must yet delay my sitting down till my floral trea¬ 
sures are placed in water, and put in the centre of my 
repast. I must describe to you my breakfast-table. I 
have a right to pride myself on its appearance, as most of the good 
things it bears are our own local productions and not imported from 
Europe, and I want it to preach a little lesson that will show how 
much Africa may be made to yield in the way of comfort when 
