44 
THE GRAPHIC 
July ii, 1885 
necked raven, alluded to and illustrated in the preceding Sup¬ 
plement. 
The great crested bornbill ( Buceros cristatus) is generally distri¬ 
buted over the mountain up to 6,000 feet, especially near habita¬ 
tions. They show no fear of man, being generally protected by 
the natives, who look upon them with superstitious awe, arising 
possibly from their being useful scavengers, as well as from their 
peculiar loud cry, which resembles at times that of the wailing 
of a woman in distress, at others that of the braying of an ass. In 
August and September they are generally breeding, and occasion¬ 
ally the head of the female may be seen peering out from a hole in 
a tree, some thirty or forty feet high, where she has been plastered 
in by her affectionate husband. By the chips lying about it would 
appear that these holes are excavated by the birds to the required 
size. They are monogamous, and show great affection for each 
other, which is fortunate, as the female during incubation has 
entirely to rely on her mate for daily sustenance. I shot a fine male 
hornbill once, at Taveita, and he fell to the ground mortally 
wounded. , His dying struggles were quite touching to behold, and 
I felt almost criminal in having caused his death. His breath came 
and went in great gasps, and his snowy stomach was streaked with 
red blood.. His large eye with long lashes gazed at me with calm 
wonder and vague reproach, as if to say, “What ill have I done 
that you should kill me ? ” lie disdained to snap at the stick with 
which I gently poked his opened beak, and still kept his eye fixed 
on me, regarding my impertinent investigations of his person as 
unnecessary insults. So he lay during some minutes, with long 
shuddering breathings raising and lowering the feathers of his breast 
and back. Then another hornbill, evidently his mate, came and 
perched on the bough of a neighbouring tree and uttered a low cry. 
The dying bird started up to life again, raised his head high, 
flapped his wide-spread, glossy wings, dragged himself painfully 
along the ground, and gave vent to one sonorous bellow ; then 
his great head dropped on one side, and his wide open eye 
glazed with an expression of eager hope hardened in it even in 
death. 
A beautiful turaco inhabits the forests in Kilima-njaro. It is 
bluish-green and purple, with a white-lined crest and scarlet skin 
round the eyes. Its wings, like most other turacos, have intense 
crimson pinions, and therefore it is a gorgeous object as it flaps its 
loose flight through the forest aisles. 
There are many other interesting birds to be found on and in the 
neighbourhood of Kilima-njaro, but, as this is not a special 
article on ornithology, I fear I should weary you with their 
enumeration. 
Among reptiles, crocodiles are found in Lake Jipe .and in 
the River Ruva. Large Varanus lizards are frequently found 
in the forests of Taveita. They share the water and the trees 
as their habitat, generally plunging into the stream when 
frightened or disturbed. They seem to me to feed largely 
on fish, and no doubt often capture and eat small 
squirrels and birds. When extended full length along a tree 
trunk, immobile, and exactly matching the colour of the 
bark with their grey-green mottled skin, these creatures are 
very hard to distinguish from their surroundings, and doubt¬ 
less often in consequence deceive the sharp eyes even of a 
squirrel. From what I know of these creatures, and from what the 
natives tell me, they use their long, heavy, whip-like tail as a 
powerful weapon. When driven into a corner they will slash right 
and left, and if the tail strikes your shins they will certainly be 
barked. A blow with the tail will kill a dog, and I believe many 
an unwary bird, squirrel, and possibly small monkey, is flicked from 
a tree overhanging the stream into the water, and plunged after by 
the agile lizard. The teeth of this creature are weak and blunt, 
and only sufficient for mastication. 
Chameleons are not only very common on Kilima-njaro, but are 
found up to an altitude of 13,000 feet. The natives regard them as 
venomous and hurtful, and scream with fear if one is pushed near 
them. They regarded me as a sorcerer when I handled these crea¬ 
tures with impunity. Of course the poor little chameleons, like the 
“effels” that our nurses always warned us against, are entirely 
innocuous, and make, moreover, interesting pets, being a great 
source of amusement with theirgoblinish ways and strange appearance. 
Frogs are found in the ice-cold streams as high up as 13,000 
feet. Tree frogs of many kinds, haunt the forest, and chirp 
perseveringly. 
Fish are nowhere found in the rivers of Kilima-njaro, 
save in the River Lumi, which flows into Lake Jipe. I 
give a drawing of the only kind caught in the Lumi, 
which is the river of Taveita. In Lake Jipe a silurus is very 
common, and there are many other kinds of fish also present, 
but the shores of the Lake are deserted, nobody fishes there, and 
the fish would not rise to ordinary bait; therefore as my time at 
Jipe was short, and my health bad, I had no opportunity of investi¬ 
gating its piscine forms. Fresh water crabs of the genus Thelphusa 
( 71 defressa, var. Johnstoni) are present in most of the mountain 
streams. They appear to be most closely related to the river 
crabs of Natal and South Africa. 
Throughout this region butterflies are few and scarce. They do 
not penetrate much higher than 8,000 or 9,000 feet. The common 
Clouded Yellow is often seen on Kilima-njaro. 
Bees and wasps penetrate to a height of 14,000 feet. Most of the 
beetles are allied to, or identical with, South-east African forms. 
One new species has no allies nearer than India. Others are 
related to Abyssinian species, and some to the beetles of Somali¬ 
land. 
I he flora of Kilima-njaro is naturally. interesting, as may be 
imagined from the extraordinary range of climate between the 
eternal snows of the summits and the hot tropical plains at the base. 
The Vegetation on the coast is fairly rich and luxuriant, and typical 
of the Tropics. There are fine forest trees—mimosas, 
figs, baobabg, bombax, calophyllum, and others, 
while the mango has been introduced from 
India, and become wild. The pan- 
danus grows in 
marshy places ; cy- 
cads are occasion¬ 
ally seen, and 
among palms the 
coco-nut, the boras- 
sus, the Hyplicene 
thcba'ica (branching 
palm), several kinds 
of Raphia, Elai's, and 
wild date. At the 
commencement and 
close of the rainy 
season the ground 
flowers. Blue clitoreas, 
yellow, purple, and pin! 
grey-green veil. Between S,ooo and 9,000 feet the giant Senecios 
are met with (a new species, illustrated in the last supplement), and 
continue upwards till near the borders of the snow. Gorgeous 
crimson gladioli, pale pink and mauve and cerulean 
blue irises, grow to great altitudes, indeed, some 
ol the flowers of the grassy uplands between 10,000 
and 14,000 feet are particularly brilliant in 
__ colour. There are vivid blue cynoglossums, 
the blush-pink everlastings, the yellow 
euryops, the strange straw-coloured proteas, 
with red bracts and red leaf shoots, the smalt- 
coloured lobelias ( L. Dcckeni ), 
others which it 
tedious to cata- 
THE DYING HORNBILL 
is covered with vividly-coloured wild 
blue commelynas, crimson, white, 
hibiscuses, lovely epiphytic orchids, 
white, spotted, and green, and ground orchids of th e genus Lisso- 
chilus—crimson mauve and sulphur yellow. Altogether, as I have 
often declared, tropical Africa differs apparently from the other parts 
of the Tropics in displaying splendid shows of bright- 
coloured flowers which really surpass anything we meet 
with in the temperate zone. / j 
Inland, however, a short distance from the coast this, 
wealth of vegetation ceases as we cross the some¬ 
what dreary “Nyika,” 
or wilderness, a 
country poorly 
provided 
with /ftSHSik 
/ 
/ water 
VARANUS LIZARDS 
and un¬ 
certain in 
its rainfall. But 
as soon as the 
beneficent influence of the giant mountains makes itself felt in 
moisture-laden breezes and dew-dropping mists, then Flora 
revives, and puts forth all her strength. In such places like 
Taveita the wealth of vegetation and the grandeur of the forest 
trees is inspiring. You feel carried back from our age of 
mean devolment to some past epoch, when vegetable life was on a 
scale with the strange, huge animal forms which mark the lusty 
earth’s creative prime. 
The lower slopes of Kilima-njaro are exquisitely green, and 
scarcely a patch of earth remains uncovered, but the general aspect 
A FISH FROM THE RIVER LUMI 
of vegetation recalls our English Devonshire and not the Tropics. 
Bushy trees crown the hill-tops, or choke the narrow valleys. 
The grassy downs are covered with patches of bracken and scented 
with a low-growing mint. The native lanes are bordered with 
brambles and magnificent ferns, some of which belong to common 
European genera. There are besides other things more pro¬ 
perly African which do not mind the colder climate of the 
uplands, such as dracaenas, aloes, strychnias, balsams, and ground- 
orchids. In some of the stream valleys the Ense/e, a wild banana, 
grows luxuriantly. At a height of 7,000 to S,ooo feet tree-ferns 
may be met with. Then above that the arborescent heaths begin to 
appear, and the orchilla lichen covers nearly all the forest with a 
and many 
would be 
logue. 
Ferns cease to be found at 
a greater altitude than 13,000 
odd feet. The giant heaths 
above that altitude give place'* 
to smaller species, the vegeta¬ 
tion generally becomes more 
and more stunted, and there¬ 
fore the strange senecios look 
the stranger from their towering in solitary grandeur above the 
lowly herbs. But after an altitude of 14,000 feet is passed they 
also disappear, then one is left with a few artemisias (southern¬ 
wood), heaths, and everlasting flowers, until at length they too 
disappear, and then there remains a little red and greenish 
lichen, expanses of yellow sand, lead-coloured rocks, black boulders, 
and snow. 
Taking into consideration the fact that the region of Kilima¬ 
njaro is volcanic, and therefore probably geologically modern, 
it must be evident that the main features of its vegetation are 
of no great antiquity. It is therefore an interesting 
problem as to which of the two floras —the South African 
or the Abyssinian—was the first to reach the chilly 
regions round its snow-clad peaks. It is also as yet an 
undecided question as to which flora is the advancing one; 
whether the Cape forms are slowly penetrating northward, some 
of them reaching Abyssinia, some of them arrested on the heights 
of Kilima-njaro, and marking a return flow of the vegetation 
(and possibly of the fauna also) of Southern Africa, or whether 
the great invasion of Northern forms which have so largely 
contributed in later epochs to the modern fauna and flora 
of Tropical Africa is still going on. Whilst Cape genera and 
species of plants penetrate to Abyssinia, Abyssinian forms have 
reached the Zambesi highlands and the Drakensberg Mountains. 
The flora of the higher regions of Kilima-njaro is almost 
equally divided in its affinities between Abyssinia and Cape 
Colony. There are besides, in the collections I have brought 
back, two new genera offering no near allies ; types of other 
genera only known hitherto in Arabia or India; and some new 
species of East African genera that have apparently modified 
themselves for life at high altitudes. It is interesting to note 
that while some of the species whose generic home is in the hot 
tropical plains have strayed up the great mountain and got used to the 
cold, so others, which come from temperate regions, have ventured 
down the mountain and got used to the heat. A curious instance of 
this is Artemisia afra, which I have found at 14,000 feet near the 
snow, and at 3,000 feet, in close proximity to the hot plains. If plants 
of temperate or cold climates could occasionally stray so far as this 
from the regions and the temperature they most affect it would 
materially aid in their distribution, for the seeds of the Artemisia 
(this plant will be familiar to my non-scientific readers as “ southern¬ 
wood,” or “old man”) might easily be borne from the jungleat the base . 
of Kilima-njaro to the precincts of Mount Meru, some thirty miles ^ 
distant, and find on the chilly slopes of that mountain another con¬ 
genial home and starting-place for a further colonisation of unknown 
peaks beyond. Thus, taking into consideration the fact that more 
or less high ground connects the mountains of the Kilima-njaro 
district with the Cape Colony in the south and the Cameroons in 
the west, it is possible to account for the presence of many hardy 
genera belonging to temperate zones on the heights of tropical 
Africa without always evoking a glacial epoch to account for them. 
In 1S55, or thereabouts, the American poet, Bayard Taylor, 
heard of the discovery of Kilima-njaro by the German Missionary, 
Rebmann. The mere announcement of the fact (for no 
detailed description was given by the discoverer) that a snow- 
crested mountain existed in Equatorial Africa, fired the poet’s 
imagination, and he addressed a sonnet of welcome to the 
highest of African peaks. 
Much that he sings is beautiful, but botanically incorrect ; never¬ 
theless he has with true inspiration touched on the wonderful range 
of climates that the slopes of Kilima-njaro must exhibit, and it 
seems to me that I cannot more fitly close this series of descriptive 
papers than by a quotation from the only poem that has been 
written on this mountain, where 
Zone above zone .... 
The climates of Earth are displayed as an index, 
Giving the scope of the Book of Creation, 
There in the gorges that widen, descending, 
From cloud and from cloud into summer eternal, 
Gather the threads of the ice-gendered fountains. 
Gather to riotous torrents of crystal, 
And, giving each shelvy recess where they dally 
The blooms of the north and its ever-green turfage, 
Leap to the land of the lion and lotus ! 
H. H. Johnston 
