INTRODUCTORY. 
i 
Enciso, 2 a Spanish writer of the sixteenth century, 
mentions its existence, and calls it “ Mount Olympus.’’ 
Others have supposed that the legendary Mountains 
of the Moon had their basis of actual existence in 
Kilima-njaro; however this may be, putting aside 
vague rumours which in this case had a just founda¬ 
tion and in many other cases had no foundation at 
all, the first European who discovered Kilima-njaro 
and made its existence known to the civilized world, 
was Rebmann, a German missionary, who, wandering 
inland from Mombasa, first descried the wonderful 
snowy dome of Kibo, the highest summit of the mass, 
on the 11th of May, 1848. Being a simple-minded 
man, and overawed by the unexpected beauty and 
majesty of the spectacle which the distant snow-clad 
summit offered as it rose from a base of sombre 
forest into the clear blue sky, he fell on his knees and 
recited the 111th Psalm, seeming almost to think that 
a little pimple on the surface of our tiny planet was 
one of the chief and most glorious productions of the 
Creator. Rebmann had the good fortune to alight on 
2 I owe this information to the kind researches of Mr. E. G. Raven- 
stein, E.R.G.S., the learned African cartographer. The following is 
a quotation from Enciso’s great work, the “ Suma de Geographia que 
trata de todas las partidas y provincias del Mundo,” published at 
Seville in 1519 (later editions 1530, 1546), fol. 57. 
(Translation.) “ West of this port (Mombasa) is the Ethiopian 
Mount Olympus, which is very high, and further off are the mountains 
of the moon, in which are the sources of the Nile. In all this 
country are much gold and £ aiales fieros,’ and here devour the people 
locusts (lagostas).” 
No gold has since been met with by succeeding travellers, and as 
to the “ aiales fieros,” neither Mr. Ravenstein nor myself can give any 
translation to the former of the two words. “ Aiales ” may be a name 
of a tribe, perhaps a hint at the Masai; or more possibly it may be 
a printer’s contraction of “ animates ”—“ animates fieros ”—“ fierce 
animals.” 
Enciso was a Spanish pilot, but his information is evidently derived 
from the Portuguese, who held Momba9a as early as 1507. 
