6 
TIIE KILIMA-NJAR 0 EXPEDITION\ 
recent inroads of the lustier things of Europe ; by the 
advent of the apes, and lions, and huge herbivora, which 
scattered and extinguished the feeble lemurs, insec- 
tivores, and edentates that heretofore prevailed. It 
might also be, in a lesser way, with man as it had been 
with lower forms of life, that the fastnesses of Kilima¬ 
njaro should prove the shelter of some poor type, 
some human relic of a race long passed away, whose 
speech, whose handicraft, whose superstitions would 
arouse new problems for the anthropologist, or serve as 
a happy link to strengthen imperfect chains of evidence. 
Questions like these, which the existence of snow- 
clad mountains in Central Africa inevitably suggested, 
were of sufficient importance to warrant the despatch 
of an expedition, which should obtain information and 
material to aid in their solution; and at one time 
it was proposed that Mr. Joseph Thomson should 
endeavour to combine with his journey across the Masai 
country (since so splendidly carried out) a prolonged 
journey on Kilima-njaro, and a consequent investiga¬ 
tion of its fauna and flora. But for many reasons this 
plan had to be abandoned, and the British Association 
and Royal Society combined to organize a separate 
expedition, with the command of which I was entrusted 
some months after my return from the River Congo. 
Kilima-njaro is supposed to have been vaguely known 
to the Portuguese as early as the sixteenth century, 
and inasmuch as these people held Mombasa for nearly 
200 years, and Mombasa lies within 180 miles of the 
mountain, and is the point of departure and return of 
many Swahili and Arab trading parties, who visit the 
base of the snow peaks, it would indeed be curious if 
no rumours of the existence of such a mighty object of 
wonder ever reached the ears of the Portuguese. 
