CLIMATE, GEOLOGY, BOTANY, $c. 325 
pour, but rather a greater or less frequency of 
showers. 
In the plains, however, near the mountain, the fall 
of rain is torrential, and is equal in violence to what 
one usually meets with in the tropics. 
While snow is never absent from either of the twin 
summits of Kilima-njaro, and, indeed, at all times 
covers the upper part of the dome of Kibo with a 
mantle of unvarying white, yet the quantity and down¬ 
ward extent of the snows vary almost daily, even in 
the dry season. After a rainy night in the lowlands, 
the snow on the following morning may be seen on 
Kibo down to a level of 14,000 feet, and even a little 
lower on the western slope, while the whole of craggy 
Kimawenzi is a pinnacle of scintillating whiteness, 
like—to use a very hackneyed simile—a sugarloaf. 
Yet if the succeeding day be warm and sunny, the 
snow on Kimawenzi may shrink in twenty-four hours 
to a tiny patch and a streak in between the jagged 
walls of black rock, while on Kibo it will withdraw its 
inroads 1000 feet above the level of the day before. 
On the whole, the least snow observable is during the 
months of July and August. In October there is a 
great deal. I should think the most snow fell, from 
what I hear by native report, during February and 
March, but at this time, nevertheless, the natives 
maintain that an ascent of the mountain is easiest, as 
the mists are not so frequent. Neither is the cold so 
great, curiously enough. 
Snow is reported occasionally to fall on the summit 
of Mount Meru, the pyramidal peak lying to the south¬ 
west of Kilima-njaro, and on its western slope 
to lie for some months. The western slopes of 
Kibo and Kimawenzi are much more snow-covered 
