536 TIIE KILIMA-NJARO EXPEDITION. 
northern border of tlie lake, by Baringo, to Kenia, the 
Tana river, and the coast. 
The most marked characteristics of this region are 
its immense isolated mountain-masses, in most cases 
volcanic, such as Kenia and Kilima-njaro, the latter 
the highest known peak in Africa, its spacious level 
plains, or, more strictly speaking, plateaux, and its 
freedom from marshy or swampy ground, as con¬ 
trasted with other parts of Africa. The water supply 
is fairly abundant, and equally distributed, though 
there is but one river, the Tana, or Pokomo, which is 
at all navigable. Besides the huge Victoria Nyanza, 
there are a few very much smaller lakes, one or two 
of which are salt, and the majority fresh. The high¬ 
lands, up to 10,000 feet, and also the banks and rivers 
of streams, are generally clothed with' forests of 
splendid timber, the plateaux are often covered with 
scattered bush and short grass—not the terrible giant 
grass of six to eight feet high, which obstructs so 
much of African country; while many districts I can 
only compare to beautiful natural lawns, whereon you 
meet with springy turf, closely cropped by the browsing 
antelopes, and here and there a group of handsome 
shady trees, disposed with so much regularity that it 
would seem as if man and not Nature had planted 
them. Such is the country that lies between Pare 
and Usambara, or in the vicinity of Lake Jipe, or 
again, to the south of Kilima-njaro, and also in many 
districts to the north, as we hear from Thomson. 
These vast regions are very unequally populated. 
On the coast there is a fringe of slightly civilized 
races, nominally under the dominion of the Sayyid of 
Zanzibar. These people belong principally to the 
Bantu family of negroes, which includes all the in- 
