The Kilima-Njaro Expedition by Harry Johnston

Kilima-njaro[1] is the name currently given to a huge mountain-mass in Eastern Africa, consisting of two giant peaks and many lesser ones, situated below the third parallel south of the Equator, and at a distance, in a straight line, of about 175 miles from the coast. The highest of the two principal summits-Kibô-reaches an elevation 18,880 feet above the sea, and the lesser peak-Kimawenzi-attains to 16,250 feet. Both ascend above the snow-line, no other point in the same clump of mountains doing so, and both are the craters of extinct volcanoes. The entire mass of Kilima-njaro seems to be due to volcanic upheaval, and it was doubtless at one time, and that geologically recent, the great vent of the volcanic forces of Eastern Equatorial Africa, which are still active in regions further to the north or west in the district lying between the Victoria Nyanza and the Indian Ocean.

Kilima-njaro, ever since its existence was positively known to modern geographers, has been claimed as the highest of African mountains, its chief summit reaching an altitude of nearly 19,000 feet. It is just possible that in the unknown region stretching between the Victoria Nyanza and Abyssinia loftier peaks may be discovered, or that Mount Kenia, which lies about 200 miles due north of Kilima-njaro, may be found after accurate measurement to exceed the height of the latter mountain by a few feet, but until this is done, the geography-books may still continue to put forward Kilima-njaro as the highest peak in Africa. Indeed, this they are likely to do for the next decade or so, whether he is superseded or not, for I have remarked that in all geographical questions, physical or political, it takes a sadly long time for increase of knowledge to penetrate the school manuals used in the instruction of the British youth. They always seem separated from the progress of discovery as the fixed stars are separated from our powers of vision. Just as the rays of light now reaching us from Sirius would be found illustrating a condition of things going on many years ago, so in most of the school geography-books, geographical knowledge is reflected a decade or so in arrears. I _think_ in most of them France is now deprived of Alsace and Lorraine, and the territorial unity of Italy is a _fait accompli_; but I fancy the Congo is as yet undiscovered, and Turkey in Europe still extends its suzerainty over "the Danubian Principalities," Servia, Bulgaria, and Montenegro. I took up one of these school class-books the other day and found that Mount Miltsin (12,000 odd feet) in Morocco was the highest known peak in Africa. Doubtless next year, in a later edition, the claims of Kilima-njaro will be considered, and just as these receive a tardy recognition, some adventurous traveller will bring to our knowledge another African Alp of mightier proportions and loftier summit destined to oust from his proud position the object of my recent journey, who, displaced from the homage of the eager geographer, must be content to linger still a few years longer in possession of the vague respect of the British schoolboy.