The Kilima-Njaro Expedition by Harry Johnston

The races of man which I am about to enumerate at the commencement in this chapter, extend over a region of Eastern Africa lying between the first degree north of the Equator and five degrees to the south, and bounded on the west by the Victoria Nyanza and the thirty-fourth degree of east longitude, and on the east by the Indian Ocean. I wish, for the sake of comparison, to review all the known races inhabiting this wide stretch of country; but I shall more especially describe those dwelling in the vicinity of Mount Kilima-njaro, with whom I have come into personal contact during my recent stay in that district.

The country which lies between the Victoria Nyanza and the coast, and is circumscribed by the limits I have just cited, offers certain peculiarities of conformation worthy of recapitulation, inasmuch as they doubtless influence the races of men inhabiting those regions. Beyond the fertile cultivated coast-belt, which is rarely more than ten miles broad, begins the Nyika, a strange "wilderness," as its name imports, covered with harsh repellant vegetation, and almost unprovided with running water. Here the rainfall is scanty, and the country bears a parched look all the year round. This semi-desert, except where it is broken by mountainous districts or intersected by great rivers, extends uninterruptedly to within a short distance of the eastern shores of the Victoria Nyanza-is indeed the prevailing type of scenery throughout Africa, for the Dark Continent is on the whole less forested than any other part of the tropics. But, as a happy contrast to this dreary "veldt," as it is called in the south, rise the magnificent mountain systems of Usambara, Taita, Pare, Ugweno, Kilima-njaro, Kiulu; not to mention other mighty ranges which Thomson has made known to us, and which offer from his description the same characteristics as those I have myself explored. Another break in the Nyika is made by the courses of perennial rivers flowing to the Indian Ocean, such as the Ruvu or Luvu, the Tzavo or Sabaki, the Tana, and a few minor streams of less importance. The marked distinction between the outward aspects of the well-watered forest country on the banks of rivers, lakes, or amid high mountains, and the great rolling plains sparsely covered with stunted trees or thorny scrub which I call the Nyika, is carried out further in the races of man inhabiting either. The forest country on the hills or along the rivers is occupied by resident agriculturists, belonging principally to the Bantu family, ethnologically and linguistically, and the forbidding wilderness in the plains is ranged over by the semi-nomad, cattle-keeping Masai, who for the present must be regarded as forming an independent group in African anthropology.