"Please tell us exactly where Masai Land is," said the doctor, "so that we shall know what you are describing."
"It is that part of Africa east of the Victoria Nyanza," was the reply, "and of a line drawn through that lake perhaps a hundred miles each way north and south of it. Vasco di Gama, who first sailed around the Cape of Good Hope, landed on the coast of this region and was near being wrecked on the reefs of Mombasa, which is its principal port. The place is mentioned in a Portuguese book published in 1530, and a curious fact is that there was even at that early date a rumor of the existence of the snow-clad mountains that were never seen by a white man until 1848. In fact, from the time of Vasco di Gama down to 1842 hardly anything was added to our knowledge of that part of the world."
"Are you sure about the mention of the high mountains in that Portuguese book?"
"Entirely so," was the reply. "Mr. Thomson, the author of 'Through Masai Land,' quotes from it as follows: 'West of Mombasa is the Mount Olympus of Ethiopia, which is exceedingly high, and beyond it are the Mountains of the Moon, in which are the sources of the Nile.' The Mount Olympus which is thus mentioned is quite likely Kilimanjaro; the Mountains of the Moon are not yet easy to locate, as they have not thus far been found by explorers. They may possibly exist in some of the hitherto untraversed regions on the southern borders of Abyssinia."
Fred wished to know who was the first white man to find the snow-clad mountains of Central Africa.
"A German missionary named Krapf came to Mombasa in 1842 in search of a way to open Eastern Africa to Christianity. He began studying the tribes and people in the neighborhood, and was aided in that work by his colleague, Mr. Rebmann. In 1847 the latter, accompanied by only eight men, made an expedition from the coast as far as the desert region beyond the rich littoral belt, and reached the broken country in the direction of Kilimanjaro. In 1848 he made another journey and for the first time saw the famous mountain, though he was compelled to turn back when still forty miles from its summit. The good man was accompanied by only nine porters, and his only weapon was an umbrella."
"Only an umbrella!" exclaimed Fred, in astonishment.
"Yes, only an umbrella, as he thought it quite enough for a peace-loving missionary to carry. But he seems to have changed his mind later on, as we find him arming his porters with guns and increasing their numbers, though he still adhered to the old weapon of his first trip. In one part of his journal, on his third expedition, he says: 'It often rained the livelong night, with myself and people lying in the open air without any other shelter than my solitary umbrella.' But it is noticeable that as soon as he began to arm his men he got into trouble, as his third expedition was robbed of everything it possessed and Rebmann was forced to retreat in great distress to the coast.
