As the natives believe that the summit of Kilimanjaro is composed of silver, it is possible that Aristotle’s reference to “the so-called Silver Mountain” from which the Nile flows was based on indistinct reports about this mountain; but the real discovery of its existence was made only in 1848 by Mr Rebman of the Church Missionary Society (Church Missionary Intelligencer, 1849). His account, though fully boπιe out by Dr Krapf, was at first received with great incredulity by professional geographers. The matter has been finally set at rest by the visits paid to the mountain by Von der Decken (1861 and 1862) and Mr Charles New (1867), the latter of whom reached the lower edge of the snow. Kilimanjaro has two principal summits. The eastern, Kibo or Bareni, is a magnificent dome with a smooth and regular outline; the other, Kimawenzi, is a dark and rugged peak; and between the two stretches a saddle-like ridge several miles in extent. Trachytes, basalt, and obsidian were obtained by Von der Decken from the upper part of the mountain. Mr New distinguished six clearly marked zones of vegetation. The first was the region of the banana and maize, the surface, when not under cultivation, being clothed with a close turf exceedingly rich in clover; above this lay a belt of jungle; the jungle was succeeded by a forest of gigantic trees with a dense and varied undergrowth, and an extraordinary profusion of moss both on the ground and on the sterns and branches; beyond the trees was a region of hills covered with rich grass and clover; beyond the grass came heath; and this gradually dwindled away into a region of bare wind-swept rocks. Among the fifty species of plants collected on the mountain Dr Hooker found only a few of those European forms which are known to exist in the Cameroons and the Abyssinian mountains.

From the southern slopes of Kilimanjaro descend a great many streams—the Weri-Wari, the Rau, the Ganu, &c. —which, uniting with the Jipe from Lake Jipe, ultimately form the Rufu or Pangani, an important river reaching the Indian Ocean about 5° 30' S. lat. The hilly country round the southern skirts is occupied by the Jaggas or Chaggas, who cultivate maize, millet, and pulse, and keep cattle. Their chief villages are Kilema and Moche.

See ∙R. Thornton (the geologist of Von der Decken’s party) in Proc, of Roy. Geoy. Soc., 1861-62; Krapf, Travels in East Africa, 1860; New, Life . . in East Africa, 1873; Hooker in Journal of Linnean Society, 1875; and for further literature, Petermann’s Mittheilungen, 1866, pp. 75-76.