Kilimanjaro .... sixty years on.

 

From Ol Tukai lodge, Amboseli 1975 - 

the main peak, Kibo, on the right, with Mawenzi to the left.

Kibo, taken from Tsavo, 1969 - covered in a thick blanket of snow

Two local friends of mine, have just returned from a ten day safari to Tanzania, to climb Kili; I suspect it was quite an expensive luxury safari and climb.  They had guides, and I think they said they took about 8 or so days to climb the mountain.   When we were living in Kenya in the 60's and 70's, a guided safari to climb Kili was five days; three days up and two down.  

We always saw Kili from the Kenya (north) side of the border, but on a trip to the Marangu Hotel in Tanzania, in December 1969, we saw the mountain from the other side, with Mawenzi to the right of Kibo !

I also showed this photo of the Kili glacier to my friends .... I think it was taken about 1966, and possibly by my late father-in-law, but I'm not sure about that.  

My friends said that their guide told them there is only about 3% of the glacier left, and just a little snow in some of the gullies .... global warming has a lot to answer for, especially this year with all the forest fires in Europe and Canada. 

~    ~    ~    ~    ~ 

It is said that Queen Victoria 'gave' Kilimanjaro to Kaiser Wilhelm as a birthday present .... but this isn't strictly true.   

During the 'Scramble for Africa' present-day Kenya was under British rule and Tanzania, then known as German East Africa, was under German control. The Society for German Colonisation was formed at this time to gain access to much of the area now known as Tanzania.  Karl Peters, an explorer and adventurer, gained much of the territory for the Society through documents signed by the chiefs (who probably had little idea what they were signing) ...  of the areas he passed through.

When the boundaries of the new colonies were drawn up the documents signed by the chiefs handing the land of Kilimanjaro to the Germans was accepted, and the highest point of Africa was allocated to German East Africa, and Kenya lost it, but still had Mt Kenya further to the north.

Kilimanjaro (from Kenya) with snow on Kibo's peak under a cloud at dawn

Another amazing Dutch Mill Hill missionary.

 I receive a Mill Hill newsletter almost every day, and in a recent one was an article about the retirement of Gerry Kraakman, whom I met on many occasions, and whose church I visited.  

He is 81 years old and arrived in Kenya the same time as us, autumn 1968, just four months after his ordination in Holland.   He was praised for the number of Christians he baptized in the parishes in which he served, all in western Kenya, and for the development of parishes and through the construction of new buildings, including a wonderful light and airy church at Nanga.

According to Fr. Joseph Oduor the Dean of Kisumu Deanery where Fr. Kraakman has been serving, the Dutch priest has become part and parcel of the people of Kisumu for his love to embrace the luo language.  He said “Fr. Kraakman preaches so well in the local language, that this has led to the spiritual development of the people.” 

Fr. Kraakman will continue assisting in the Parish of Nanga where he has been serving and at the same time assist in any parish that requests help within the deanery for some time before he returns to his native land.

Added later:-

Looking through my Kenya diary of my visit to Kisumu in 2017, I see on Sunday 19th March, I have written:  "Gerry Kraakman had his place at Nanga burgled last night; his night watchman was murdered,   I don't know yet what was stolen (just his fridge).  He seems to live a very frugal life; no TV, etc. - and no security lights or fence ..."

First school !

 

My first two daughters went to a small school on a farm in Lanet, near Nakuru,  This is the whole school, with three of the teachers (white !) and two ayah's (African !)  I love the mix of children .... mostly European .... various English, Dutch, German, American, and white Kenyans .... and some Asian, but no African children.  I suspect the fees were too much even for professional African families.  The white children came from ex-pat teachers families; one was the local doctors son; others were from still white owned farms at Njoro.   I love the little boy in the front row, chin in hands ... and his feet .... one just in a sock, the other bare !  I see 'pudding-basin' hair-cuts were the fashion for children, probably in the absence of any hairdresser or skilled mother !   My oldest daughter is in the third row back, the tall child sitting bolt upright, behind a boy in a white shirt.   I think #2 daughter must have been ill that day and not at school.

School nativity play - the 'choir of angels' !  My younger daughter is between an African girl and an Asian girl in the top photo, with her sister giggling in the front row; and in the second photo she is standing next to her 'tall' older sister in the back row.  

Old Africa - issue 108

 

This has arrived today, and I spent a pleasant afternoon sitting on the sofa reading it.

There is a fascinating article about Boy Long, one of the early settlers, who worked for 'D' .... Lord Delamere, on his Soysambu estate near Lake Elmentaita.   The article quotes 'Kenya Chronicles', a book by Lord Cranworth, and also mentions work by Elspeth Huxley ... both books which I have in my Africa library, so I spent more time during the afternoon finding these books and reading up more about this very enigmatic character.  Boy had an estate at the southern end of Lake Nakuru, near the Nderit river, and I'd guess is now part of the Lake Nakuru National Park.

Kenya certainly produced some interesting people in the early days of white settlement ... mostly of British aristocratic stock, and all quirky characters.   I was delighted to meet a few of them in my earlier years in Kenya.  I must check through the last ten years of blog posts and see if I have written about them !

There is also an article about Grace Onyango, who died in March, and who was the first African female mayor, and an MP.   She taught for a while at Ng'iya Girls School, where we lived when we first arrived in the country, and I met her there some years later, when she was visiting.   

First English slave fort in Africa ....

 I've always been interested in archaeology, and have taken part in many 'digs' in my home town here in Wales .... so this discovery in Ghana immediately caught my eye. 

Taking care, archaeologist Christopher DeCorse spreads the rare artefacts out on a makeshift table next to the dig site.  A gunflint (used in old-fashioned guns), tobacco pipes, broken pottery and the jawbone of a goat are carefully laid out. These discarded fragments, unearthed from centuries of compacted soil, offer clues to a lost past.
"Any archaeologist who says they are not excited when they find something are not being entirely truthful," the professor from Syracuse University in the US says with a broad smile.
These remnants point to the existence of "the first English outpost established anywhere in Africa", he argues.  The archaeologist is standing in the ruins of Fort Amsterdam, speaking above the wind and roar of the Atlantic Ocean waves hitting Ghana's coastline.

Inside that fort are what are thought to be the remains of an older fort - Kormantine - long-lost under the earth, which the professor's team are gradually excavating with brisk activity.  The site of the dig, under the blue canopy, (see picture above), is inside Fort Amsterdam built by the Dutch.  They are methodically combing through distinct layers of soil and stones with soft-bristle brushes and trowels. The disturbed soil removed from the trenches is carefully sieved.  A canopy protects the team and the site from the weather and despite the intense sun and the occasional shower, the archaeologists' work continues.

Ancient maps had referred to a Fort Kormantine in that area, for example the name of the nearby town, Kormantse, is clearly related. In addition, another version of the name, Coromantee, was given to some of the enslaved people in the Caribbean thought to have been transported from this place and later known for slave rebellions.

But where exactly the fort was located remained a matter of speculation, which may have now been brought to an end.  Dating back to the 17th Century, Fort Kormantine sat on the Atlantic coast just at the time when Europeans started shifting their interest from the trade in gold to the trade in humans.  It was a pivotal moment in the history of their involvement in Africa that would have a profound effect on the continent.

The discovery by the team of archaeologists may shed some light on the lives of those early traders and what they were doing, as well as those who were sold and the impact on the community around them.  Ghana's coastal fishing towns, known for their colourful boats and the melodies sung by the fishermen, remain scarred by a past of European exploitation and human cruelty.  The slave forts dotted along what was called the Gold Coast are a looming reminder of that past.  Hundreds of thousands passed through them before being transported in horrific conditions across the sea.  Fort Kormantine - built by the English in 1631 - was one of the earliest places where that journey started.  It began life as a trading post for gold and other items like ivory.

The slave trade only began from there in 1663 when King Charles II granted a charter to the Company of Royal Adventurers of England Trading into Africa (later the Royal African Company). He gave it monopoly rights over the trade in human beings.

It was only in English hands for another two years before the Dutch seized it but Fort Kormantine played a key role in the initial stages of the slave trade. It served as a warehouse for the goods that were used to buy slaves. It was also a brief holding point for those who had been kidnapped in different parts of West Africa before being shipped to the Caribbean to work in plantations to develop the sugar economy.

"We don't have that many details on exactly what these early outposts of the slave trade looked like, which is one of the things that make uncovering the foundations of Fort Kormantine interesting," Prof DeCorse says.

After capturing the fort, the Dutch built Fort Amsterdam on the same site, which is why its exact location could not be pinpointed, especially after it became a United Nations-recognised World Heritage Site, making excavation difficult. But initial digs in 2019 in and near Fort Amsterdam, which turned up some early 17th Century artefacts, suggested where it might be. Archaeologists returned earlier this year and began further searches.

Nigerian archaeology student Omokolade Omigbule says it was "mind-blowing" to see the remains of the English fort.  At first there was some disappointment as they started by finding a lot of plastic items that must have been dropped more recently. But then Omokolade Omigbule uncovered a stone that Prof DeCorse identified as part of a bigger structure.

"It was mind-blowing, seeing first-hand the remnants, the footprints of an actual building subsumed under a new fort.  Seeing the imprints of these external forces in Africa first-hand and being a part of such a dig takes me back a few hundred years, it feels like I was there."

As the excavations continued, they uncovered a six-metre-long (20ft) wall, a door post, foundations and a drainage system made of red brick. All these indicate an English presence pre-dating the Dutch fort. These bowls of tobacco pipes were among the artefacts found at the site.

The pipes with their small bowls where the tobacco was placed "is also very distinctive of the time that we are talking about here", the professor says, adding that over time the bowls got larger as tobacco became cheaper and more readily available.

Archaeology is painstaking work. Each fragment of the past it throws up needs to be interrogated and interpreted.

But in some ways, the hard work has only just begun. Archaeologists will spend the next three years trying to unravel the gamut of Fort Kormantine - its architecture, look and feel - which should in turn reveal its true significance.

By Favour Nunoo of BBC News, Accra

Book repairs

I've been reading and repairing some of my very old books on Africa, and get distracted by the lovely maps they often contain.   BUT, one book, 'Tropical Africa', by Henry Drummond, and published in MDCCCLXXXIX, (1889) has several maps of central Africa but with NO Lake Rudolf !   This needs further investigation !!   An expedition in 1888 led by Count Samuel Teleki 'discovered' this vast lake and named it after the crown prince of Austria.  I say 'discovered' for surely the local people, the El Molo, Turkana, Njemps, Somali and so on, knew of its existence for thousands of years !  I'm trying to find out what the Turkana called it.   

I find it extremely hard to understand how the 'early' explorers could get so many details wrong on their published maps when they later wrote accounts of their explorations.  For example, one map I have just looked at, in a book by Henry Stanley, (In Darkest Africa) which was published 1897, misplaces the Equator.  I lived for several years with the Equator going right through my garden; we grew vegetables south of the Equator, and avacado trees, north of it !   Stanleys map shows the north east corner of Lake Victoria quite the wrong shape, with no Kavirondo Gulf, and has the Equator running through the northern part of the lake; whereas in truth, the Equator runs about 20 miles north-east of the lake (and through my ex garden at Maseno !

Map from 'Tropical Africa' ... see above ... with no L. Rudolf, 

though the lake shown due north of Mt Kenya might be the southern end of Rudolf.  

Where is the rest ?!

So I checked what was shown on my late Uncle Jacks school atlas, published in 1923, and behold !   A mere 26 years later than Stanleys book, the atlas map is correct as far as I can see, with the lake the right shape and the Equator where it should be.  Maps fascinated me as a child, and I wish I had then had access to these old books with their inaccurate maps .... but the books I did have, (and Uncle Jacks atlas) took me to Africa in the 1960's where I got to know Lake Victoria and the Equator.  

Stanley himself ackowledges the vagaries of 'modern' (i.e. 19th century ?) map-makers.  I quote:-  "The modern map-maker is quite as arbitrary as any of his predecessors.  In a late German map, considered to be one of the best in Germany, there is a large bay removed altogether from the Victoria Nyanza, and a straight line, drawn by pure caprice, usurps the place of a very interesting and much indented coastline, explored by me in 1875."  

The 'large bay' he mentions must surely be the Kavirondo Gulf, at the head of which is Kisumu, formerly known as Port Florence, and the rail-head of the 'Lunatic Express', the railway from Mombasa to the lake.

My Africa books ....

Something a little more cheerful after the previous post, about the dreadful traffic accident near Kericho. 

I think my oldest book in my Africa collection of nearly 450 books about all aspects of Africa, dates from1830 ... a small book about elephants !  My African collection includes history of many of the continents countries ....  bird, mammal and plant identification ..... African writers such as Chimamanda Ngozi Adiche ..... Mma Ramotswe the Botswana lady detective .... travel writers .... Kiswahili and Dholuo dictionaries, and even a Luo language Bible ... etc. etc.

I've read most of them, but occasionally I notice one I haven't read, and pull it out and it will keep me interested for a few days.   Its why I like the 'Old Africa' magazine so much ....  "ex Africa semper aliquid novi"  !!

(The black and white pouffe is from Kenya .... cowskin, not zebra as someone once thought !)

The top of the bookcases displays some of my African artifacts .... baskets from Kenya, Botswana, Namibia .... wood and stone carvings from Kenya, pottery .... and a kalima, or thumb piano .... indeed, a friend who visited said going into my sitting room was like entering a museum !   Praise indeed !

Anyway, being cosy with a book in here by the fire in the winter takes me back to the Africa I love so much !

Terrible accident at Londiani Junction (Kericho > Nakuru road)

 

Kenyan roads have always been dangerous; too narrow for modern larger traffic; pot-holes and broken tarmac edges; steeply sloping sides .... and traffic going too fast ... 

So yesterday .... a report on BBC ... 

"At least 48 people have been killed in a road accident at a busy junction in Kenya, police and witnesses say.

It happened after a lorry carrying a shipping container lost control at Londiani Junction, near the western town of Kericho, local media report.

Police commander Geoffrey Mayek said 30 others were seriously injured but added the number "could be more".  He also raised concerns that "one or two" people could still be trapped underneath the overturned vehicle.

Tom Mboya Odero, another regional police commander, was quoted by AFP news agency as saying the lorry travelling towards Kericho "lost control and rammed into eight vehicles, several motorcycles, people who were by the roadside, vendors, and other people who were on other businesses".  Eye witnesses told Kenyan media the driver had been trying to avoid a bus that had broken down on the road.

Kenyan president William Ruto said he had been distressed to hear that some of those killed were "young people with a promising future and business people who were on their daily chores.   We urge motorists to be extra cautious on roads, especially now when we are experiencing heavy rainfall," Mr Ruto added in a tweet.

The town's governor, Dr Erick Mutai, described the incident as a "dark moment" for Kericho.  "My heart is crushed," he said in a Facebook post, alongside the photograph of the container.  Dr Mutai added that the necessary emergency services had been deployed to the scene.

Rainfall is thought to be hindering rescue operations, according to local reports, but it is not clear if the weather played a part in the accident.

Road accidents are a well known problem in East Africa, because roads outside the bigger cities are often narrow.

These pictures could have been taken on the town rubbish dump, but we need to remember this is the 'resting place' of nearly 50 people .... may they rise in glory.

Yum, yum ! Collecting termites for food.

 They are called 'Ng'wen' by the Luo, and 'Tsiswa' by the Luhya people around Lake Victoria.  

But climate change and different farming practices mean there are less of the 'white' ants or termites to fly in colder weather.  The local people collect them as the insects drop their wings.   They become a delicious addition to the diet when cooked in hot cooking oil !   

It used to be possible for local people to collect several sackfuls of the dried insects, to store or sell in the local markets,  but not nowadays.

The strange and wonderful aye-aye again ...

 Remember this ?

http://luolaughter.blogspot.com/2017/12/lemurs-and-especially-aye-aye.html

Seeing my delightful  grandchildren nose-picking one day, I remembered I had recently found this about the aye-aye !

It is a biological mission that began with a chance encounter with a lemur that was picking its nose.

It wasn't just any lemur; an aye-aye was filmed by Prof Anne-Claire Fabre from the University of Bern burying its elongated finger in its nostril.

"I wanted to know where is this finger going?" she told the BBC.

The meeting at Duke Lemur Center in the US, led Prof Fabre and her colleagues to question the evolutionary origins of the habit.

Aye-ayes are nocturnal primates found only in Madagascar. They are famous for their strange, skinny, long fingers, which they use to fish grubs out of branches.

"It was inserting the entire length and, [when you look at] the length of its head, it was like - where is it going?" she recalled. "I wondered - is it inserting it into its brain? It was so weird and seemed impossible."

The question intrigued Prof Fabre so much that she conducted 3D anatomical analysis of the aye-aye's head, to reconstruct the seemingly impossible anatomy of the nose picking.  "It was going into the sinus and from the sinus into the throat and into the mouth," she explained.

With her colleagues, Prof Fabre searched the scientific literature for evidence of other animals that pick their noses. In a study they published in the Journal of Zoology, the team found 12 examples of primates caught in the nose-picking act.

As Prof Fabre, who is also curator of mammals at the Museum of Natural History in Bern, pointed out, there are very few studies that aim to understand why any animal, including humans, might have evolved the impulse to pick their nose.

"We really think this behaviour is understudied because it's really seen as a bad habit," explained Prof Fabre. Studies that investigate the behaviour in people have shed some light on how common the habit is, revealing that the majority of humans pick their nose often but are reluctant to admit it.

There are a few studies examining the cons - and possible pros - of nose picking. Some have pointed to its role in spreading harmful bacteria. But there is at least one study suggesting that picking your nose and eating it might actually be healthy for teeth, as people who picked their noses reported fewer cavities.

One study encouraged additional research by suggesting that the ingestion of nasal mucus could play an important role for the immune system, because of the immune proteins in the mucus.

Fundamentally, Prof Fabre says it is likely to have evolved for a reason and should be investigated.  "We have no idea about its functional role," she told the BBC. "And it could be advantageous."

Rather than being simply disgusting, it may have benefits for some species and since so many animals appear to share this habit, Prof Fabre said, "I think we really need to investigate it".

(From the BBC news, October 2022)

I have since read somewhere (and now can't find the article !) that aye-aye's can also pass that elongated finger up their noses, through various sinuses and actually into the brain !!  I do hope my grandchildren don't try that !

Always something new out of Africa !

Roses (from Naivasha ?)

 

Agricultural powerhouse Kenya will enjoy tariff-free exports to the EU.

Kenya - which counts the European Union (EU) as its biggest market, sending it roughly one-fifth of all its exports - has signed a trade deal with the economic bloc.

The agreement will give the East Africa nation tariff-free access to the EU, although the Kenyan market will not open up immediately to EU goods.

This Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA), as the deal is known, has been hailed as historic by both parties, and is expected to boost trade between the two parties which stands at $3.6bn (£2.8bn) as of 2022.

Kenyan exporters are likely to see an increase in their earnings. The deal could also enable Kenyan farmers access a secure and wider market in Europe.

But there are concerns that eventually liberalising agriculture, which dominates the Kenyan economy, could expose the country to competition with subsidised products from the EU, and threaten Kenyan farmers' incomes.

There are also fears that besides the agricultural sector, the trade deal could, down the road, stand in the way of development if more EU firms set up operations in Kenya.

The delay in opening up the Kenyan market is intended to give the economy here time to change.

Skills transfer and job creation are potential benefits, but homegrown businesses could suffer if they do not change in the long term.

We get masses of wonderful flowers, including millions of roses all the year round in our supermarkets ... from the area around Lake Naivasha.   But I wonder what this increase in horticulture is doing to the level of water in the lake ?  

Recent Old Africa magazines, continued

 Old Africa magazine, *105, interesting articles

Terry Mathews, sculptor ... what a story, what a life !  A shooting accident lost him his sight in one eye; then another accident nearly lost him life when he was gored by a rhino ...      Pony club camps; Kuluva Hospital; and a story of a 3 day drive over 70 miles to Kahunda in Tanganyika .... and other fascinating stories.

Old Africa magazine, *106, interesting articles

Ayahs and domestic servants; a long article about CJP Ionides, the snake man; more about the Kenya Heritage Trust; and an article about surveying roads in Uganda in the 1960's. 

Old Africa magazine, *107, interesting articles

Wonderful paintings by Bryan Hook; the Karen duka; bicycle memories; a Nazi house in Tanganyika and a fascinating letter about a buffalo spearing a man !   Apparently a Maasai had speared a buffalo, and the spear stuck in its head.   The angry buffalo charged the man, and the shaft of the spear punctured the warriors chest; his companion finished off the buffalo and the injured man survived after hospital treatment !   Always something new out of Africa ! 

                                                                    ~     ~     ~     ~     ~

The magazine is posted in Naivasha, and always has a number of interesting stamps on the envelope !

Catching up on 'Old Africa' magazine

 

I seem to have NINE issues to comment on .... 

* 99  has articles about climbing both Mt. Kenya and Mt. Kilimajaro; and one about the Heritage Trust of Kenya, who are trying to preserve the old colonial houses of early settlers.

There is also my friends David's photo of the old and crumbling finger post, pointing to Piccadilly.   And, goodness me, there's a letter from yours truly, about Biashara Street in Nairobi !  

"Dear Editor,

I greatly enjoyed the article about the origins of Nairobi's Biashara (later Bazaar) Street. We arrived in Kenya in 1968, and having initially gone out on a teachers 21 month contract, we stayed for eleven years and started our family who were born in Kisumu, and latterly Nakuru.

So it became essential to find a source of baby stuff in Nairobi, and a missionary friend recommended Toddlers Bazaar in Biashara/Bazaar Street. What an Aladdins cave of goodies ! We bought secondhand cot, baby seat, pram and a bright green plastic baby bath ! But for me, the joy of Toddlers Bazaar was that they had shelves of secondhand paperback books …. living initially out in the bush 50 miles beyond Kisumu, I was starved of reading matter …. so our three monthly trips to the big city had to include a visit toToddlers !

There I stocked up on old and tatty Agatha Christie's, books about the Australian aboriginal detective Bony, and scores of ancient and well thumbed Blackwoods Magazine, with its faded pink covers …. I must have bought fifty or more old paperbacks on each visit (and if any reader of this was the person who donated the books to Toddlers, then 'Thank you' most sincerely …. you saved my sanity !

On one visit, I had borrowed a double baby buggy from a friend, to push the three year old and our one year old daughters around town …. and managed to run over the toes of Joy Adamson in Bazaar Street …. she was furious, but George, who was with her, just laughed !!

Happy days ….  

*100  with its wonderful cover showing ALL the previous issues, right back to *1.    There's an article of Editor's Choice of the top 100 stories published since the first issue, and an explanation as to location of the photos David sent in ....   

*101  an article on rugby in Kenya (not my thing !); another about the Heritage Trust, and an interesting set of photos of old Mombasa.    I love all the old photos that keep turning up in my favourite magazine.

*102   an extract from a book called 'Kenya Kaleidoscope' by Agnes Shaw, which I was prompted to buy, and to my shame haven't read yet !  An article concluding those about Tom Mboya and his funeral.   And a letter for the 'Only in Africa' page from yours truly ....

"A Kenyan 'Ty Bach' - Welsh for the small house !

The first Kenya house we lived in, newly arrived in 1968, was beyond Kisumu; an old dilapidated house (c.1920) in a school compound.   There was just a cold tap in the kitchen, but no loo anywhere.  The head teacher knew we were coming, so had organised for one to be built for us ... outside.

It was the usual long-drop, in a small building, with thatched roof and wooden door. The door was 5ft tall, to allow light in at the top.  The door handles were wooden cotton reels; there was a loop of string and a nail to secure the door on the inside.  When the head inspected it, she said we must have a 'sit-down' seat, so the school fundi was shown a European loo in one of the modern houses, and copied it in wood.  He made a cube like box, two feet tall, with a small, square hole cut in the top; a throne fit for white bottoms; made of rough wood, still with the bark on, and the hole jagged and full of splinters!

This edifice was fine during the day, (after we had requested some sand-paper) but we hadn't anticipated problems of night usage.  It quickly gets dark by 6.30 p.m. on the Equator.   At first, we had only one paraffin hurricane lamp, and a night trip to the loo necessitated leaving one person in candle-light in the house while the other went outside.   

Bright lights in the tropics attract moths, bats and beetles, so how to prevent every creature from yards around entering the loo and fluttering around the head of the person seated in contemplation?   One needed the light to check there were no snakes being disturbed in the small house, so what to do?

Every question has an answer! Solution: put the lamp down on the ground ten yards away from the choo (after checking for those snakes), and then leave the door wide open!    (And hope no student was walking past and could observe the sight of a brightly illuminated mzungu sitting on a box with pants around the ankles!)  

*103   Articles about riding zebra's; Buffalo Springs pool; origins of coffee, and Thika in the 1920's, from a letter written in the 1920's by Elspeth Huxley.

*104   Articles on a plane crash in Mt. Longonot; one on the naming of Lake Rudolf in 1888; and this FANTASTIC photo of an elephant on the back cover !

I'll continue comments on the rest of 'Old Africa' in my next update.