Book Reviews 267

BOOK REVIEWS

Reisen in Ostafrika ausgeführt in den Jahren 1837-1855. By Ludwig Krapf. Edited, and with an Introduction by Werner Raupp. Münster/Hamburg: LIT Verlag, 1995. Two volumes. xii + 506 pp.; 522 pp. DM 88.80.

It would be hard to imagine the history of African exploration without the Protestant missionary ( 1810-18 81 ), whose origins lay in Southern Germany. He ranks not only as the pioneer of missionary work in , but also as one of the first great African explorers. Geographers and historians have acclaimed him as the man who "drew back the veil" from East Equatorial Africa. He distinguished himself as such through his research in the fields of geography and linguistics as well as through his ethnological studies. Reisen in Ostafrika, which appeared in German in 1858 and contains broad-based descriptions of Krapf s travels, which took him to Ethiopia and above all to what is now and , has long since become a classic of African literature, having also undergone translations into English (1860, 1968) and Swahili (1963).

Having grown up in Wirttemberg surrounded by a wealth of pietist traditions (Vol. 1, pp. 3-24), Krapf entered the service of the Anglican Church Missionary Society. In 1837 he was sent to Ethiopia . (pp. 25-195), but in 1844 he turned his attention to East Equatorial Africa, which had not at that time been settled by Europeans. In 1846, together with Johannes Rebmann (1820-1876), a former winegrower from Gerlingen'near , he first established a missionary station (Rabbai Mpia) in the mountainous hinterland of Mombassa. From there the two of them undertook extensive journeys of exploration into the still unknown interior of the country, in order to pave the way for the spread of the gospel throughout East Africa (pp. 195 ft and Vol. 2). Krapf and Rebmann became the first Europeans to "discover" the legendary mountains ofKilimanjaro and Mt. Kenya (Vol. 2, pp. 30 f. And 167), though the existence of these snow- and glacier-clad