Baron Karl Klaus von der Decken

It was 13 years before Rebman�s sighting [of Kilimanjaro in 1848] was confirmed by the German Officer Baron Karl Klaus von der Decken and the young British geologist Richard Thornton. Von de Decken climbed to about 14,000 feet and experienced a fall of snow. Thornton made many observations of the mountain and estimated accurately that it stood about 20,000 feet above sea level. Six years later the missionary Charles New managed to reach the snowline. Then in 1884 the naturalist Henry Hamilton Johnston made an intensive study of the flora and fauna.

The argument was not settled, nor did any explorer attempt to visit or climb Kilimanjaro till a German, Baron K. K. von der Decken, accompanied by a young English geologist, Richard Thornton, travelled from Mombasa to Chaggaland in 1861 and attempted the first conquest of Kilimanjaro. For an account of this attempt which only reached 5,200 feet, see Thornton's diaries, at present being prepared for publication.

In 1862 the Baron, accompanied by a German, Otto Kersten, renewed the attempt. For details of how the party reached 14,200 feet before being forced to return by bad weather and uncooperative porters, see Kersten's account in his six volume opus published between 1869 and 1879. This account has been translated and published in English for the first time in this number of T.N.R.

.. .. during his 1861-1862 expedition, von der Decken opened a route to Kilimanjaro from Tanga.

In his memory a bird species was called after his name.

Baron von der Deken's two trips to Kilimanjaro never penetrated west of Kilimanjaro but added much detail to the geographical knowledge of the area. On the 1861 trip he was accompanied by a young British geologist Richard Thornton, whose diaries, as yet unpublished, throw much light on contemporary conditions around Kilimanjaro and the Pare Mountains. Thornton had previously worked with Dr. Livingston on the Zambezi, and after this trip returned to the Livingstone expedition to Lake Malawi, only to die after a few months. Dr. Otto Kersten accompanied Van der Deken on his 1862 trip, and produced the six volume opus describing the two journeys, from which the exhibited Maps are taken.

After Rebrnann the next to visit Kilimanjaro was von der Decken in 1861, who got no farther than 8,200 feet owing to the inclemency of the weather. In the following year he went up to 14,200 feet in company with Dr. Kerston. His accounts were finally accepted as reliable by the Royal Geographical Society though not without opposition from Rebmann's critics.

The first European to record a sighting of Meru was the German explorer, Karl von der Decken, who reached this area in 1862. The mountain was later seen and described by other explorers, including Gustav Fischer in 1882, and Joseph Thompson the following year. In 1887, the Austro-Hungarian Count Samuel Teleki and members of his team penetrated the dense forest on the lower slopes and reached a point where the trees thinned out enough for them to see Kilimanjaro, which they planned to climb later in their expedition. The first ascent to the summit of Meru is credited to either Carl Uhlig in 1901 or Fritz Jaeger in 1904.