Mt. Kilimanjaro Series (Part: 0)

Mountain of the Moon

"Chander Pahar" a celebrated Bengali novel by Shri Bibhutibhusan Bandyopadhyay was the first to introduce the Mountain of Moon to the Bengalis back in 1937.

For your knowledge, it's not just a fictitious mountain.

In ancient history, the Greek Geographer gave this legendary name to a mountain or a mountain range.

Starting from the time of Egyptian civilization, geographers and merchants were curious about the source of river Nile. One of the reasons may be:

Central Africa is dense in active and dormant volcanoes. This volcanic eruption led to the development of precious stones and diamonds of various colors. Specifically yellow diamonds. These stones and pebbles move down to the plains and far away distances through rivers.

People might have found these stones at the Nile basin. So, the exploration of the source of Nile.

Nile has two tributaries: White Nile and Blue Nile. White Nile, having the source further south. While, Blue Nile had the source in Ethiopia.

Central Africa and Northern Africa are bifurcated by a mountain range. In the maps of 19th century, this mountain range is termed as Mountain of the Moon. As because the explorers of that time couldn't cross the mountain range, they thought it to be the source of Nile. As this is the source of the yellow diamond, so the mountain of the moons.

Later on, it was explored more by great Europeans and Arabs. They crossed the mountain range and found Lake Victoria as the source of the Nile. Now here comes the theory of different geographers. Mt. Kilimanjaro is on the eastern side of Lake Victoria whereas the Ruwenzori Mountain range is on the Western side. As Mt. Kilimanjaro is the highest peak, so this might be the source of the water to Lake Victoria, or it might be the Ruwenzori Mountain range. Though range of Mt. Ruwenzori was named as Mountain of the moon, according to some historians, Mt Kilimanjaro is still the Mountain of the moon.

However, in the novel, Shri Bandhapadhya mentioned about exploration of the protagonist, Shankar, to Mt. Richtersveld. This is far South, crossing the Kalahari Desert in South Africa. Nowhere near the mountains spoken by the historians. 😊

Salisbury, where the protagonist ends the exploration of Chander Pahar is the present Harare of Zimbabwe.

Shankar lands in Africa in Mombasa. From there he moves towards Kisumu. Kisumu is in the vicinity of the Mt Ruwenzori range.

Kisumu, where he start the journey is in Kenya near Lake Victoria.... Crossed the lake by ferry, South towards Mwanza.... Then 300 miles to Tabora ......to Ujiji near Lake Tanganyika. .... Crossed the lake to .... Congo.... To Kabelo by train (Belgium ... Then by Congo River to further South to Sunkini to Richtersveld mountains and back to Salisbury crossing Kalahari Desert.

The whole of Africa seems abundant in gold and diamond 😇

I hope to see some precious things. 🤞🤞