In 1849, Johann Rebmann, a colleague of Krapf at the Rabai mission, became the first European to see Mount Kilimanjaro. The following year, Krapf became the first European to see Mount Kenya, the snow-capped mountain at the centre of the land that would take its name.
When Krapf reported a snow-capped mountain on the equator to the Royal Geographical Society in London, he was laughed at. Tropical snow was considered impossible.
He was right and his critics were wrong. The mountain that Africans had known for millennia was forcing Europeans to reconsider what they thought they understood about the world.