There are many versions of were the name Kilimanjaro came from, but a few of the possible meanings are, "Mountain of Greatness", Mountain of Whiteness", and "Mountain of Caravans" which all derive from Swahili and Chagga. The natives of the region sometimes warned of the spirits of the mountian.
One of the first records of Mount Kilimanjaro was by Ptolemy in the second centry AD. He was a greek cartogroher and astronomer who wrote of the land to the south and told of a snow covered mountian. He had already circumnavigated Africa by then. The mountian is not mentioned for the next thousand years ontil the twelth century when the Chinease talked of the mountian. In April of 1848 two missionaries became the first Europeans to set sight on it. The missionaries were Rebmann and Bwana Kheri. Up untill then it had been some what of a myth or legend, because no one thought there would be snow at the equater.
