TOPOGRAPHY AND HYDROORAPIIY. The coastal region is a narrow, low plain formed by sedi mentary strata and coral limestone. Behind the coastal, jungle-covered plain rises a wide pla teau, extending to Tanganyika, from 3000 to 4000 feet in height. It is surmounted in the east by the hills and mountains of Usambara, Useguha, Usagara, and other districts, which ex tend south to the Rufiji River and inland about 300 miles. This mountain region, some of whose peaks are 6000 feet high, is in great part well watered, well wooded, and fruitful, and its drainage reaches the Indian Ocean through the Pangani, Rufu, \Vami, and Rufiji rivers. West of the mountains is a wide steppe region, dry and poverty-stricken, for the mountains between it and the Indian Ocean keep most of the rain clouds in the east. The thirsty steppe merges gradually into the high fertile plain of Uniam wesi, south of Victoria Nyanza. On the western border of the colony the plateau is broken by the cleft of the Great Rift Valley (q.v.), and also by vertical displacements which have raised the strata west and north of Lake Nyassa into mountains of considerable eleva tion, some peaks of the Livingstone Mountains reaching 6000 to 9000 feet. The lofty volcanic
mass of the Mfumbiro Mountains lies on the northwestern boundary. In the north the plateau is intersected by other rifts, and has been the ,seat of volcanic activity. Mount Kilimanjaro, an isolated volcanic peak, rising to a height of 19,720 feet, is the culminating point of Africa.
The coast and the bordering mountain region are watered mainly by the rivers Rufu, Pangani, Mgeta, Rufiji, and Rovuma and their tributaries. The interior, which has few perennial streams, is drained into lakes Tanganyika and Victoria Nyanza, and thence into the Congo and the Nile, a few rivers also reaching the Zambezi through Lake Nyassa. None of the rivers is of any im portance for navigation, except for stretches here and there where small boats carry produce. There are numerous small lakes in the northern part of the country.