 The core is the Ukaguru Mountains, a mass of mountain peaks (6,000–7,000 ft.) that represents a third of the area.In the German Sergeant Bauer's time only a few of its mountains were, and remain today, thickly wooded, for most were already deforested because of the iron smelting industry with its intense need for charcoal and the severe agricultural clearing.After the coming of the Germans much land was preserved as woodland reserved and can be considered beautiful semitropical forestland of great density and abundant rain.