88 MAN : PAST AND PRESENT. [CHAP. 



partly because of their relatively later arrival from Asia, and partly 

 because, as they arrived, they became largely assimilated to the 

 indigenous Hamitic inhabitants of Egypt, Abyssinia, and Somali- 

 land. No doubt other Semites (Minasans, Sabaeans, and Himya- 

 rites generally) almost certainly reached the east coast below the 

 equator in early historic times. But they appear to have arrived 

 chiefly as traders and miners, and never to have penetrated far 

 inland except in the auriferous regions south of the Zambesi, 

 where their still extant monuments in the Zimbabwe and other 

 districts show that they held the country by military tenure and 

 mixed but slightly with the Negro aborigines. 



Still later in Muhammadan times, other Semites also from 

 Arabia did arrive and form permanent settlements along the 

 eastern seaboard as far south as Sofala, and these intermingled 

 more freely with the converted coast peoples ( Waswahili, from 

 sa/iel = ''coast"), but not with the Kafirs, or "Unbelievers,'' farther 

 south and in the interior. In our own days these Swahili half- 

 breeds, with a limited number of full-blood Arabs 1 , have pene- 

 trated beyond the Great Lakes to the Upper and Middle Congo 

 basin, but rather as slave-hunters and destroyers than as peaceful 

 settlers, and contracting few alliances, except perhaps amongst the 

 Wayao and Magwangara tribes of Mozambique, and the cannibal 

 Manyuemas farther inland. 



To this extent Semitism may be recognised as a factor in the 



constituent elements of the Bantu populations. 

 Elements in Malays have also been mentioned, and some ethno- 

 Madagascar legists have even brought the Fulahs of Western 



Sudan all the way from Malaysia. Certainly if they 

 reached and formed settlements in Madagascar, there is no intrin- 

 sic reason why they should not have done the same on the main- 

 land. But I have failed to find any evidence of the fact, and if 

 they ever at any time established themselves on the east coast 

 they have long disappeared, without leaving any clear trace of 

 their presence either in the physical appearance, speech, usages or 

 industries of the aborigines, such as are everywhere conspicuous 

 in Madagascar. 



1 Even Tipu Tib, their chief leader and " Prince of Slavers," was a half- 

 caste with distinctly Negroid features. 



