MAN : PAST AND PRESENT. [CHAP. 



that might easily be adduced, it may be concluded with some 

 confidence that the great mass of the Bantu popu- 



mainiy ^Ne^ lations are essentially Negroes, leavened in diverse 



gro-Hamitic proportions for the most part by Wahuma, that 

 is, Galla or Hamitic elements percolating for thou- 

 sands of generations 1 from the north-eastern section of the 

 Hamitic domain into the heart of Bantuland. 



No doubt all now speak various forms of the same organic 

 Bantu mother-tongue. But this linguistic uniformity is strictly 

 analogous to that now prevailing amongst the multifarious peoples 

 of Aryan speech in Eurasia, and is due to analogous causes the 

 diffusion in extremely remote times of a mixed Hamito-Ethiopic 

 people of Bantu speech in Africa south of the equator. It might 

 perhaps be objected that the present Wahuma pastors are of 

 Hamitic speech, because we know from Stanley that the late king 

 M'tesa of Buganda was proud of his Galla ancestors, whose lan- 

 guage he still spoke as his mother-tongue. But he also spoke 

 Luganda, and every echo of Galla speech has already died out 

 amongst most of the Wahuma communities in the equatorial 

 regions. So it was with what I may call the " Proto-Wahumas," 

 the first conquering Galla tribes, Schuver's and Decle's '"aristo- 

 cracy," who were gradually blended with the aborigines in a new 

 and superior nationality of Bantu speech, because "there are 

 many mixed races,... but there are no mixed languages 2 ." 



These views are confirmed by the traditions and folklore still 

 current amongst the " Lacustrians," as the great nations may be 

 called, who are now grouped round about the shores of Lakes 



1 I have elsewhere shown that the recent date assigned by Sir H. H. John- 

 ston (British Central Africa, p. 480) to the Bantu migrations, as imagined 

 by him, is not warranted by his facts, while it is quite untenable on other 

 grounds. (Academy, Aug. 21, 1897, p. 145.) Cf. also Karl Ritter (French 

 ed. I. p. 127): " De meme que les Goths et les Vandales se repandirent sur 

 une grande partie cle 1'Europe, les Galla s'etendirent successivement sur ces 

 contrees de 1'Afrique a mesure qu'ils trouvaient des lieux propres a s'etablir : 

 comme les Goths et les Vandales, ils se sont naturalises en pen de temps sur 

 le sol qu'ils avaient envahi, et ont pris la langue, les coutumes, et les moeurs 

 des peuples vaincus." 



2 Ethnology, p. 199. 



