1905.] on Native Races of the British East Africa Protectorate. 107 



the Cameroons and west of the Nile, and they are usually present in 

 considerable numbers, either as slaves or inhaV)itiints, in the countries 

 occupied by Arabs and Hamites. The Negro area is thus very large, 

 comprising the Sudan and the great hump of Africa projecting into 

 the Indian Ocean, but it will perhaps surprise some of my hearers to 

 be told that there are very few pure Negro tribes in East Africa. 



Linguistically, the Negroes do not form a unit, Imt speak the 

 most diverse tongues which are probably to be numbered by hundreds. 

 Few of them have been adequately studied by Europeans, and much 

 research will be necessary before it will be possible to pronounce an 

 opinion on their relations and classification. But the interesting 

 point is, that whereas there is this babel of tongues in North- West 

 Africa and considerable diversity in North-East Africa, there is 

 almost complete linguistic uniformity south of the Equator, or, to be 

 more accurate, south of a line ninning from the Cameroons along the 

 Uelle river to lakes Albert and Victoria and then through the East 

 Africa Protectorate. This surprising phenomenon is connected with 

 the third of the three groups with which I started, namely the Bantus. 

 Unlike tbe word Negro, this name refers primarily to language, not to 

 physique, but though it would be most incorrect to say that all the 

 people who speak the Bantu languages belong to one physical type, 

 still there is found among them in many parts a type which is 

 different from that of the Negroes and superior to it. Conspicuous 

 instances of such a type are the Zulus and Kaffirs of South Africa. 



But the most interesting point about the Bantus is the distribu- 

 tion of their languages over so wide an area — a phenomenon remark- 

 .al)le not only in Africa but in the whole world. As far as is known, 

 with the exception of the languages of the Hottentots, Bushmen, and 

 one tribe in German East Africa, all the natives of the southern half of 

 the continent, from Cape Colony to the East Africa Protectorate and 

 Uganda, speak languages which belong to one family, and exhibit less 

 •difference than do the various Aryan languages among themselves, 

 though of course they are not mutually intelhgible. There is hardly 

 anything which can be compared to this linguistic area, if we except 

 the diffusion of some European languages, such as English and 

 Spanish, which has resulted from the colonisation of America and 

 Australia in the last few centuries. The nearest parallel perhaps— 

 though it is far from being an exact one — is the extraordinary diffu- 

 sion of the Malay languages ; and the contrast Avith the multitudinous 

 variety of Negro idioms in West Africa makes the phenomenon doubly 

 remarkable. It would seem, however, that Africans abandon their 

 languages very readily, and make little attempt to resist the encroach- 

 ments of a vigorous foreign tongue. The Negroes in North America have 

 entirely forgotten their African speech, and if it be thought that the 

 exceptional strength of the influences brought to bear on them there, 

 make this a hardly fair example, I would cite the case of Madagascar. 

 The population of that large island, which measures nearly two 



