110 Sir Charles Eliot [May 19, 



where a caravan may march for days without seeing a single native. 

 This scarcity of population in excellent country is partly due to the 

 former persecution of Arab slave traders and the attacks of nomadic 

 raiders which made the more timid tribes anxious to avoid the open 

 country. But the main reason is no doubt that Africans are immune 

 to many of the diseases which attack Europeans, and find in the low 

 hot districts an abundance of food, both animal and vegetable, pro- 

 curable without exertion. 



Almost the whole circumference of lake Victoria and the islands 

 in it are inhabited by Bantu-speaking races, but the part where the 

 population most increased, and where native civilisation reached its 

 greatest development, was the country west of lake Victoria, and 

 lying between that great sheet of water and the smaller lakes Albert, 

 Albert Edward, and Kivu. Here are the kingdoms of Uganda, 

 Unyoro, Torn, Ankole, in British territory, and Karagwe in German. 

 Of these, Uganda is the most important, but all appear to have at- 

 tained to some form of organisation under one chief deserving the 

 name of principality or kingdom, and to have possessed a religious 

 and social system in a fairly high stage of development. In this, 

 they offer a remarkable contrast to the tribes on the north and east 

 of the lake. It is not until we come to the coast itself where the 

 influence of the Arabs and the Mohammedan religion has been strong, 

 that we find social and political conditions worthy of comparison with 

 Uganda. Among the Bantus of this area, there is nothing that can 

 be called a state or kingdom ; great chiefs are rare, and many tribes 

 seem to have advanced little beyond the stage where the village is 

 practically the same as the family. On the other hand, it is only 

 just to say that the worst abuses of Africa, such as cannibalism, are 

 unknown among them. The higher civilisation of the countries 

 beyond lake Victoria is no doubt due to their greater fertility and 

 greater peacefulness, but there are interesting but unfortunately 

 obscure traces of an ancient foreign influence in Uganda and the 

 other western kingdoms. In most of them there are traditions of 

 an aristocracy called Hima, Huma, Bahima, or some such name, 

 who were of pastoral, not agricultural, habits. These people who 

 still form the royal and superior caste, have not preserved any lan- 

 guage of their own, but they not unfrequently present a distinct 

 physical type, light in colour, and with features resembling those of 

 the Hamites or the faces seen on ancient Egyptian monuments. It 

 is probable that tliis type represents the result of an ancient invasion 

 of some Hamitic tribe, perhaps the Gallas, who may have introduced 

 new blood and some measure of civilisation. As far as pliysical 

 features go, we might be disposed to connect the Bahima witli the 

 Masai and the tribes found on the east bank of the soutliern Nile, of 

 whom more anon, but there is such a sharp distinction in customs 

 that this is hardly possible. To take only one point, the people of 

 Uganda are remarkable for being all clothed. You are no doubt 



