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



aware that there is a tendency in Africa to regard costume as an 

 ornament rather than a covering, and the Nilotic tri})es near Uganda 

 are conspicuously nude, the men considering it a point of honour to go 

 perfectly naked. The people of Uganda, on the contrary, wear flowing 

 robes, and are very particular in their ideas of decency. It there- 

 fore seems probable that these naked tribes are a latter stratum, which 

 has covered up all traces of the route by which the older invaders 

 may have reached Uganda. It is possible that research near the 

 northern end of lake Victoria will yield discoveries throwing some 

 light on these invaders and their origin, for it is an interesting fact 

 that one of the most precious treasures of the natives of North 

 Kavirondo is a kind of blue glass bead, apparently of very ancient 

 workmanship, and resembling similar beads found in Egypt and 

 Nubia. They are popularly believed to fall from the sky during 

 thunder-storms, but the real explanation would seem to be that these 

 violent storms disturb the soil, and occasionally expose beads which 

 are buried in it. Also, the traditions of various tribes attach import- 

 ance to ornaments and weapons made of brass or copper, metals which 

 can hardly have been produced in the country, or detained from the 

 coast, as communication between the coast districts and the interior 

 is only of very recent date. 



But though it is pretty certain that the people of Uganda are a 

 mixed race, and have been affected both in physique and institutions by 

 invaders from the north, it appears to me by no means equally certain 

 that we should seek in these events the origin of the Bantu languages 

 and of the races who speak them. The contrary hypothesis is just 

 as possible, namely that the Bantus have spread northwards from the 

 Zambesi country, and received a special development in Uganda from 

 contact with another race. It is often supposed that all migrations 

 are from the north to the south, and this is certainly the usual direc- 

 tion in the northern hemisphere. But if the explanation of such 

 movements is the preference for warm equatorial climates, it is 

 equally natural that Africans in the south of the continent should 

 move northwards to the equatorial regions. In historical times the 

 movements of the Zimbas and other tribes from the Zambesi up to 

 Mombasa is an instance of such a direction, and at the beginning of 

 this century the warlike expeditions of the Zulus are said to have 

 extended to the great lakes. 



In their indigenous culture, and, still more, in their exceptional 

 power of assimilating European civilisation, the people of Uganda 

 are unique in this part of Africa, and probably in the whole continent 

 When discovered by Europeans, they had a social system culminating 

 in a king and an elaborate court, and comprising nobles, middle 

 classes and peasants. They built cities and constructed roads, two 

 things which are conspicuously absent in other parts of East Africa. 

 From the first their readiness to receive European instraction, both 

 religious and other, was remarkable. Though it is less than thirty 



