112 Sir Charles Eliot [May 19, 



years since the first missions were established in the country, nearly 

 all the inhabitants are nominal Christians, and large numbers can read 

 And wi'ite. A native parliament has been instituted, and native courts 

 of justice. It is true that some of the laws are rather strange, and 

 •considerable discussion has been provoked by an enactment fixing the 

 price of all wives at 13s. 4:d., whatever their beauty or mental accom- 

 plishments may be, but this people certainly offer the best augury 

 that we have for the capacity of progress in African races. It remains 

 to be seen whether they will advance beyond a certain point, and also 

 whether their present docility will prove permanent, or whether, as 

 among the Japanese, whom they resemble in some ways, the assimila- 

 tive period will be followed by a revival of national sentiment. 



The other Bantu-speaking tribes of the British East African 

 territories, are, with the exception of the Swahilis, of small impor- 

 tance. They have little in tlie way of native political and military 

 organisation, and only a moderate aptitude for adopting the blessings 

 of European civilisation. I imagine them to represent the extreme 

 flow of the wave of Bantu immigration which spread from the west 

 or south, and they are far removed, geographically as well as meta- 

 phorically, from the special civilisation of Uganda as well as from 

 the military organisations of the southern Bantus. 



The most important tribes on the coast are the Swahilis and the 

 analogous race found near Lamu and called Bajuns. Both are 

 hybrids, the Swahilis being a mixtm'e of Arabs with all sorts of 

 African blood, while the Bajuns claim to be the descendants of Persian 

 'Colonists. Both speak dialects of the same Bantu language. 



Living as they do on a long narrow strip of coast, and in scattered 

 archipelagoes, the Swahilis had no chance of attaining any sort of 

 political union, even had they desired it, Imt they have exercised a 

 wide-spread influence, chiefly through their language. In point of 

 wide distribution and utility over a large area, Swahili may fairly 

 claim to be one of the great languages of the world, and it possesses 

 a remarkable vitality and power of advancing at the expense of other 

 languages. It is more or less spoken as a lingua franca from Aden 

 in the north to Durban in the south, and from the Indian ocean 

 to the waters of the Nile and the Congo. Opinions differ con- 

 siderably as to the merits of the Swahili race, and this is not surpris- 

 ing, for they are not homogeneous and represent merely a mixture of 

 Aral) blood — generally a very small proportion — witli the most various 

 African races, not merely the inhabitants of the coast, but all sorts 

 of slaves brought from the interior. Their characteristic profession 

 is that of caravan porters, Imt, now that the construction of the 

 Uganda railway has rendered unnecessary the large caravans which 

 were common ten years ago, this occupation is decaying. A\alour 

 is not their strong point, and they make only very moderate soldiers 

 and policemen. They have a fair aptitude for commerce, but are 

 shopkeepers rather than merchants, and also make good boat boys, 



