CHAP, XVII THE SUAHILI 339 



6. If a Suahili free a slave who subsequently becomes rich, upon 

 the death of the slave the property passes to his old master ; whereas 

 that of a slave freed by an Arab is at the absolute disposal of its owner. ^ 



Sherifu said there were other differences, but that these were the 

 chief. He laughingly added that even these were only matters of 

 ritual, and it was absurd to make so much fuss about them. He said 

 that the two sects are excessively bitter against one another ; they both 

 claim to be the true interpreters of the Koran, and say that the others 

 are liars. They carry this sectarian bitterness to such a length that 

 they will not worship in the same mosque, and would even prefer to 

 allow a European to enter one than a member of the rival sect. 



A point of some interest in connection with the Suahili race is the 

 belief on the east coast that marriages between them are either barren, 

 or productive only of one or two children, who are themselves invari- 

 ably sterile. This was told me by several residents, whose evidence 

 is especially reliable, as they were not aware of its bearing on any 

 biological theories. The statement was first reported to me by Bird 

 Thompson, and subsequently by Herr Wiirtz of Ngao. The races, 

 however, in the towns of the coast zone are so mixed, that the true 

 light-coloured Suahili are scarce, and such marriages are unusual. The 

 people who call themselves Arabs are generally half-breeds, and it is 

 very rarely that either parent of a Suahili is of pure Arab origin. It is, 

 however, asserted on the coast, that if the child of an Arab by any of 

 the coast women {i.e. a true Suahili) marry one of the offspring of a 

 similar union, then the marriage is either barren or the offspring are 

 sterile. 



If this could be proved, it would have an interesting bearing on the 

 question of the unity of the human species, for the main argument in 

 support of this is, that all the races of mankind are capable, when 

 crossed, of yielding fertile offspring. 



The most interesting point, however, about the Suahili is their 

 language, the lingua franca of Equatorial Africa, a knowledge of which 

 enables a traveller to make himself understood by most of the Bantu 

 tribes of the interior, and even as far west as the Congo Basin and 

 the Atlantic coast. The language, indeed, is more important than the 

 race, being one of the six great languages spoken at the present day. 

 It may therefore be advisable to refer to the three main characters by 

 which it differs in structure from the languages of the Indo-European 

 group. 



The first peculiarity of the P>antu language is its use of prefixes, 

 instead of suffixes, in declension. As an example take the word for 

 " good." In Latin the various forms of the word are bonus, bona, 

 honuni, bofii, bono, etc. In Ki-suahili they are ngenm, njcnui, Jenia, 



^ It should be remembered that these rules are not now strictly obeyed, owing to 

 European interference and native religious indifference. 



