568 



BANTU NEGROES 



Unyoro, near Lake Albert, speak a Bantu language differing widely from 

 the Nyoro tongue : probably it is a dialect of Lihuku.* The Banyoro 

 seem to have extended their conquests and settlements right across the 

 Upper Semliki into the Mboga, Bulega, and Busongora countries on the 

 edge of the Congo watershed, and also all along the western coast-line of 

 the Albert Nyanza as far north as Mahagi. On the east of Unyoro the 



Victoria Nile is practi- 

 cally the boundary 

 between the Bantu- 

 speaking people and the 

 Nilotic Negroes. But 

 this does not prevent 

 occasional migrations one 

 way and the other, and 

 there are people speak- 

 ing Nilotic dialects to 

 the south and west of 

 the Victoria Nile, while a 

 few folk who still retain 

 the use of the Urunyoro 

 Bantu language are met 

 with near the Murchison 

 Falls to the north of 

 the Nile. 



In physical char- 

 acteristics there is not, 

 perhaps, very much 

 difference between the 

 first group of Bantu 

 Negroes under considera- 

 tion, the Bakonjo, and 

 the second group, which 

 comprises the mass of 

 the population in Unyoro, 

 Toro, and Ankole. The 

 Bakonjo, perhaps, where they live on high mountains such as Kuwenzori, 

 are shorter in stature and of stouter build, with better developed calves 

 than the population of the plains. Some of the Bakonjo have rather 

 pleasing features, and do not exhibit as a rule those degraded types met 



* Lihuku (Libvanuma) and Kuamba are two allied and very ancient Bantu 

 tongues spoken in the forest belt of the Upper .Semliki. They are thoroughly 

 " bantu," but differ considerably from the other Bantu dialects of Uganda. 



312. A TORO NEGKO FKOM THE EAST SIDE OF KUWENZORI 



