616 BANTU NEGROES 



and " Ungura." The Eabima are more numerous in proportion to the 

 negro inhabitants of the land in the district of Mpororo, which is partly 

 British and partly German territory, to the south-west of Ankole. The 

 type is sprinkled less frequently over the large country of Ruanda 

 (Bunyaruanda), to the south of Mpororo, and reappears again with more 

 frequency in Burundi, Buha, Karagwe, and Businja. Almost pure-blooded 

 Bahima are also met with on the islands opposite the south-west coast of 

 the Victoria Nyanza. I have even seen traces of this type amongst the 

 negro tribes down the west coast of Tanganyika, and amid the Manyema, 

 and perhaps also here and there on the Nyasa-Tanganyika Plateau. I 

 could quite imagine that the superior and less Negro-like features often 

 met with among the Zulu Kaffirs and the Bantu tribes of the Central 

 Zambezi may be explained by these tribes having migrated not very many 

 centuries ago from some locality in East ( entral Africa, where their 

 ancestors had received an infiltration of Hima blood. 



In physical appearance a more or less pure-blooded Muhima may be 

 described as follows : Both sexes incline to be tall and possess remarkably 

 graceful and well-proportioned figures, with small hands and feet. The 

 feet, in fact, are often very beautifully formed, quite after the classical 

 European model. Under natural conditions there is no tendency to 

 corpulence, nor to the exaggerated development of muscle so characteristic 

 of the burly Negro. In fact, the Bahima have the figures and proportions 

 of Europeans. The rather rounded head with its almost European features 

 rises on a long, graceful neck well above the shoulders, which incline to 

 be sloping. The poise of the head is, therefore, very unlike that of the 

 ordinary negro, whose neck is short. The superciliary arch is well 

 marked, though not exaggerated. The nose rises high from the depression 

 between the eyebrows, is straight, finely carved, with a prominent tip and 

 thin nostrils. The nose, in fact, in a pure-blooded Hima might be that 

 of a handsome Berber or European. The lips are somewhat fuller than in 

 Europeans, but perhaps not more so than amongst the Berbers or Somali. 

 The mouth is often small, and the upper lip is well shaped, with no great 

 distance between it and the base of the nose. The chin is well developed. 

 The ear is large, but not disproportionately so, compared to Europeans or 

 Berbers. The colour of the skin in all people of more or less pure Hima 

 blood is much lighter than in the average Negro, being sometimes quite 

 a pale yellow or reddish yellow. The present writer has seen individuals 

 whom he mistook entirely for natives of Egypt, thinking them to have 

 been stranded in Unyoro in connection with Emin Pasha's service. Others, 

 again, he took for Arab traders from the coast. An Unyoro princess, who 

 was a relation of Kasagama, king of Toro, was certainly no darker in the 

 colour of her skin than an Egyptian peasant woman. 



