BANTU NEGROES 679 



came with a pack of dogs,* a woman, a spear, and a shield to the Katonga 

 valley. The Katonga marsh-river is a long watercourse, which at the 

 present day separates the Kingdom of Uganda from its dependent Province 

 of Buddu. This hunter, Muganda, was a poor man, but so successful in 

 hunting that large numbers of the aboriginal negroes, the Bairo, nocked 

 to him for flesh. They became so attached to him as to invite him to 

 become their chief, complaining that their distant Muhima sovereign in 

 Unyoro lived too far away for his sovereignty to be of any use to them. 

 Muganda hesitated, fearing to come into conflict with the Bahima aristocracy, 

 who looked upon these lake countries as their hunting ground for slaves. 

 But at last he consented, became the ruler of the country between the Nile 

 and the Katonga River (the modern Uganda), gave his own name to the 

 country, which he called Buganda, and himself took the new name of 

 Kimera. The legend runs that the kings of Gala blood in Unyoro and 

 on the Ankole Plateau received the news of a Hima wanderer having become 

 the elected chief of Uganda with equanimity, saying, " What does it matter 

 to us what goes on in those lands from which we draw our slaves ? " How- 

 ever, this Norman of Central Africa soon erected his principality into a 

 strong and well-organised power. The people of the coast-lands between 

 Busoga on the north and the Kagera River on the west formed a group of 

 Bantu Negroes somewhat distinct from the Unyoro stock to the west of 

 them (that group of Unyoro Bantu Negroes which stretched, and stretches 

 still, its range from the north end of Lake Albert right round to the south- 

 west corner of the Victoria Nyanza and its southern archipelago of Bukerebe, 

 and also south-westwards towards Tanganyika). 



Although the two great languages of Urunyoro and Luganda (with 

 their derived dialects) are very near akin in general structure and 

 vocabulary, still they are as different one from the other as Spanish is 

 from Italian, perhaps a little more so. In one small point the language 

 of Uganda is more primitive, comes nearer to the original Bantu mother- 

 tongue than the Urunyoro or Kavirondo groups on the west and east of 

 it. Among the sixteen or seventeen original Bantu prefixes there is a 

 very well defined one applied to place, the locative prefix. This in the 

 original tongue was " Pa-," and in that form it is still met with in a large 

 proportion of Bantu languages at the present day. But in the regions of 

 the Victoria Nyanza there is a strong dislike [to the consonant "P" as 

 an initial, and the " Pa-" prefix has nearly everywhere became " Ha-." 

 But for this detail the Bantu languages of the regions round the northern 

 half of the Victoria Nyanza would come very near in structure and 

 vocabulary to the original Bantu mother-tongue. Now in Uganda the 



* Some say " a white dog." 

 VOL. II. 14 



