210 HISTORY OP THE PROTECTORATE TERRITORIES 



Pvgmies (who, according to the traditions of the negroes on the Congo 

 watershed, formerly dwelt in large numbers in the Bahr-al-Ghazal forests), 

 chimpanzees, and perhaps certain monkeys. It would indeed be surprising 

 if the powerful dynasties which arose in Egypt and Nubia from time to 

 time during something like 4,000 years had made no attempt to increase 

 the commerce of their country in the direction of the Black Man's 

 Country. From Khartum the Egyptian boats might so easily have 

 ascended the Nile, assuming that river to be free of sudd, to the precincts 

 of what is now the Uganda Protectorate. Or from the same region above 

 Khartum there was probably no hostility on the part of the timid, badly 

 armed natives to prevent the Egy})tian and Nubian traders advancing 

 overland with their caravans in the direction of Mount Elgon. 



But whether Egyptian commerce or Egyptian rule did or did not 

 have any direct contact with these countries at the sources of the Nile, 

 the influence of Egyptian civilisation profoundly affected Negro Africa. 

 With the exception of the few cultivated plants and domestic animals 

 which tropical Africa has received from Brazil through the Portuguese, or 

 which have been landed on its east coast from India by Asiatic traders, 

 all the remaining domestic animals and cultivated plants known to the 

 Negro have reached him by way of Egypt. From Egypt also came ideas 

 for the making of planked canoes, such as those used by natives of 

 Uganda, and the designs for musical instruments of a more complicated 

 nature than the drum, the antelope-horn trumpet, or the bowstring. The 

 Uganda harps are exactly like those depicted on the Egyptian monuments. 

 Is it possible that some of the "Bahima" (the aristocracy of Hamitic type 

 prevalent in Western Uganda, Unyoro, Toro, Ankole, part of the adjoining 

 Congo F^-ee State, and the countries on the south-east of the Victoria 

 Nyanza and towards the north and east of Tanganyika) are the descendants 

 of traders from Ethio})ia, who came to these countries many centuries 

 ago? The Bahima have completely forgotten any Hamitic language that 

 they may have once spoken. They speak now, with a marked accent of 

 their own, the Bantu language of the country where they dominate as 

 an aristocracy or where they serve as proud cattle-keepers. The Bahima 

 must have mingled in ancient times — possibly they mingle still to some 

 extent^ — with the surrounding Negroes, from whom they have derived 

 their closer, woollier hair, and, in some individuals, their darker colour. 

 But one notices amongst them again and again a type of face startlingly 

 Egyptian in its main features, and sometimes not much darker in 

 complexion. 



Tradition amongst the natives does not enable us to fix even approxi- 

 mately the date at which the countries round the Nile sources began to 

 be invaded by a superior race of Hamitic features coming, presumably, from 



