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THE LIVING RACES OF MANKIND 



not a definite tribe, but a hybrid race formed by the intermarriage of Arab settlers with the 

 original coast natives and with the Negroes brought from the interior as slaves. The name 

 is derived from the Arabic word sahel, a coast. 



The Arab influence in East Africa has been the gradual growth of perhaps 2,000 years. 

 Phoenician and Arabian merchants sailed down the East African coast in prehistoric times, 

 and no doubt established stations at various points of call. Seven centuries ago there was a 

 civil war in Muscat, the south-east corner of Arabia; the defeated faction, the Nabahani, were 

 expelled, and settled in the archipelago of Lamu. Three centuries afterwards the Portuguese 

 arrived on the coast, and began to establish stations and annex the country. Their encroach- 

 ments were resisted by the Nabahani, who waged a long conflict with the Portuguese for 

 mastery along the coast. In this struggle the Arabs were continually reinforced by fresh 

 arrivals from Arabia, and the new-comers settled in" the country. In process of time the 

 Arabs intermarried with the coast Negroes, and their offspring formed the Suahili race. The 

 Negro element was much the larger, and was represented by so many different tribes that 

 the Suahili do not form a homogeneous people. The one important element of union is the 

 language, which is the lingua franca of Equatorial Africa, is known by members of most 

 of the inland tribes, and is intelligible to the Bantu peoples as far west as the Congo Basin. 

 It is probably the most important of the Bantu languages, and a few words may be devoted 



to it as a type of the group. The first character 

 that strikes a European is that the beginning of the 

 word is altered in declension instead of the end. 

 Thus the words ngema, jema, wema, vyema, etc., are 

 all different forms of the word for " good." Similarly 

 the present, past, and future tenses of the verb " to 

 get" are mapata, napata, and tapata. A "man" 

 is mtu'y the plural "men" is watu. The second 

 feature of the language is the " concord," according 

 to which all the variable parts of speech in a sen- 

 tence are modified by the adoption of a prefix similar 

 to that of the noun. A third character is the com- 

 bination of several words into one, so that a short 

 sentence may be fused into a single word, as in the 

 Suahili riddle Hausimikihausimami. 



The Suahili are Mohammedans; but they are 

 very tolerant, and one of their proverbs asserts that 

 a useful infidel is better than a useless believer. 



The headquarters of the Suahili are the coast 

 towns, including Zanzibar, Bagamoyo, Dar-es- Salaam, 

 Mombasa, Lamu, and Melindi, and on the Somali coast 

 Kismayu and Mogadoxo. The better-class Suahili 

 are merchants, and it is they who are mainly 

 responsible for the slave-raids in Eastern Tropical 

 Africa south of the Equator. 



THE WAGIRYAMA. 



As an example of the primitive East African 

 coast tribes we may take the Wagiryama, who live 

 in the hilly uplands between Mombasa and the 

 Sabaki. As a race they are tall and slim, but 

 strong. They are agriculturists and not at all war- 

 Photo by tor. Ernest Gedge] {Lndtorongi, . like, and until recently had to leave their best lands 



Y'SUK WARRIOR, KARANIOJO. until , ed> flg 



