Introduction 



In the abundant populations — spared for a time, at any rate, 

 from the ghastly infection of sleeping sickness, because much 

 of their country rises above the levels affected by the tsetse 

 fly — may be seen the Negro peasantry and cultivators and 

 the aristocracy of tall, handsome Bahima or Batusi. This 

 superior caste is mainly of Negro race (when truth is told), 

 but is obviously descended from something that was not 

 Negro, once — ancient Egyptian, Gala, Somal, " Fuzzie-wuzzie," 

 from the north and north-east. These Hamitcs, who are 

 further remarkable for speaking the purest and most highly 

 developed Bantu languages, seem more especially to have 

 carried out an invasion of the Albertine Rift Valley between 

 western Uganda and the edge of the Congo Forest about 

 two thousand years ago ; and to have pushed their invasion 

 southward to the north end of Tanganyika, and in an attenu- 

 ated form both west and east of Tanganyika ; till, growing 

 ever more " negro " in physique (yet often retaining a fine 

 cast of countenance) they founded states north of Nyasa and 

 west of Tanganyika. They even pushed the influence of 

 their blood, intelligence, and mental vigour into the southern 

 part of the Congo basin — the land of Lunda — may even have 

 pushed on south till they brought some racial influence of 

 the Hamite in face-features and intelhgence to the southern 

 Bantu, and so survived here and there among the Herer6, 

 the Karana and the Zulu. 



But in Western Uganda, in Toro, Ankole, Ruanda, Karagwe 

 and Burundi, they still remain as a distinct and sovereign 

 caste. The hair is tightly crinkled but (when allowed to grow) 

 is long and abundant, and the facial features are not those of 

 the negro but of the handsome Gala, Somali, and Ancient 

 Egyptian. H. H. Johnston. 



XXXV 



