324 



NA TURE 



\^Fcb. 4, 1886 



the expedition ; iMr. F. D. Godman who classifies sixty- 

 one specimens of Lepidoptera, including at least three new- 

 species ; Charles O. Waterhouse, by whom examples of 

 fifty-six Coleoptera are similarly treated ; Captain G. E. 

 Shelley, who jointly with the author gives a descriptive 

 catalogue of fifty species of birds, of which six are new to 

 science, collected or observed in the district ; Mr. E. J. 

 Miers, who describes a new variety of river-crab of the 

 genus Thelphusa doubtfully assigned to the species 

 r. dcpyessa, Krauss. 



But of all the scientific papers by far the most impor- 

 tant are the two chapters contributed by Mr. Johnston 

 himself on the anthropology and phiiolgoy of the Kilima- 

 Njaro district, or rather of all the East Central African 

 region lying between the great lakes and the Indian 

 Ocean. Measured by a pecuniary standard, it is not too 

 much to say that these two monographs alone are fuIK 

 worth the 1000/. granted by the British Association and 

 Royal Society for the purposes of the expedition. Besides 

 a graphic account of the Bantu and Masai peoples, whose 

 respective domains are conterminous, or overlap each 

 other in this part of the continent, we have here a general 

 disquisition on their mutual ethnical and linguistK 



Fig. 2. — Scnecio JohftstoTii. 



relations, which fills up at least one great gap in the field 

 of African anthropology. The mystery hitherto surround- 

 ing the Masai race is at last largely dissipated, and we 

 are now enabled with some confidence to assign them 

 their true place in the African family. A careful com- 

 parative study of their language and physical type clearly 

 shows that their affinities are to be sought amongst the 

 Negro or Negroid peoples of the White Nile, and more 

 particularly the warlike Bari nation of the Gondokoro 

 district. From this basin they appear to have gradually 

 spread in comparatively recent times south-eastwards 

 between the Victoria Nyanza and the coast, encroaching 

 to the east on the Hamitic Gallas, to the south on the 

 Wa-taita, the Wa-chaga, and other outlying branches of 

 the Bantu family. The annexed graphic illustration of 

 a Masai warrior (Fig. 3) betrays some unmistakable 

 Negro features, especially in the short nose, broad nostrils, 

 and thick lips standing wide apart. On the other hand, 

 the close relationship of the Masai and Bari languages is 

 here clearly established, one of the most striking features 

 common to both being true grammaiical gender, as indeed 

 had already been pointed out by Lepsius in his Nubian 

 Grammar. Masai must consequently now be separated 



from the Nuba group, as the Nuba has already been 

 separated from the Fulah of Western Sudan ; and thus 

 there is at last an end of Friedrich Miiller's " Nuba- 

 Fulah family," which has hithei-to figured so largely in 

 treatises on African philology. Its place is taken in East 

 Central Africa by the Bari-Masai group, which Mr. 

 Johnston now proposes to constitute, and which includes, 

 as intervening members, Latuka certainly, Lango, Suk, 

 and Samburu more doubtfully. 



3.— .A. ^^ 



It will be seen that the rich linguistic data here brought 

 together cannot be neglected by the future student of 

 African philology. The patience and ingenuity expended 

 in the collection of this material is aptly illustrated in the 

 account given of a hunt after a single grammatical ele- 

 ment of the Ki-Chaga language current throughout the 

 southern districts of Kilima-Njaro. The object is to 

 determine the exact form of the eighth pronominal prefix 



