TRANSACTIONS OF THE SECTIONS. 185 



at not more tlian 2000 feet. It is now found that at Gondokoro, in 4° 44' N. lat., 

 the elevation of the bed of the Nile is only 1911 feet. On the other hand, the 

 mountain-range of Eastern Africa, forming the anticlinal axis between the ocean 

 and the basin of the Nile, which in 1846 could only be traced as far as 9° 30' N. 

 lat., may now be regarded as extending beyond the sixth parallel of south latitude, 

 in a line running from N.N.E. to S.S.W. between the 40th and 35th meridians. 



It was next stated that the snowy moimtains, Kilimandjaro, Kenia, and Doengo- 

 Engai, which in 1846 were unkno'mi, are portions of this mountain-i-ange of East- 

 em Africa, to which Dr. Beke attributes the name of the "Mountains of the Moon," 

 the snows of which are described by Ptolemy as flo-n-ing into the two lakes of the 

 Nile — the lakes intended being Tanganjoka and Nyanza, recently discovered by 

 Captains Biu^on and Speke. 



With reference to the derivation of the designation " Mountains of the Moon " 

 from the name of the countrj^, U-Nyamwezi, in the vicinity of those lakes, the 

 author showed in the first place how the Indian name of the island of Java — Java- 

 dvipa — was ti-anslated into Greek KpiBris vija-os or Barlvy Island, just as the Latin 

 name of the Etruscan citj^ and port of Lima was translated '2iKr)vr) ; though there 

 is reason for belieraig that such significations did not belong to the words Java 

 and Luna in their respective aboriginal languages, but were merely mistransla- 

 tions, or rather misapprehensions, by the Indian conquerors of Java in the one 

 case, and by the Romans in the other. In the same way, the native African name 

 U-Nyamwezi, having become known to the Greeks through the Sawahilis, or people 

 of the coast, in whose language mivezi means moon, may have been supposed to 

 have some connexion with the name of that planet. 



Dr. Beke argued, however, that Mwezi, as a component part of the name U-Nya- 

 mwezi, does not necessarily mean moo7i in the aboriginal language of the countiy. 

 All the Kafir tongues have certain prefixes, distinguishing singulars from plurals, 

 adjectives from substantives, and one kind of substantive from another. Thus Ki- 

 Nyamwezi is the language spoken by the Wa-Nyamwczi, which people dwell in the 

 country called U-Nyamwezi, one of them being a M'Nyamwezi or Mu-Nyamwezi 

 (whence our " Monomoezi "). 



It appeai-s then that the root is not 3Iwezi, but Nymmcezi ; and though it may 

 be that the natives themselves never use the root without some prefix, strangers 

 might not imreasonably do so, and even contract Nyamtcezi into Micezi, as the 

 Sawahilis and Arabs, according to Captain Burton, actually do ; and fi-om this con- 

 traction, the translation into the Greek Selene would have' followed as a matter of 

 coiurse. 



What the theoretical root may mean in the Nyamwezi language has yet to be 

 ascertained. Meanwhile the rendering of U-Nyamwezi into " Possession of the 

 Moon," or " Land of the Moon," may Avell be questioned. Should it prove to be 

 erroneous, the designation "Moimtains of Me Moon," as applied to the great moun- 

 tain-range of Eastern Africa in which are the sources of the Nile, will have origi- 

 nated in a mistranslation or misconception. Still, this well-known name has been 

 in use during so many ages, that it could hardly be practicable, and certainly would 

 not be judicious, to supersede it now. 



The paper concluded thus : — " The entire eastern side of the basin of the Nile 

 appears to be amiferous, the gold collected in various parts of it since the earliest 

 ages being brought down by the tributaries of that river ; so that there is reason 

 to consider the Moimtains of the Moon as a meridional metalliferous cordiUera, 

 similar in its general characters to the Ural and the con-esponding moimtain-ranges 



of America and Australia Whenever the discovery shall be made in Eastern 



Africa of some of the chief deposits of that precious metal, the influx fi-om all parts 

 of the civilized world to the ' diggings ' in the Mountains of the Moon will be such 

 as to occasion a more rapid and complete revolution in the social condition of those 

 hitherto neglected regions, than could be caused by commerce, by missionary labours, 

 by colonization, or by conquest ; as we have witnessed in other quarters of the globe, 

 where the auri sacra fames has collected together masses of the most daring 

 and energetic of human beings. We shall then, too, doubtless see in Eastern 

 Africa, as in California and in Australia, the formation of another new race of 

 mankind." 



