724 BANTU NEGEOES 



include all the tiilies speaking nearly allied Bantu dialects between the 

 north-west corner of ^Mount Elgon on the north and the Geruian frontier 

 on the east coast of Lake Victoria Nyanza on the south. As will be 

 pointed out in the next chapter, the best general name for the Nilotic 

 people who dwell in a part of the Kavirondo country is that suggested by 

 Mr. Hohley— ■• Ja-luo." 



The dialects (divided into three distinct groups) spoken by the people 

 whom I group together as Kavirondo are not only Bantu, but are in some 

 respects more archaic even than Luganda and Urunyoro. The group of 

 dialects spoken by the degraded and simian-Hke Negroes on the western flanks 

 of Blount Elgon may perhajis claim to be the nearest living approach to the 

 original Bantu mother-tongue, though the Lukonjo of Euwenzori, Luganda, 

 and Kunyoro come very near to the same exalted position. The Masaba * 

 peojile-of West Elgon, who speak this extremely archaic Bantu language, 

 represent a little enclave of Bantu-speaking people (the Bapobo, Bangoko,. 

 Bakonde, Bagesu, Basokwia, and Bosia), surrounded by tribes of a totally 

 different physique and language, though their Kavirondo brethren to the 

 south are not more than thirty or forty miles distant. They are perhaps 

 the wildest people to he found anywhere within the limits of the Uganda 

 Protectorate. They are wilder even than the Congo Dwarfs. Quite recently 

 they were brought under -subjection to some extent by an Luganda chief 

 who was employed to restore order in, the country between the Victoria. 

 Nile and Elgon, but even still there remains a section of this people 

 dwelling high up (at altitudes, perhaps, of 7,000 and 8,000 feet) on the 

 ridges surrounding the central crater of Elgon wliich in all probability 

 has never seen a European, and who would- display hostility towards him 

 or any other stranger who came within its reach-; 



Directly the present writer saw these Masaba folk he was struck with 

 the low and apish appearance that malny of them presented. Here and 

 there one distinguished amongst them the square-headed, better-looking type 

 of Nandi physiognomy, due, no doubt, to refugees from Nandi-speaking- 

 countries having settled among these savages ; but ordinarily the Masaba. 

 people bear a strong resemblance to the Pygmy-Prognathous group on the 

 western limits of- Uganda. Some who were seen, but who unfortunately 

 could not be photographed, gave considerable justification to the employment 

 of the term "ape-like men.'' They had strongly projecting superciliary 

 arches, low brows, flat noses, long upper lips, and receding chins — stumpy 

 individuals irresistibly recalling the Congo Dwarfs^- liaving the same flat 

 noses, bulging nostrils, and long upper lips. There Svas nothing istbotit these- 



* They do not themselves recognise this-name, -which is one applied to them by 

 the Baganda, and is a convenient general term for a group of wild mountain tribes, 

 that have no general designation of their own. 



