408 



THE WA SA WA HI LI. 



plied to them by the northern Moslems. It is 

 given by El Makrizi to Zayla in Somaliland, 

 and by other writers to the Abyssinian ' Moors ; ' 

 vocatur quoque Jabarta, i. e. Regio Ardens. This 

 insititious race might be called Hamito-Semitic 

 if anywhere we could discern that the mythical 

 Ham, or his progeny, ever became negroes. 

 They are, as they confess themselves to be, 

 mulattos, descended from Asiatic settlers and 

 colonists, Arabs, and Persians of the Days of 

 Ignorance, who intermarried with the Wakafiri 

 or infidels. The author of the Natural History of 

 Man is correct in asserting their African origin, 

 but he under-estimates the amount of Asiatic 

 innervation. The traveller still witnesses the 

 process of breeding half-castes : Maskatis and 

 Baloch still trade to the coast harbours, and settle 

 as agriculturists in the maritime regions, whilst 

 the African element is maintained in the Island 

 by a steady importation of slave girls. The 

 Wasawahili differ in one essential point from 

 their congeners of mixed blood, Egyptian, Nubian, 

 Abyssinian, Galla, Dankali, Somal, and the 

 northern negroids ; these have not, those like the 

 Comoro men distinctly have, the negro effluvium, 

 they are the 'foumarts, not the civets,' of the 

 human race. 



