THE WAZARAMO. 



107 



and savage grandeur with which the student of occidental 

 Africa is familiar. But its ethnography has novelties : 

 it exposes strange manners and customs, its Fetichism is 

 in itself a wonder, its commerce deserves attention, and 

 its social state is full of mournful interest. The fas- 

 tidiousness of the age, however, forbidding ampler de- 

 tails, even under the veil of the " learned languages," 

 cripples the physiologist, and robs the subject of its 

 principal peculiarities. I have often regretted that if 

 Greek and clog-Latin be no longer a sufficient disguise 

 for the facts of natural history, human and bestial, the 

 learned have not favoured us with a system of symbols 

 which might do away with the grossness of words. 



The present tenants of the First Region are the 

 Wazaramo, the Wak'hutu, and their great sub-tribe, the 

 Waziraha; these form the staple of population, — the 

 Wadoe and the Wazegura being minor and immigrant 

 tribes. 



The Wazaramo are no exception to the rule of barba- 

 rian maritime races : they have, like the Somal, the 

 Gallas, the Wangindo, the Wamakua, and the Cape Kafirs, 

 come into contact with a civilisation sufficiently powerful 

 to corrupt without subjugating them ; and though culti- 

 vators of the ground, they are more dreaded by caravans 

 than any tribe from the coast to the Lake Region. They 

 are bounded eastward by the thin line of Moslems in the 

 maritime regions, westward by the Wak'hutu, northward 

 by the Kingani River, and on the south by the tribes of 

 the Rufiji. The Wazaramo, or, as they often pronounce 

 their own name, Wazalamo, claim connection with the 

 semi-nomacle Wakamba, who have, within the last few 

 years, migrated to the north-west of Mombasah. Their 

 dialect, however, proves them to be congeners of 

 the Wak'hutu, and distinct from the Wakamba. As in 



