HISTORY 
55 
of the African continent, some 2000 to 3000 years ago, they carried with them 
such culture, domestic animals, and cultivated plants as they had derived 
indirectly from Egypt. I should think that in Nyasaland and along the shores 
of Lake Tanganyika, the history of negro culture has been retrograde, until 
the coming of the Arab and the European. In one or two places on the shores 
of Lake Nyasa old pottery has been dug up at a considerable depth below the 
surface, with trees of great girth and age growing over these remains. The 
pottery has been found imbedded in the sand of an ancient shore-line of 
Nyasa, now covered by about 5 feet of humus, in which baobab trees are 
strongly rooted. From the approximate age of the trees, and the time it 
should have taken to accumulate this vegetable soil, some of this pottery must 
have been 500 or 600 years old. One large pot thus found has been deposited 
by me in the British Museum. These few remains exhibit evidences of greater 
skill and taste than is shown by the pottery at the present time in the same 
districts. Researches founded on the study of languages, of religions, of 
traditions, and on the records of Portuguese explorers in West Africa, would 
also seem to show that in Western Africa many of the negro States were in 
a far higher state of culture 500 years ago than they are now. 
The line of the migration of the Bantu negroes in British Central Africa 
will be treated of in Chapter XI., which describes their languages. It will be 
.sufficient to say, as regards history, that we may presume them to have entered 
into possession of these countries—driving out or absorbing the antecedent 
Bushman race—about 1000 years ago. 
With the doubtful exception of the visit of an occasional Arab slave 
dealer, they had no contact with the outer world until the arrival of the 
Portuguese on the East Coast of Africa, which is the first definite landmark 
in the history of this portion of the continent. Vasco da Gama, after rounding 
the Cape of Good Hope in 1495, stopped at the Arab settlements of Sofala 
(near the modern Beira) and Mozambique, and thence passed onwards to 
Malindi (near Mombasa) and India. On his return from India he further 
explored the South-east Coast of Africa, and (probably from information 
given by Arab pilots) entered with his little fleet the Quelimane River, 1 which 
was connected intermittently with the main Zambezi, and which, until the other 
day, was thought to be the only certain means of reaching the Zambezi above 
its delta. This river he called the “ Rio dos Bons Signaes,” or the “ River of 
Good Indications.” The name “Quelimane,” which he applied to a small 
village 12 miles inland from the mouth of the river (the origin of the now 
important town of Quelimane, the capital of Portuguese Zambezia) is stated 
by the Portuguese to have the following etymology. This village belonged 
to a certain individual who acted as interpreter between the Portuguese and 
the natives. He appears to have been an Arab, or a half Arab. In those 
days Portuguese navigators seem to have been acquainted with Arabic, a 
language which probably still lingered in the southern part of Portugal, where 
Moorish kingdoms existed till the twelfth century. The name which the 
Portuguese applied to this individual was “ Quelimane” (pronounced Keliman). 
Now in the corrupt Coast Arabic “ Kaliman ” is the word for “Interpreter.” 2 
Consequently the name of the modern town Quelimane 3 is simply derived 
1 On Jan. 22nd, 1498. 2 In Swahili this becomes Mkalimani. 
:1 I have taken the opportunity to give this bit of etymology as there has long been a misapprehension 
as to the correct spelling of Quelimane, which was thought wrongly to be derived from “ Kilimani,” 
which means in Swahili “ on the hill.” But there is no hill within eighty miles of Quelimane. The true 
native name of this place is “ Chuabo.” 
MUSEUM OF AFRICAN ART 
318-A STREET, NORTHEAST 
WASHINGTON, D C. 20002 
