482 
THE KILIMA-NJABO EXPEDITION. 
and become split up into many separate dialects. Yet 
it is probable that some centuries ago the Masai were 
only a small section of a Nilotic race which adverse 
circumstances drove from its original home, and forced 
farther and farther south, the Masai all the time 
developing their fighting qualities, first to save them¬ 
selves from extinction, and then in turn to pursue a 
successful policy of rapine and dominion. Such, in all 
likelihood, were the origin and history of the spread 
of the Bantu race and language. It is quite possible 
that before their advent the southern half of Africa 
was sparsely populated, perhaps by a low type of 
negro in the north and west, and Hottentots, Bush¬ 
men, and Pigmies in the south and centre. The in¬ 
vading Bantu carried all before him in the early days 
of his invasion, and was probably little but a fighting- 
man, as is the Masai at the present day. In the west, 
however, he was stopped—choked, one might almost 
say—by the dense negro population, and in the south¬ 
west by the Hottentots, who were probably driven to 
bay in this corner of the continent. In the centre of 
Africa the race and language of the Bantu people are 
purest to this day, probably from the much less inter¬ 
mixture which took place between them and any pre¬ 
vious inhabitants. Judged by his purest types—the 
inhabitants of the great lakes and the Congo basin— 
the Bantu was probably a red race in its origin. 
Intermixture with Hottentots has given the Zulus a 
yellowish tinge, and clicks in their language, and the 
fusing of Bantu and Negro on the west coast has 
debased the character of the speech and deepened the 
colour of the skin. 
Taking into consideration the fact that the un¬ 
written languages of a savage people vary with 
