484 
TIIE KILIMA-NJABO EXPEDITION. 
its primal home. Yet the era of the domestication of 
Galius Banhiva is not a very remote one, as far as we 
can ascertain, even in Malacca and Indo-China, its 
original habitat. Hindostan seems to have known it 
as a domesticated bird about 2000 years b.g., China 
about 1200 b.o., and the Polynesians possibly carried 
it with them when they started about two thousand 
years ago to colonize the Pacific Archipelagoes. From 
India it spread to Persia, and the Persians made it 
known to the Greeks about 1000 b.c. Aristophanes 
called it the “ Persian bird.” It was not known to 
the Romans till much later, and the Ancient Jews 
ignored it till long after the Babylonian captivity. 
It was introduced into Egypt, as far as we can tell, 
during the early part of the Ptolemic rule. Down the 
Nile it quickly spread to the negro and negroid in¬ 
habitants—as quickly as turkeys, Muscovy ducks, pine¬ 
apples, manioc, Indian corn, and other American pro¬ 
ducts have penetrated to the heart of Africa during 
the last two centuries—and thus probably reached the 
ancestors of the Bantu race not more than some two 
thousand years ago. Even yet there are many parts 
of Africa where the fowl is not known, such as in 
Masai-land and in some parts of South and West Africa. 
The Bushmen have it not. Moreover, the fact that 
there is such an absence of special varieties and peculiar 
breeds seems to suggest that the fowl in Africa has 
not yet had time to depart in any marked manner from 
the original stock. 5 
By studying the comparative vocabularies of the 
5 I fancy some may be inclined to suggest that the fowl may have 
been introduced at an earlier date into Africa by way of Madagascar, 
and that the Malay invaders of that island might well have brought 
it with them from the Indian Archipelago. Apart from the fact that 
we can discover no introduction of any animal or plant in a doinesti- 
