486 
THE KILIMA-NJABO EXPEDITION . 
be cited but for want of space) suggest a well- 
forested and well-watered country in West Central 
Africa as the original abode of the Bantu race. The 
grey parrot, for instance, is found as far east as the 
Victoria Nyanza, and as far south, as Angola, but 
otherwise is confined to Western Africa. The leopard, 
elephant, apes, and monkeys mostly affect densely- 
wooded regions. The hippopotamus only inhabits 
big rivers or lakes. The buffalo is rarely found west¬ 
ward of the Niger. On the other hand the lion, 
giraffe, rhinoceros, zebra, or ostrich decidedly prefer 
the sparsely-wooded steppes and savannahs of Eastern 
and Southern Africa; so that, on the whole, we may 
conclude that the primitive Bantu being unacquainted 
with them, and knowing other creatures (such as the 
grey parrot) confined to the forested districts of Wes¬ 
tern Central Africa, there bad his primaeval home, and 
thence started on his career of conquest and coloniza¬ 
tion over Western, Southern, and Eastern Africa. 
From the fact that there is a common name for 
“ ox ” ( hgombe , inkomho , inhomo , omo, nornbe) through¬ 
out nearly all the Bantu languages, we may safely 
infer that cattle-keeping was a feature of the primitive 
life of the race, and also that they were agriculturists, 
because the terms applied to various implements for 
tilling the soil, to a ploughing,” “ digging,” u sowing,” 
cc reaping,” are retained, very little altered, by some 
of their remotest descendants. We may gather from 
the same reasons that besides the ox they possessed 
other domestic animals, namely, the goat, possibly the 
sheep, the dog, the pig, 6 and the fowl. Of the present 
6 The word for pig is as widespread as that for ox. I have tried to 
show in my book on the Congo that the pig was domesticated in 
Africa long before its introduction by the Portuguese, 
