slave-holding (there is no genuine Giryama word for ‘ slave,
although the institution itself exists in a mild form), and uncommercial
; confined as to habitat; republican in institutions,,
conservative of manners, customs, and the Bantu religion (the
worship of ancestors, and the belief in a God) ; destitute of
literature, but handing down its legends with literal accuracy
of expression and detail— it has apparently preserved its
purity of language and lineage up to the present time. The
other is, in these respects, what it might be expected to be
from its character and accidents—a seafaring, barterrloving
race of slave-holders and slave-traders, strewn in a thin line
along a thousand miles of creeks and islands ; inhabitants of
a coast that has witnessed incessant political changes (including
invasions, and civil wars), and a succession of (often
foreign) monarchical dynasties in various, usually multiple,
centres ; receiving into their midst for ages past a continuous
stream of strange blood, consisting not only of serviles from
the interior but of immigrants from Persia, Arabia, and
Western India, men that have come to live, and often to die,
as resident aliens, leaving in many cases a hybrid progeny ;
while of the one section of these immigrants— the Arabs— the
religion has become the master-religion of the land, overspreading,
if not entirely supplanting, the old Bantu ancestor-
ship, and profoundly affecting the whole of the family life ;
and at the same time, owing to that religion imposing the
daily use in its numerous observances and ceremonies of a
tongue I not understanded of the people,’ no less profoundly
affecting the native vocabulary and idiom. This latter is
perhaps the greatest of all the disturbing influences enumerated
above; for example, we find that the original native expressions
in such departments as Prayer, Blessing, Ejaculations,
Salutations, etc., have either vanished or become obsolete, or
are being gradually ousted, their places being occupied by the
stereotyped Arabic expressions common to Islam. The
language of the one people is a fund of native roots with a
' i “ And here we may mention the result of the successive Portuguese
occupations, dating from i Soo to 1750 ; they have left their mark behind
them in this respect also, for some of the tribes’ of Mombasa lay claim
Portuguese descent.”
living and elastic apparatus of prefixes, etc., by the intelligent
use of which new ideas can be expressed in native forms
without the introduction of new words from outside sources.
The language of the other is a tongue originally constructed
out of similar material and upon identical principles; but, so
to speak, some of its joints have become stiff for want of use;
parts of its body have mortified and dropped off, their places
taken by artificial limbs; and its life-blood is in danger of
being poisoned by the bad air of its surroundings.” 1
1 For further information, see Appendix A.