CHAPTER XII

SPEKE AND THE NILE QUEST

John Hanning Speke was born on May 27, 1827, at Orleigh Court, Bideford, North Devon. His father’s family had its seat in Somersetshire, near the pretty old town of Ilminster, and was of ancient descent. The name was spelled L’Espec in Norman times, and apparently meant a spike or porcupine quill (the family crest was a porcupine).[53] Speke’s mother was a Miss Hanning of Dillington Park, also in Somerset. He was one of four sons, and had several sisters. As his father (Mr. William Speke), after he came into the family place of Jordans near Ilminster, had two church livings to dispose of, he was desirous that two at least of his sons might be brought up to the Church. John Hanning and Edward Speke (who was killed at Delhi) declined such a career, however, and wished to go into the army. Speke was a restless boy, who detested school, declaring that a sedentary life made him ill. Whenever he could escape from his masters, he was always out in the woods and on the heaths, displaying a great devotion to natural history and sport.

When only seventeen his mother, who was acquainted with the Duke of Wellington, obtained for her two sons, John and Edward, commissions in the Indian army. The Duke asked to see the boys, and congratulated their mother on two such fine young fellows coming forward for service in India. Edward Speke, as already mentioned, was killed during the Indian mutiny at the siege of Delhi. John Hanning Speke himself, between the ages of seventeen and twenty-two, had seen a good deal of military service in India, and took part in the last Sikh war, having been at the battles of Ramnagar, Sedulapur, Chilianwala, and Guzerat.

In 1849 he first entertained the idea of exploring equatorial Africa. Prior to this date he had shot a great deal in India, and subsequently explored southwestern Tibet. His first interest in Africa lay in the possibility of amassing magnificent zoölogical collections to illustrate the fauna of that wide stretch of country which lay between South Africa and Abyssinia. He wished to supplement the researches of Rüppell on the northeast and of Harris, Gordon Cumming, and others in the far south. Even at that date Speke desired to land at some point on the East African coast, and strike across to the Nile, descending the Nile to Egypt with his zoölogical collections.

[Illustration: JOHN HANNING SPEKE.

At the age of 17, on first receiving his commission in the Indian Army.]

He obtained furlough in the autumn of 1854, and proceeded to Aden with the intention of landing on the opposite coast of Somaliland. Arrived at Aden, his plans met with stubborn opposition from Colonel Sir James Outram, the Resident, who not only opposed Speke’s journeys, but even those which were officially ordered by the Bombay government to be conducted by Richard Burton. But the Bombay government, in regard to the latter plan, insisted on Sir James Outram withdrawing his opposition. Sir James Outram then attached Speke to this expedition, knowing him to be a good surveyor. Speke had in fact mapped a good deal of southwestern Tibet, and was thoroughly at home with the sextant. The results of this venture have been described in the preceding chapter. The Somali expedition led to Speke’s accompanying Burton in 1857.

Speke returned to England alone on the 8th of May, 1859. The day after his arrival Sir Roderick Murchison, President of the Royal Geographical Society, decided that Speke was to be sent back as soon as possible to substantiate his discovery of the Victoria Nyanza, and to ascertain its connection with the Nile system. But although funds were soon secured by public subscription, it was deemed advisable by Speke that the new expedition should not start for nearly a year. Captain James Augustus Grant, who had shot with Speke in India, begged leave to accompany him as his lieutenant.

[Illustration: BURTON’S IDEA OF THE NILE SOURCES, DEC. 1864.]

Burton returned to England in 1859, somewhat chagrined to hear of the enthusiasm with which Speke’s discovery of the Victoria Nyanza had been received,--an enthusiasm which to some extent had put the revelation of Lake Tanganyika in the shade. Burton nevertheless was awarded, in 1860, the Gold Medal of the Royal Geographical Society, and in returning thanks for this honour, he uttered a handsome acknowledgment of Speke’s services as surveyor on this expedition to the great lakes. But the two men were evidently on bad terms, and though the fault of their disaccord may have lain with Burton’s conduct, the world knew of it first through the writings of Speke in “Blackwood’s Magazine,” and later (in 1864) in the republication of these Blackwood articles with additions under the title of “What Led to the Discovery of the Source of the Nile.” In these works Speke makes certain stinging references to Burton. So far as an impartial verdict can be arrived at, Speke in all probability spoke the truth; but he was perhaps unduly hard on his companion, for whom he had evidently a great personal dislike and some degree of contempt. In some respects Speke’s own education had been defective (at least, we are told that he was so much of a truant as to receive but little schooling before going to India). He may, therefore, have been unable to appreciate to the full Burton’s undoubted talents. Yet again, in reading Speke’s books it would occur to no one to say that he was deficient in education. He had become an admirable geographer, a keen naturalist; and whether his writing was or was not without grace of style, it was certainly pithy and to the point. His great book, the “Discovery of the Source of the Nile,” is good reading all through, and strikes one who, like the present writer, has been over much of the same ground, as being singularly truthful. It is as good a book as any that Burton himself ever wrote on Africa, not excepting even the excellent “Lake Regions.” Speke was a fine figure of a man,--tall and handsome in an English style, with blue eyes and a brown beard. There is no doubt that he impressed the natives favourably wherever he went as being a man and a gentleman. Yet there was a little hardness in his disposition, something pitiless in his criticisms of Burton. Burton’s own attacks on Speke scarcely appeared in a public form until four years after Speke had returned to Africa. They were angry, and somewhat clumsy, but not so incisive as Speke’s criticisms of Burton. Burton’s chief revenge lay in endeavouring for many years to prove that Speke had made no very great discovery; that his Victoria Nyanza was not the greatest lake in Africa and the main source of the Nile, but a network of swamps and lakelets. Burton hailed with delight Sir Samuel Baker’s description of the Albert Nyanza as being the ultimate origin of the White Nile. To meet this view he, against his own convictions, tried to make the Rusizi River flow out of the north end of Tanganyika instead of flowing into that lake, in the hope that Tanganyika was thus connected with Lake Albert,--a fact which, if proved, would dwarf the discovery of the Victoria Nyanza into insignificance. To this end he published a map, and endeavoured to persuade every geographer who would listen to him that the Victoria Nyanza was more than half a myth, and that its contribution to the Nile waters was insignificant compared to the supply received from the western chain of lakes.

Speke’s character was that of many an officer in the British army. Though his family claimed Norman descent, his physique was emphatically Anglo-Saxon. Born almost without fear, he had perhaps too ready a contempt for others of weaker nerve who could better weigh the chances of danger and the counsels of prudence. Speke was a splendid shot, and accurate in those astronomical observations necessary to the determination of geographical positions. He had a good knowledge of Hindustani,[54] but not that great readiness in picking up languages which was Burton’s forte. Yet he was perfectly honest about this, as about every talent which he possessed or lacked. On the other hand, his great dislike of Burton sometimes made him unjust in denying to his companion the qualities of mind he really possessed. Burton’s _résumé_ of ethnological information concerning the East African tribes from the Zanzibar coast to Uganda and the shores of Tanganyika is masterly, and due to the most careful note-taking. It may not, perhaps, be out of place if I quote a few lines from a letter written by Sir Samuel Baker to a correspondent:[55]--

“Speke comes first as a geographer and African explorer. He was superior to Burton as a painstaking, determined traveller, who worked out his object for the real love of geographical research, without the slightest jealousy of others.... But Burton excelled Speke in cleverness and general information, though he was not so reliable. Speke was a splendid fellow in every way.... Grant (his companion) was one of the most loyal and charming creatures in the world. Perfectly unselfish, he adored Speke, and throughout his life he maintained an attitude of chivalrous defence of Speke’s reputation.... They were all friends of mine.”

There is little doubt that Burton, who had displayed such cool courage on his journey to Mecca, had received a shock over the Somali attack on his camp in 1854, from which he never wholly recovered. His proceedings in connection with the Tanganyika journey were marked by something approaching timidity. It is probable that had Speke been in command of this expedition much more would have been done than was actually accomplished. Feeling this very strongly, and realising that he had contributed a good deal of his private funds to the resources of this and the preceding Somali expedition, Speke considered himself quite justified in hurrying home with the news of the expedition’s discoveries, the more so because Burton had snubbed him for his pains in connection with the Victoria Nyanza. I do not think it can be said that he ever treated Burton unfairly, but there was perhaps in his behaviour a touch of hardness and a lack of generosity. He heartily disliked Burton, and that was the reason.

[Illustration: JAMES AUGUSTUS GRANT.]

In James Augustus Grant (as is indicated by the quotation from Sir Samuel Baker’s letter) Speke had found a companion after his own heart. Grant was a handsome Scotchman of the “Iberian” type,--black hair, dark eyes, dark eyebrows, clear complexion. In later life the hair and the beard turned white, but the face remained singularly youthful. Of Grant Sir Samuel Baker writes: “He was the most unselfish man I ever met; amiable and gentle to a degree that might to a stranger denote weakness, but, on the contrary, no man could be more determined in character or unrelenting when once he was offended.” Grant, like Speke, was a sportsman; he was also--in a somewhat uninstructed way--a zoölogist and a botanist. The botany of Africa, in fact, was his principal hobby. He painted cleverly in water-colours, and did more than anybody else, down to a quite recent date, to put before our eyes some idea of the beautiful coloration of African wild flowers. He published at his own expense, through the Linnæan Society, three volumes illustrating the more notable features of his botanical collections. Although most of these flowers were drawn for him by scientific draughtsmen, his own sketches supplied the means for an accurate coloration which could no longer be ascertained from the dried specimens. In this particular Grant has made an important contribution to African research.

Before leaving England Speke made arrangements, through the British consul at Zanzibar, to send on an instalment of porters and property to Unyamwezi, intending to follow his old route to the Victoria Nyanza. The Indian government, which has often done so much to assist the opening up or the settlement of eastern Africa, gave to Speke’s expedition fifty carbines and twenty thousand rounds of ammunition, and lent him as many surveying instruments as were required. The government of India also put at his disposal rich presents (gold watches) for such Arabs as had assisted him on the former expedition.

Petherick, whose explorations have been treated of in the previous chapter, had recently arrived in England from the Upper Nile, and had been promoted to be British Consul. Speke, before he left England, made arrangements with Petherick to place boats at his disposal at Gondokoro, and to send a party of men in the same direction to collect ivory and to wait about in the vicinity of Gondokoro in order to assist him when he should reach that part of the Nile. Petherick was also invited to ascend the Asua River (then thought to be a branch of the Nile instead of an affluent) in case it should be another means of communication with the Victoria Nyanza. Speke and Grant journeyed out by way of the Cape, and at Cape Town stayed for a while with the great Sir George Grey, who, taking the greatest interest in their undertaking, induced the Cape government to grant the sum of three hundred pounds to be spent in buying baggage mules. With these mules were sent ten Hottentot mounted police. From Cape Town the expedition was conveyed on a gunboat to Zanzibar. At the commencement of October, 1860, Speke’s expedition was organised, and he started for the interior. His expedition consisted of one corporal and nine privates of the Hottentot police; one jemadar and twenty-five privates of the Baluch soldiery of the Sultan of Zanzibar; one Arab caravan leader and seventy-five freed slaves; one kirongozi or guide and one hundred negro porters; two black valets, who had both been man-of-war’s men and could speak Hindustani; Frij, the black cook (also from a man-of-war), and the invaluable “Bombay,” who was interpreter and factotum. (The expedition took with it twelve transport mules and three donkeys, also twenty-two goats for milk and meat. The Hottentots soon broke down in health, and took to riding the donkeys, the mules being loaded with ammunition.) The white men, as a rule, had to walk. The Hottentots were sometimes useful as camp cooks, but they suffered so much from fever as to become a burden to the expedition.

[Illustration: A MNYAMWEZI PORTER.]

“My first occupation [writes Speke][56] was to map the country. This is done by timing the rate of march with a watch, making compass bearings along the road, or any conspicuous marks,--as, for instance, hills off it,--and by noting the watershed,--in short, all topographical objects. On arrival in camp every day came the ascertaining, by boiling-point thermometer, of the altitude of the station above the sea-level; of the latitude of the station by the meridian altitude of a star taken with a sextant; and of the compass variation by azimuth. Occasionally there was the fixing of certain crucial stations at intervals of sixty miles or so, by lunar observations ... for determining the longitude, by which the original-timed course can be drawn out with certainty on the map by proportion.... The rest of my work, besides sketching and keeping a diary, which was the most troublesome of all, consisted in making geological and zoölogical collections. With Captain Grant rested the botanical collections and thermometrical registers. He also undertook the photography. The rest of our day went in breakfasting after the march was over,--a pipe, to prepare us for rummaging the fields and villages to discover their contents for scientific purposes,--dinner close to sunset, and tea and a pipe before turning in at night.”

Speke noticed in Uzegura deposits of pisolitic limestone in which marine fossils are observable. He draws attention to the interesting fact that a limestone formation occurs with a few breaks almost continuously from the southwest coast of Portugal, through North Africa, Egypt, and part of the Somali country, across Arabia to eastern India.[57] In connection with this it may be mentioned as a point of great interest that Mr. C. W. Hobley (Sub-Commissioner in the East Africa Protectorate) discovered deposits of limestone in the Nyando valley, about forty miles from the northeast corner of the Victoria Nyanza.

Speke’s expedition travelled on with little trouble as far as Usagara. The complete harmony which existed at all times between Speke and Grant contributed much to the smoothness of the arrangements. At Usagara, however, they had trouble with one of their caravan leaders (Baraka). The Hottentots became increasingly sick and helpless, and Captain Grant was seriously ill with fever. However, they pushed on to that East Coast range of terraced mountains which is nowadays dotted with not a few mission and government stations. There is charming and fantastic scenery in these mountains, which rise in parts to an altitude of seven thousand feet. From Usagara were sent back some of the Hottentots, a collection of natural history specimens, and the camera. Speke had greatly desired to illustrate the scenery of equatorial Africa by means of photography,--a most serious undertaking in the sixties. Grant worked the apparatus, but was rendered so ill by the heat of the dark tent that Speke decided to abandon photography and to rely instead on his companion’s drawings.

Ugogo, which is a rolling plateau to the west of the Usagara range, gave the travellers some trouble. Here, as elsewhere, there was famine, owing to the scarcity of water and the incessant raids on the part of the Masai from the north or the Wahehe from the south. The Wagogo themselves are a truculent people, who have given serious annoyance to caravans during the last hundred years. They speak a Bantu language, but have very much more the physical aspect of the Nilotic tribes to the north, being, like them, very much addicted to nudity.[58] On the plains of Ugogo Grant killed the largest and handsomest of all the gazelles, which had henceforth borne his name.[59]

In Ugogo Speke also records the existence of that strange archaic type of dog, the _Otocyon_, a specimen of which he killed. On the western frontier of Ugogo the expedition was menaced with serious trouble. The rapacious native chief made increasing demands on them for taxes. A number of their porters deserted, and their Wanyamwezi carriers who had agreed to replace the missing men were scared away by the threats of the Wagogo. In addition, the rainy season had come on, and was unusually heavy, flooding the country in all directions. The expedition would have come to grief but for the game shot by its leaders, which kept the men from starvation. It was only got out of its difficulties at last by the friendly help of the Arabs of Unyamwezi, who sent seventy porters to the relief of the explorers. When Speke reached the borders of Unyamwezi and took stock of his position, he found that six of his Hottentots were dead or had been sent back to the coast in charge of several free porters, that twenty-five of the Sultan of Zanzibar’s slaves and ninety-eight of the original Wanyamwezi porters had deserted, all the mules and donkeys were dead, and half of his property had been stolen.

Unyamwezi, “the Land of the Moon,” is a remarkable part of eastern Africa. Practically it consists of nearly all the land lying between the Victoria Nyanza on the north and the vicinity of Lake Rukwa on the south. It is longer (from north to south) than it is broad. Prior to the German occupation it had ceased to be a single kingdom, and was divided into a number of small and mutually hostile states only united by the common bond of the Kinyamwezi language. This varies a good deal in dialect, though it has distinctive features of its own. In Usukuma to the north it offers more resemblance to the languages of the Uganda Protectorate; on the south it links on in some way with the languages of the Nyasa-Tanganyika plateau. How the country became associated with the moon is not known; for the most part of it is an undulating plateau, with occasional rift valleys that contain salt or fresh water pools. A great part of its drainage goes towards Tanganyika or Lake Rukwa. The language of its people is typically Bantu, but they would seem to be a very mixed race physically. Some of them have the ugly features of the Congo Pygmies; others again are strikingly like the Galas and the Bahima. The bulk of the nation consists of tall and very muscular Negroes, with thoroughly Negro features. They are celebrated as porters, being able to carry burdens twice as heavy as could be offered to any other carriers. They have also a keen instinct for trade, and it is supposed that, first of all Bantu nations of the East African interior, they opened up communications with the coast. There has been trade going on between the Zanzibar coast and Unyamwezi for at least five centuries,--a trade, however, which has been subject to prolonged interruptions. The Zanzibar Arabs did not settle in the country until a hundred years ago.

Conversing with the Arabs of Unyamwezi, Speke again heard from them of “a wonderful mountain to the northward of Karagwe[60] so high and steep that no one could ascend it. It was seldom visible, being up in the clouds, where white matter--snow or hail--fell on it.” The Arabs also spoke of the other lake, which was salt and also called Nyanza, but quite different from the Victoria.[61] From the Arabs Speke also heard of the naked Nile Negroes to the north and east of Unyoro, and of those of them (the Lango) who, like the Turkana farther east, wear their hair in enormous bags down the back. They told him that Lake Tanganyika was drained by the Marungu River.[62] Some of this knowledge Speke perverted to fit in with erroneous and preconceived notions. At this interval of time, however, one is surprised at the correctness of geographical information given to Burton, Speke, and Baker by the Arabs. One is still more surprised that the constant hints as to the great snow-mountain range of Ruwenzori should have so often fallen on deaf ears.

In Unyamwezi Speke’s further progress was much delayed, owing to the difficulty in getting porters. The country to the east from which he had come was convulsed with wars between the Arabs and the natives. In these wars figured, as a bandit leader of handsome appearance and remarkable adventures, the celebrated Manwa Sera, a dispossessed Unyamwezi chief. In the course of these wars Speke’s principal friends amongst the Arabs were killed or disappeared. Amongst them was the celebrated Snay, the first Arab to enter Uganda, and in fact the first non-Negro to convey the news of the existence of Uganda to the civilised world. On the northwest trouble was threatened by the warlike country of Usui, whose chief, Suwarora, blocked the way to Karagwe by his extortions. To the west and north also the country was being raided by the Watuta, a mysterious race of warlike nomads who were said to be of Zulu origin, and were, according to all accounts, the furthest extension of the great Zulu invasion of East Africa, which took place in the first half of the nineteenth century.

Speke attempted to recruit porters in the northern parts of Unyamwezi, but without success. He therefore returned to the headquarters of the Arabs at Kaze, and from this point sent back the last of the Hottentots to the coast. Speke, seeing that he could get no farther without bringing some order into the country, negotiated a peace between Manwa Sera and the Arabs. The peace with Manwa Sera broke down. Finally Speke decided to leave Bombay and Grant behind in northern Unyamwezi with the loads which it was impossible to transport. With such porters as he had he pushed on to the northwest and entered Buzinza, the first country ruled by Bahima chiefs.[63] Speke remarks rightly that specimens of this Hamitic (Gala) aristocracy extend from the south shores of the Victoria Nyanza southwards as far as the Fipa country and the edges of the Nyasa-Tanganyika Plateau. On pages 128 to 134 of his book[64] Speke gives an excellent description of the maddening extortions of a petty African chief. This behaviour on the chief’s part should be borne in mind when the armchair geographer is inclined to lay all the blame on the European and Arab for commencing wars with Negro tribes.

From February to October Speke had the most trying experiences which were to await him on this journey. He travelled backwards and forwards from Kaze to Uzinza, endeavouring in all possible ways to get porters to carry him to Usui. In these journeys he caught a severe cold, the effects of which lasted for months in a most distressing cough, and some disease of the chest which he could not diagnose. His caravans were robbed, though the goods were sometimes recovered. Several of his Swahili headmen turned traitors; Bombay alone was faithful. Grant, when he had recovered from fever, marched and countermarched. But Speke had fortunately managed months before to send on word of his coming to Suwarora, Chief of Usui, who himself was a vassal of Rumanika, the great Hima ruler of Karagwe. Suwarora sent an envoy with his mace to invite Speke to proceed at once to his court. This intervention made a good impression on the treacherous chief of Buzinza, Lumeresi. Much of the stolen property was recovered, and the expedition obtaining a few porters started for Usui in October, 1861.

Grant was left behind with such of the property as could not be removed. Speke, when he left Buzinza, “was a most miserable spectre in appearance, puffing and blowing at each step he took, with shoulders drooping and left arm hanging like a dead log, which he was unable to swing.” At last, after incredible worries and trouble, occasioned by the demands for “hongo” (tribute) on the part of every petty chief whose territories they crossed, they reached the large country of Usui or Busui at the southwest corner of the Victoria Nyanza. Usui is “a most convulsed looking country of well-rounded hills composed of sandstone.... Cattle were numerous, kept by the Wahuma (Bahima), who would not sell their milk to us because we ate fowls and a bean called _maharagwe_.” In Usui the caravan was incessantly worried at night by the attacks of thieves until one of these was killed, whereupon the Basui congratulated the expedition, saying that the slain man was a wonderful magician. “They thought us wonderful men, possessed of supernatural powers.” Suwarora and his fellow-chief Vikora were most exacting in their demands for hongo. At last, after heart-breaking delays, they got away out of Suwarora’s country.

Between Usui and Karagwe was one of those no man’s lands, which at times are such a relief to the harassed traveller,--a land in which he can enjoy the beauty of the landscapes, the excitement of sport in complete freedom from the harassing attentions of Negro tribes. In this lovely wilderness they were greeted by officers sent to their assistance by Rumanika, who said, “Rumanika has ordered us to bring you to his palace at once, and wherever you stop a day, the village officers are instructed to supply you with food at the King’s expense; for there are no taxes gathered from strangers in the Kingdom of Karagwe.” Speke noted the little lake of Urigi, and learned from the natives that this was the remains of a much larger sheet of water. They declared, in fact, that this lake had formerly extended far to the southwards in the direction of Tanganyika, having been at one time a considerable gulf of the Victoria Nyanza.

For the first time since leaving the coast they travelled day after day through beautiful and attractive scenery, in which rhinoceroses, both “white” and black, and herds of hartebeest mingled with the splendid long-horned cattle of the natives. Speke and Grant shot several square-lipped “white” rhinoceroses. (Stanley subsequently did the same in this country of Karagwe. Though it has since been shot on the Upper Nile, this creature is now becoming extinct in East Equatorial Africa.) “Leaving the valley of Uthenja, we rose over the spur of Nyamwara, and found we had attained the delightful altitude of five thousand feet. Oh, how we enjoyed it!--every one feeling so happy at the prospect of meeting the good king Rumanika. Rumanika the king and his brother Nyanaji were both of them men of noble appearance and size.... They had fine oval faces, large eyes, and high noses, denoting the best blood of Abyssinia. Having shaken hands in true English style, which is the peculiar custom of the men of this country, the ever-smiling Rumanika begged us to be seated on the ground opposite to him, and at once wished to know what we thought of Karagwe, for it had struck him his mountains were the finest in the world; and the lake, too, did we not admire it?”

[Illustration: A HIMA OF MPORORO, NEAR KARAGWE.]

Speke subsequently went to see the queens and princesses of this royal family, who, by means of a milk diet, were kept immoderately fat. Of one of them he writes: “She could not rise; and so large were her arms that between the joints the flesh hung down like large, stuffed puddings. Then in came their children, all models of the Abyssinian type of beauty, and as polite in their manners as thoroughbred gentlemen.”

Rumanika and his brothers received their presents with a graceful gratitude which was striking after the ill manners of the Negro chiefs in Unyamwezi and Usui. Rumanika begged Speke to remain a little while in his country so that he might send on word of his coming to the King of Uganda. Speke consented to do so, and when walking about the vicinity of the king’s capital, descried the distant cone of Mfumbiro. This he at once identified with the Mountains of the Moon and with the story of the snow-capped peaks. It is curious, seeing how friendly were all the Bahima, and what facilities were given to him for travelling about the country of Karagwe, that he made no attempt to enter Ruanda whilst waiting to go on to the north, and thus obtain a nearer acquaintance with the Mountains of the Moon. Had he done so, he might perchance have caught a glimpse of Ruwenzori. Grant’s drawing of Mfumbiro and other volcanoes (since explored by many travellers) is a truthful one.

In Rumanika’s country Speke discovered the water tragelaph which now bears his name (_Limnotragus spekei_). This creature has the hoofs very much prolonged, so as to enable it to walk on floating vegetation and marshy ground. Speke at once discerned that this creature was closely allied to the water tragelaph found by Livingstone on Lake Ngami.

[Illustration: SPEKE’S TRAGELAPH (_Limnotragus spekei_).]

The existence of this Bahima[65] aristocracy in the countries west and south of the Victoria Nyanza was not reported for the first time in Speke’s account of his second journey to the Victoria Nyanza. First of all, in the early fifties, the Zanzibar Arabs brought to the coast--either at Mombasa or Zanzibar--accounts of a race of “white” men who lived on the Mountains of the Moon. Burton, analysing these stories at Kaze in Unyamwezi, reduced them to accounts of Bahima, who were believed to have the features and complexion of Abyssinians. Speke’s arrival in Buzinza and Karagwe made us partially acquainted with the facts. We now know that at some relatively remote period not less than two thousand years ago the lands between the Victoria and Albert Nyanzas were invaded from the northeast by a Caucasian race allied to the Gala and the Egyptian. These ancestors of the Bahima mingled to some extent with the indigenous Negroes, and so somewhat darkened the colour of their skins and acquired hair more like the Negro’s wool. This pastoral people brought with them herds of cattle from the direction of Abyssinia or Galaland,--cattle with enormous horns, sometimes over three feet in length. This breed of cattle is found at the present day in southern and western Abyssinia. It is also depicted--with other breeds on the Egyptian monuments. It is supposed to be allied in origin to the stock which gave rise to the ordinary humped cattle of India,--the Zebu type. These oxen with enormous horns--horns which are not only very long but sometimes very large in girth--are found westwards as far as the vicinity of Lake Chad, and in a more degenerate type farther west still, to the sources of the Niger. It might be thought that they were also related to the long-horned cattle of South Africa, but it is sometimes asserted that the long-horned South African cattle owe their main origin to the introduction of Spanish breeds by the Portuguese, the cattle met with by the first Europeans in South Africa having belonged to the humped zebu type.

The Bahima once founded an empire which stretched from the northern limits of Unyoro and the Victoria Nile westward to the Congo Forest and southward to the coast of Tanganyika. This ancient Empire of Kitara split up into a number of states governed for the most part by Hima dynasties, though in Uganda the native kings became more and more Negro in aspect through their fathers’ intermarriage with Negro women. But for the most part friendly relations subsisted between all the states into which the Empire of Kitara was subdivided; it was only in more recent times that the existing blood feud sprang up between Unyoro and Uganda. The Bahima were reverenced and admired by the mass of the Negro population as the descendants of supernatural beings who had brought to these lands what little civilisation they possessed. Intermarriage constantly took place between the dynasties of Buzinza, Usui, Karagwe, Ruanda, Mpororo, Ankole, Unyoro, and Uganda. This and other causes for intercommunication gave intelligent chiefs like Rumanika a considerable grasp of African geography. These chiefs knew that their world was bounded on the west by the impenetrable Congo Forest. They knew all about Tanganyika, the Victoria Nyanza, the Masai countries, the course of the Nile as far north as Gondokoro, and even the existence of Lake Rudolf. Perhaps also they had a glimmering knowledge not only of the “Turks” on the White Nile (which was the case), but also of the existence of men like themselves in Galaland and Abyssinia. Speke and subsequent travellers found these Hima sovereigns and their courts very different to the petty Negro states of East Africa. Besides the recognised king (a member of a long dynasty), there were regularly established Court officials and functionaries, and an orderly system of government. Travellers like Speke were not slow to appreciate the influence which this Gala invasion of equatorial Africa had on the Negro types. We now begin to feel that this Negrified Caucasian has interpenetrated most parts of Negro Africa between the Cameroons and Zanzibar, and between the northern limits of the Sudan and Natal. In the western prolongation of Africa something like the same infiltration of a superior race has been brought about by the Tawareqs of the Sahara. This Libyan race is also of the Caucasian family, more directly so indeed than the curly-haired Gala, who, mixing with the Libyan, laid the foundation of Ancient Egyptian civilisation.