Note 13 — Chapter I

Meaning a man of the Bakwiri tribe or bushmen, from kwiri, a bush. The word is Isubu. This small échantillon will suffice to show that the dialects of East and West Africa are as closely connected as their flora. Here also there is a slight European importation; I particularly remarked ‘bwámo,’—good!—and suspected the Spanish bueno.

Despite the dicta of Dr. Beke (‘On the Mountains forming the Eastern Side of the Basin of the Nile’—a paper full of good and borrowed but unacknowledged information), who on this point follows Mr. E. Norris’s edition of ‘Prichard’s History of Man,’ I still deem it advisable to retain these ‘terse and concise African prefixes,’ which, if abandoned, would necessitate a weary redundancy of words. They can hardly, as Mr. Norris says, ‘occasion puzzlement to the readers of African intelligence,’ unless intelligence be sadly wanting in the readers. Mr. Norris and Dr. Beke omit the Kafir prefix ‘when it has not become part and parcel of the English appellation,’ deeming it ‘not only awkward, but positively incorrect.’ With due modesty I venture to opine that they have substituted for a fancied awkwardness a real blunder. To call ‘Unyamwezi’ and ‘Usumbara’ ‘Nyamwezi’ and ‘Sumbara,’ is about as correct as to term ‘Britain’ and ‘Britons’ ‘Brit’ or ‘Brits.’