Note 3 — CHAP. II. ZANZIBAR AND THE MRIMA EXPLAINED.

Dr. Krapf, in the Preface to his “Outlines of the Kisuahelí Language,” deduces the national name from Síwá, ’a hílah, which would mean exactly the reverse of astute—“without guile.” He has made other curious linguistic errors: he translates, for instance, the “Quilimancy” River—the ancient name for the Ozi or Dana—“water from the mountain,” after a Germanic or Indo-European fashion, whereas, in the Zangian languages, the compound word would, if admissible, signify “a mountain of water.” It is curious that the learned and accurate Mr. Cooley, who has charged Dr. Krapf with “puerile etymologies,” should have fallen into precisely the same error. In the “Geography of N’yassi,” p. 19, “Mazingia” is rendered the “road or land along the water,” but Májí Njíá, if the elision of the possessive affix ya be allowed in prose as in poetry—Májí Njíá for Májí ya Njíá—would mean only the “water of the road.” As a specimen of Dr. Krapf’s discoveries in philology the following may suffice. In his vocabulary of the Engutuk Eloikob or Kikuafi dialect, he derives Olbitir, a pig, from the Arabic El Batrah, a young ass, or from El Basir, a sharp-seeing dog!