Note 49 — Chapter XI · BURTON AND SPEKE

Speke and others are of opinion that there was a considerable civilisation in Somaliland at one time, which completely disappeared after the Muhammadanising of the country. The Somali (except those of the far interior) were converted to Islam by Arab immigrants in the fifteenth century. Prior to this they had been Christian to some extent, a much degraded type of Christianity having penetrated southwards from Abyssinia. It is hardly necessary to point out that the Somali and Gala are practically one people in race and language. Gala is only apparently a cant term originating in Abyssinia and unknown to the people whom we call by that name. It is also interesting to note that Speke and other explorers heard in Somaliland, in the “early fifties,” of the existence of a great lake far in the interior which was in all probability the Victoria Nyanza. The present writer has endeavoured to show, in his book on the Uganda Protectorate, that in ancient times considerable trading intercourse was kept up between Somaliland and the northeast shores of the Victoria Nyanza.