Note 30 — Chapter V · GEOGRAPHICAL AND PHYSIOLOGICAL.

Captain Guillain (vol. iii. p. 107, et passim) is correct upon the subject of the word ‘Mrima.’ Mr Cooley (Memoir on the Lake Regions, &c., p. 8) informs us that ‘Wamrima’ (the mainland people) signifies ‘of the mainland; for it is a mistake to suppose that Mrima is but a dialectic variation of Mlimá (read, Mlíma) hill, in its primary sense, cultivable ground; it is, in truth, a corruption of the Arabic word Marâ’im, signifying the land to the west, or under the setting sun. When the early Portuguese navigators told us that the Querimba Islands were peopled by the Morimos, we must understand by this name the people of the mainland.’

This is an excellent illustration of how dangerous a thing is a smattering of philology. The ‘Arabic word Marâ’im’ is absolutely unknown to the Arabs of Zanzibar. It is evidently coined out of the dictionary from ‘رَعَمَ observavit occidentem solem.’ I would also ask how ‘Comazinghi is Arabic?’ (Geography, art. 15). Similarly, we find (Journal Royal Geographical Society, xix. 190) the Somali ‘Aber’ (error for Habr) derived from the Arabic (Hebrew?) Bar, and explained by Benú (sons), when it really signifies mother or old woman.

It may be noted that in the Kisawahili of Zanzibar, Mríma is applied to the coast generally, especially between Mtangata and the Rufiji River, and it is mostly synonymous with the Arabs’ ‘Bar el Moli,’ whereas Mlíma means a mountain. From the latter comes the diminutive Kilima, a hillock, also synonymous in composition with the French mont. It enters into many East African proper names, e. g. Kilima-njaro, Kilima-ni, &c.

I cannot agree with Messrs Norris and Beke, despite their authority as linguists, in stripping the national and racial names of their inflections, e. g. Sagara for Usagara, Zaramo for Uzaramo. Mr Cooley is equally wrong in stating that the ‘Sawáhily and the Arabs write Nika, Zeramu, and Gogo.’Gogo.’ The Arabs may, the Wasawahíli do not, thus blunder. Captain Guillain, I have remarked, is no authority. He confounds (vol. i. p. 231) the land of Wak-wak (the Semitic Gallas) with the South African Wamakua; and, worse still, with the ‘Vatouahs.’ And (vol. i. p. 281) he writes the well-known ‘Abban’ of the Somal, ‘Hebban.’ He also unduly neglects the peculiar initial quiescent consonant M, e. g. (i. p. 456) ‘Foumo’ for ‘Mfumo.’ The bare root-word, I repeat, is never used by the people, who always qualify it by a prepositive. This, in our language Brit or Brut may be the monosyllable upon which Briton and British are built, but it is evidently barbarous to employ it without suffix. In the Zangian tongues the prefixes are clearly primitive words; nouns, not as the Rev. J. L. Doehne explains them in his Zulu-Kafir Dictionary (Cape Town, 1857), ‘pronouns, in the present state of the language, used as nominal forms compounded with other words.’words.’