The Wamrima as well as the Wasawahili are distinguished by two national peculiarities of character. The first is a cautiousness bordering upon cowardice, derived from their wild African blood; the second is an unusual development of cunning and deceitfulness, which partially results from the grafting of the semi-civilised Semite upon the Hamite. The Arabs, who are fond of fanciful etymology, facetiously derive the race-name “Msawahili” from “Sawwá hílah,”[3] _he played a trick_, and the people boast of it, saying, “are we not Wasawahili?” that is “artful dodgers.” Supersubtle and systematic liars, they deceive when duller men would tell the truth, the lie direct is no insult, and the offensive word “muongo!” (liar) enters largely into every dialogue. They lie like Africans, objectlessly, needlessly, when sure of speedy detection, when fact would be more profitable than falsehood; they have not discovered with the civilised knave, that “honesty is the best policy;” they lie till their fiction becomes subjectively fact. With them the lie is no mental exertion, no exercise of ingenuity, no concealment, nor mere perversion of the truth: it is apparently a local instinctive peculiarity in the complicated madness of poor human nature. The most solemn and religious oaths are with them empty words; they breathe an atmosphere of falsehood, manœuvre, and contrivance, wasting about the mere nothings of life--upon a pound of grain or a yard of cloth--ingenuity of iniquity enough to win and keep a crown. And they are treacherous as false; with them the salt has no signification, and gratitude is unknown even by name. [3] 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_!