The most interesting point connected with these coast negroids is their language, the Kisawahili. It was anciently called Kingozi, from Ungozi or the region lying about the Dana, or rather Zana, the river known to its Galla accolœ as ‘Maro,’ and ‘Pokomoni’ from the heathen Pokomo who, living near its course, form the southern boundary of Galla-land proper. The dialect is still spoken with the greatest purity about Patta and the other ancient settlements between Lamu and Mombasah. Oral tongues are essentially fluctuating; having no standard, the roots of words soon wither and die, whilst terms, idioms, and expressions once popular speedily fall into oblivion, and are supplanted by neologisms. Thus the origin of words must often be sought by collation with the wilder kindred dialects of the coast tribes; for instance, the root of ‘Mbua’ (rain), which has died out of Kisawahili, still visits in Kinyika—ku buá, to rain. In Zanzibar Island Kisawahili is most corrupted; the vocabulary, varying with every generation, has become a mere conglomerate which combines South African, Arabic, Persian, Hindi, and even Portuguese, an epitome of local history. On the coast it greatly varies, being constantly modified by the migration and mixture of tribes. Like the Malay of the Indian Islands, it has become the Lingua Franca, the Lingoa Geral of commerce from Ra’as Hafun to the Mozambique and throughout Central Intertropical Africa. This Urdu Zaban, or Hindostani of East Africa, is indispensable to the explorer, who disdains mere ‘geography;’ almost every inland tribe has some vagrant man who can speak it. My principle being never to travel where the language is unknown to me, I was careful to study it at once on arriving at Zanzibar; and though sometimes in the interior question and answer had to pass through three and even four media, immense advantage has derived from the modicum of direct intercourse.