The language spoken in Zanzibar is Ki-Suaheli, called by the Africans Maneno Ungoja, and dialects of it are spoken over a vast extent of E. Africa, from the limit of the Galla and Somali country, in about lat. 3° N., to as far S. as the Zambesi. It is soft and pleasing to the ear, without any guttural sounds. It is written with Arabic letters. A corrupt Arabic is also current.
Mr. R. Cust adopts the opinions as to African languages of M. F. Muller of Vienna. He says that among the Semitic, some, like the Old Punic and Old Abyssinian, are dead ; others, like the Arabic, Amharic, and Tigree, are living vernaculars. Among the Ilamitic, Old Egyptian and Coptic are dead ; but Berber, Kabyle, Tuareg, Galla, Somali, and others are spoken by millions. The Fulah-Nuba languages are spoken by conquering races, some of whom have adopted Muhammadan ism ; they stretch from the Atlantic on the N. fringe of the Negro races, across the continent to the basin of the middle Nile. The Fulah have extended into the heart of Negroland, and are found everywhere. The Negro race extend across the continent S. of the Sahara desert and N. of the equator, and reach from the Atlantic to the equatorial lakes. Their languages are numerous, totally distinct from each other, and of many we know little or nothing. The great Bantu race occupy the peninsula of Africa from the equator southward, leaving a corner for the last family. The languages of these numerous and powerful races, of whom the Zulu and Kafir are so well known, can be traced back to one common mother language, which has perished. The Hot
tentots and Bushmen represent all that remains of the original earliest inhabitants of the continent. They have been pushed forward by the Bantu. and nearly destroyed ; their languages are totally distinct from each other.
Religions.—In Africa, the Semitic race are found as fetish-worshippers, Christians, Muhammadans, and Jews. Abyssinia is Christian, with the chief truths of the Bible blended with merely human notions. The early Arab religion was Sabmanism, a worship of the heavenly bodies, mixed with idolatry, but with Mahomed commenced the Arab conquests, the creed, science, and literature, and now all N. Africa is Muhammadan. When the Arab conqueror Akbah had overrun the states of Barbary from end to end, and, after passing through wildernesses in which he or his successors were one day to found the literary and commercial capitals of Fez, Kairoan, and Morocco, had reached the point where the Atlantic and the Great Desert meet, spurring, so it is said, his horse into the waves of the Atlantic, and raising his eyes to heaven, he exclaimed, 0 Allah! if my course were not stopped by the sea, I would still go on to the unknown kingdoms of the west, preaching the unity of thy holy name.' Throughout Central Africa fetishism prevails. The Bantu Negroes have ancestor-worship, sha mans, and trial by ordeal Suahili offer food to the demon of disease. They do not eat it themselves, but place it on some footpath that a passer-by may consume it, and thus take the pestilence on himself.