ENGLISH LAW AFFECTING BANKS AND THEIR CUSTOMERS

_Issue of Notes_.--The legislation which culminated in the Bank Charter

Acts of 1844 and 1845 secured to the Bank of England the absolute monopoly

of the note issue within the city of London and a 3-m. radius. Outside that

radius, and within 65 m. of the city, there is a concurrent right in banks,

consisting of six or less than six persons, established before 1844, and

issuing notes at that date; beyond the 65-m. radius the privilege may be

exercised by all banks established before 1844, and then issuing notes, who

have not since lost their right to do so by bankruptcy, abandonment of

business, or temporary suspension of issue. According to some authorities,

the effect of 20 and 21 Vict. cap. 49, sec. 12 [re-enacted Companies

Consolidation Act 1908, sec. 286 (d)] was to sanction the increase in the

constitution of any bank issuing notes outside the 3-m. and within the

65-m. radius from six to ten persons without affecting the power to issue

notes. The rule as formulated above is, however, that enunciated by Bowen

J. in _Capital and Counties Bank_ v. _Bank of England_, 1889; 61 L.T. 516.

The increase in the number of joint-stock banks and the gradual absorption

of the smaller and older concerns have had the effect of minimizing the

output of notes other than those issued by the Bank of England, and, as

exemplified by the case of _The Attorney-General_ v. _Birkbeck_, 12 Q.B.D.

57, it would seem impossible to devise any scheme by which the note-issuing

power of an absorbed bank could be continued to the new or amalgamated

body. But a bank having the right would not necessarily lose it by

absorbing other banks (_Capital and Counties Bank_ v. _Bank of England_).

Foreign banks may establish branches in Great Britain on complying with the

regulations imposed on them by the Companies Consolidation Act 1908, but

cannot apparently issue notes, even though payable abroad.

[Sidenote: Relation between banker and customer.]

_Deposit Business_.--The term "bank of deposit" gives a mistaken idea of

the real relation between banker and customer. So long ago as 1848 it was

decided by the House of Lords in _Foley_ v. _Hill_, 2 H. of L. 28, that the

real relation between banker and customer was that of debtor and creditor,

not in any sense that of trustee and _cestui que trust_, or depositee and

depositor, as had been formerly supposed and contended. The ordinary

process by which a man pays money in to his account at his banker's is in

law simply lending the money to the banker; it fixes the banker with no

fiduciary relation, and he is in no way responsible to the customer for the

use he may make of the money so paid in. And as being a mere debt, a

customer's right to recover money paid in is barred on the expiration of

six years by the Statute of Limitations, if there has been no payment

meantime on account of principal or interest, and no acknowledgment

sufficient to bar the statute (_Pott_ v. _Clegg_, 16 M. & W. 321). Such a

state of affairs, however, is hardly likely to arise, inasmuch as, in the

absence of specific appropriation, earlier drawings out are attributed to

the earlier payments in, as in the ordinary case of current accounts, and

so the items on the credit and debit side cancel each other. An apparent

exception to this system of appropriation exists in cases where a man

wrongfully pays into his own account moneys held by him in a fiduciary

capacity. In such circumstances he is presumed to have drawn out his own

moneys rather than those affected by the trust, and so long as the account

is in credit, any balance will be attributed to the trust money. As between

contending claims to the money, based on different breaches of trust, the

ordinary rule of appropriation will apply.

[Sidenote: Cheques.]

It has often been suggested that the only method of withdrawing money from

a banker is by cheque, that the presentation of a cheque is a condition

precedent to the liability of the banker to repay. This is not so; such

view being inconsistent with the cases establishing the effect of the

Statute of Limitations on money left in a banker's hands, and with the

numerous cases in which a balance at a bank has been attached as a simple

and unconditional debt by a garnishee order, as, for instance, in _Rogers_

v. _Whiteley_, 1892, A.C. 118. The banker's position with regard to cheques

is that, superadded to the relation of debtor and creditor, there is an

obligation to honour the customer's cheques provided the banker has a

sufficient and available balance in his hands for the purpose (_Foley_ v.

_Hill_). If, having such funds in his hands, the banker dishonours a

cheque, he is liable to the customer in substantial damages without proof

of actual injury having accrued (_Rolin_ v. _Steward_, 14 C.B. 595). Where

several cheques are presented simultaneously and the available balance is

insufficient to pay all, the banker should pay as many as the funds will

cover, and is not bound to discriminate between particular cheques. It

would seem a legitimate condition that a cheque should be drawn in the

ordinary recognized form, not in one raising any question or doubt as to

its validity or effect. Cheques drawn to "wages or order," "petty cash or

order," or the like, are common, and are sometimes regarded as payable to

bearer. Such payees are not, however, "fictitious or non-existent persons,"

so as to render the cheques payable to the bearer under sec. 7, subs. 3 of

the Bills of Exchange Act 1882, nor can such payees endorse. Some banks

refuse to pay such cheques, and it is conceived they are justified in so

doing. Money paid in so shortly before the presentation of the cheque that

there would not have been time to pass it through the books of the bank

would not be treated as available for drawing against. If a person have an

account at one branch of a bank, he is not entitled to draw cheques on

another branch [v.03 p.0350] where he has either no account or is

overdrawn, but the bank has, as against the customer, the right to combine

accounts at different branches and treat them as one account (_Garnet_ v.

_McEwen_, L.R. 8 Ex. 10). Funds are not available so long as a garnishee

order, founded on a judgment against the customer, is pending, since it

attaches all moneys on current account irrespective of the amount of the

judgment (_Rogers_ v. _Whiteley_).

The very questionable practice of post-dating cheques has been the source

of considerable doubt and inconvenience to bankers. The use of such

documents enables the drawer to obtain the results of a bill at a fixed

future date without the expense of a regular bill-stamp. But the Bills of

Exchange Act 1882, sec. 13, subs. 1, provides that "a bill is not invalid

by reason only that it is ante-dated or post-dated, or that it bears date

on a Sunday." The banker cannot therefore refuse to pay a cheque presented

after the apparent date of its issue on the ground that he knows it to have

been post-dated. On the other hand, he is entitled and indeed bound to

refuse payment if such a cheque is presented before the apparent date of

its issue (_Morley_ v. _Culverwell_, 7 M. & W. at p. 178). Revocation of

authority to pay a cheque must come to the banker's conscious knowledge and

be unequivocal both in terms and method of communication. He is not bound

to act on an unconfirmed telegram (_Curtice_ v. _London City & Midland

Bank_ [1908], 1 K.B. 293). The banker's authority to pay cheques is

terminated by the death, insanity or bankruptcy of the customer, or by

notice of an available act of bankruptcy committed by him.

The banker is bound to observe secrecy with respect to the customer's

account, unless good cause exists for disclosure, and the obligation does

not cease if the account becomes overdrawn (_Hardy_ v. _Veasey_, L.R. 3 Ex.

107). In England a cheque is not an assignment of funds in the banker's

hands (Bills of Exchange Act 1882, sec. 53). The holder of the cheque has

therefore no claim on the banker in the event of payment being refused, his

remedy being against the drawer and endorser, if any. On this section is

also based the custom of English bankers not to pay part of the amount of a

cheque where there are funds, though not sufficient to meet the whole

amount. The section does not apply to Scotland, where it would seem that

the bank is bound to pay over what funds it has towards satisfaction of the

cheque. A banker is entitled to hold paid cheques as vouchers until there

has been a settlement of account between him and the customer. The entries

in a pass-book constitute _prima facie_ evidence against the banker, and

when returned by the customer without comment, against him; but the

proposition that such return constitutes a settlement of account has been

much disputed. Indeed where forgery is the ground of repudiation of a

cheque, no dealings or omissions of the customer with regard to the

pass-book would seem to preclude him from objecting to being debited and

throwing the loss on the banker (_Kepitigalla Rubber Co._ v. _National Bank

of India_, 25 Times L.R. 402). As against the banker, however, credit

entries in the pass-book cannot be disputed if the customer has altered his

position in reliance thereon, and cheques drawn against an apparent balance

must be honoured (_Holland_ v. _Manchester & Liverpool District Bank_, 25

Times L.R. 386).

The rule by which the holder of a cheque has no direct recourse against the

banker who dishonours it, holds good even where the banker has before issue

marked the cheque as good for the amount, such marking not amounting to an

acceptance by the banker. As between banker and banker, however, such

marking or certifying probably amounts to a binding representation that the

cheque will be paid, and, if done by request of the drawer, the latter

cannot subsequently revoke the authority to pay. In certain circumstances,

marking at the instance of the person presenting the cheque for payment may

amount to an undertaking by the banker to hold the money for his benefit

(_In re Beaumont_ [1902], 1 Ch. p. 895).

A banker either paying or collecting money on a cheque to which the person

tendering it for payment or collection has no title or a defective title is

_prima facie_ liable to the true owner for conversion or money had and

received, notwithstanding he acted in perfect good faith and derived no

benefit from the operation. Payment of an open cheque, payable to bearer

either originally or by endorsement, is, however, in all cases a good

payment and discharge (_Charles_ v. _Blackwell_, 2 C.P.D. at p. 158).

Limited protection in other cases has been extended by legislation to the

banker with regard to both payment and collection of cheques, usually on

the principle of counterbalancing some particular risk imposed on him by

enactments primarily designed to safeguard the public.

By sec. 19 of the Stamp Act 1853, the banker paying a draft or order

payable to order on demand, drawn upon him, was relieved from liability in

the event of the endorsement having been forged or unauthorized. This

enactment was not repealed by the Bills of Exchange Act 1882, and, in

_London City & Midland Bank_ v. _Gordon_ (1903), A.C. 240, was held to

cover the case of drafts drawn by a branch of a bank on its head office.

Sec. 60 of the Bills of Exchange Act 1882 extends like protection to the

banker in the case of cheques, the definition of which therein as "bills

drawn on a banker payable on demand" debars drafts of the above-mentioned

description. Such definition, involving the unconditional character of the

instrument, also precludes from the protection of this section the

documents now frequently issued by corporations and others, which direct

bankers to make payments on a specific attached receipt being duly signed

(_London City & Midland Bank_ v. _Gordon_). Sec. 17 of the Revenue Act

1883, however, applies to these documents the crossed cheques sections of

the Bills of Exchange Act 1882 (see _Bavius, Jr., & Sims_ v. _London &

South-Western Bank_ [1900], 1 Q.B. 270), while denying them the position of

negotiable instruments, and a banker paying one of them crossed, in

accordance with the crossing and in the absence of any indication of its

having been transferred, could probably claim immunity under sec. 80. The

Bills of Exchange Act 1882 contains no direct prohibition against a banker

paying a crossed cheque otherwise than in accordance with the crossing, but

if he do so he is liable to the true owner for any loss suffered by him in

consequence of such payment (sec. 79), and is probably unable to charge his

customer with the amount. A banker paying a crossed cheque in accordance

with its ostensible tenor obtains protection under sec. 80 and the proviso

to sec. 79. Questions have arisen as to the bearing of the crossed cheques

sections when a crossed cheque drawn on one branch of a bank is paid in for

collection by a customer at another branch; but the transaction is so

obviously a legitimate and necessary one that either by the collecting

branch may be regarded as a separate bank for this purpose, or sec. 79 may

be ignored as inapplicable (_Gordon_ v. _London City & Midland Bank_

[1902], 1 K.B. 242 C.A.).

The collection of crossed cheques for a customer being virtually incumbent

on a banker, qualified immunity is accorded him in so doing by sec. 82, a

final exposition of which was given by the House of Lords in _London City &

Midland Bank_ v. _Gordon_ (1903), A.C. 240. To come within its provisions,

the banker must fulfil the following conditions. He must receive the cheque

from, and the money for, a customer, _i.e._ a person with whom he has

definite and existing business relations (see _Great Western Ry. Co._ v.

_London & County Bank_ [1901], A.C. 414). He must take the cheque already

crossed generally or specially to himself. His own crossing under sec. 77

is absolutely inefficacious in this connexion. He must take the cheque and

receive the money in good faith and without negligence. Negligence in this

relation is the omission to exercise due care in the interest of the true

owner, not necessarily the customer. To avoid this disqualification of

negligence, the banker must see that the endorsements, where necessary, are

ostensibly correct; he must satisfy himself of the authority where an

endorsement is per procuration; he must not take for private account a

cheque which on its face indicates that the holder is in possession of it

as agent, or in an official capacity, or for partnership purposes

(_Hannan's Lake View Central Ld._ v. _Armstrong & Co._, 16 Times L.R. 236;

_Bevan_ v. _National Bank_, 23 Times L.R. 65); he must not take a cheque

marked "account payee" for an account other than that [v.03 p.0351]

indicated (_Bevan_ v. _National Bank_). It is further demonstrated by the

Gordon case that the banker only secures protection so long as he is acting

strictly as a conduit pipe, or as agent for the customer. If he put himself

in the position of owner of the cheque, he no longer fulfils the condition

of receiving the money only for the customer. In the Gordon case, adoption

of the not uncommon practice of crediting cheques as cash in the bank's

books before the money was actually received was held equivalent to taking

them as transferee or owner, and to debar the bank from the protection of

sec. 82. The anxiety and inconvenience caused to bankers by this unexpected

decision was ultimately removed by the Bills of Exchange (Crossed Cheques)

Act 1906, which enacts that a banker receives payment of a crossed cheque

for a customer within the meaning of sec. 82 of the Bills of Exchange Act

1882, notwithstanding that he credits his customer's account with the

amount of the cheque before receiving payment thereof. Apparently the scope

of this act must be confined to its immediate object, and it does not

affect the relations and rights between the banker and his customer or

parties to the cheque arising from such crediting as cash. For instance,

the customer, in the absence of agreement to the contrary, may at once draw

against cheques so credited, while the banker may still debit the customer

with the amount of the cheque if returned unpaid, or sue the drawer or

indorser thereon.

The protection to the collecting banker is in no way affected by the cheque

being crossed "not negotiable," or by the nature of the fraud or crime by

which the cheque was obtained by the customer or any previous possessor,

although there are dicta which have been interpreted in the contrary sense.

Nor does the fact that the customer is overdrawn deprive the banker of the

character of a collecting agent, unless the cheque be definitely given and

taken in reduction of such overdraft. Where the conditions requisite for

protection exist, the protection covers not only the receipt of the money,

but all operations usual in business and leading up to such receipt, on the

basis of the customer's title being unimpeachable. The provisions of the

crossed cheques sections of the Bills of Exchange Act 1882 are extended to

dividend warrants by sec. 95 of that act, and to certain orders for payment

issued by a customer of a banker by sec. 17 of the Revenue Act 1883, as

before stated. But the wording of the Bills of Exchange (Crossed Cheques)

Act 1906, specifying as it does cheques alone, appears to exclude documents

of both these classes from its operation. With regard to the orders for

payment, inasmuch as the same section which brings them within the crossed

cheques sections expressly provides that they shall not be negotiable, a

banker would probably be protected only in taking them from the specified

payee, though this distinction has been ignored in some recently decided

cases.

[Sidenote: Fraud.]

Where a banker incurs loss through forgery or fraud in circumstances not

covered by statutory protection, his right to relief, if any, must depend

on general principles. He cannot charge his customer with payments made on

a forgery of that customer's signature, on the ground either that he is

presumed to know such signature or that the payment is unauthorized. But if

the customer has accredited the forgery, or, having knowledge or reasonable

ground for belief that it has been committed, has failed to warn the

banker, who has thereby suffered loss or prejudice, the customer will be

held estopped from disputing the banker's right to debit him with the

amount (_Vagliano_ v. _Bank of England_ [1891], A.C. 107; _McKenzie_ v.

_British Linen Co._ 6 A.C. 82; _Ewing_ v. _Dominion Bank_ [1904], A.C.

806). The doctrine of the fictitious person as payee may also exonerate a

banker who has paid an order bill to a wrongful possessor. Payment on a

forgery to an innocent holder is payment under mistake of fact; but the

ordinary right of the payor to recover money so paid is subordinated to the

necessity of safeguarding the characteristics of negotiability. Views

differ as to whether the recovery is precluded only where the opportunity

of giving notice of dishonour is lost or prejudiced by delay in reclaiming

payment, or whether mere possibility of damage is sufficient (cf. _London &

River Plate Bank_ v. _Bank of Liverpool_ [1896], 1 Q.B. 7, and _Imperial

Bank of Canada_ v. _Bank of Hamilton_ [1903], A.C. 49).

Cases have frequently arisen where the carelessness of a customer in

filling up cheques has enabled a person to fraudulently increase the sum

for which such cheques were originally drawn. In _Colonial Bank of

Australasia_ v. _Marshall_ [1906], A.C. 559, the judicial committee of the

privy council held that the affording such facilities for forgery was no

breach of the customer's duty to his banker, and that the latter was not

entitled to debit the customer with more than the original amount. As

before stated, the customer's dealings with the pass-book cannot, in the

present state of the authorities, be relied on as debarring him from

disputing unauthorized payments appearing therein.

[Sidenote: Custody of valuables.]

The payment of bills accepted payable at the bank is not, like the payment

of cheques, an essential obligation of the banker, and the risk involved is

enhanced by the fact that the banker must pay or refuse payment at once, no

interval being allowed for verification of endorsements. The abolition or

modification of the practice has frequently been advocated, but it is one

of the facilities which competition compels bankers to extend to their

customers. On the same basis stands the receipt of a customer's valuables

for safe custody. The question of the banker's responsibility for the loss

of goods so deposited with him was raised, but not decided, in an action

brought by Mrs Langtry against the Union Bank of London in 1896. Certain

jewels belonging to her had been delivered up by the bank to an

unauthorized person on a forged order. The case was settled; but bankers

being desirous to ascertain their real position, many legal opinions were

taken on the point, and after consideration of these, the Central

Association of Bankers issued a memorandum, in which they stated that the

best legal opinion appeared to be that a distinction must be drawn between

cases in which valuables were by mistake delivered to the wrong person and

cases in which they were destroyed, lost, stolen or fraudulently

abstracted, whether by an officer of the bank or some other person. That in

the former case the question of negligence did not arise, the case being

one of wrongful conversion of the goods by a voluntary act for which the

bank was liable apart from any question of negligence. That, in the second

case, that of loss or theft, the banker, being a gratuitous bailee, would

only be liable if he had failed to use such care as an ordinary prudent man

would take of valuables of his own. The latter rule is practically that

laid down in _Giblin_ v. _MacMullen_, L.R. 2 P.C. 318, but in estimating

the amount of care to be taken by the banker, the nature of the goods, if

known or suspected, and the exceptional means of protection at the

disposition of bankers, such as strong-rooms, must be taken into

consideration. Methods of obviating both classes of risk by means of

special receipts have frequently been suggested, but such receipts do not

appear to have come into general use.

[Sidenote: Trustees.]

Theoretically, bankers are supposed to refuse accounts which are either

expressedly or are known to be trust accounts. In practice, however, it is

by no means uncommon to find accounts opened with a definite heading

indicating the fiduciary capacity. In other cases, circumstances exist

which affect the banker with notice of that capacity. In either case,

however, the obligation to honour the customer's cheque is the predominant

factor, and the banker is not bound or entitled to question the propriety

or object of the cheque, unless he has very clear evidence of impending

fraud (_Gray_ v. _Johnston_, L.R. 3 H. of L. 1). Even though the banker

have derived some personal benefit from the transaction, it cannot be

impeached unless the banker's conduct amount in law to his being party or

privy to the fraud, as where he has stipulated or pressed for the

settlement or reduction of an ascertained overdraft on private account,

which has been effected by cheque on the trust account (_Coleman_ v. _Bucks

& Oxon Union Bank_ [1897], 2 Ch. 243). A banker is entitled, in dealing

with trust moneys, known to be such, to insist on the authority of the

whole body of trustees, direct and not deputed, and this is probably the

safest course to adopt. Scarcely larger responsibility devolves on Joint

Stock Banks appointed custodian trustees under the Public Trustee Act 1906,

[v.03 p.0352] a remunerative position involving custody of trust funds and

securities, and making and receiving payments on behalf of the estate,

while leaving the active direction thereof in the hands of the managing

trustees.

[Sidenote: Bill-discounting.]

Other incidents of the ordinary practice of banking are the discounting of

bills, the keeping of deposit accounts, properly so called, and the making

of advances to customers, counting either by way of definite loan or

arranged overdraft. So far as the discounting of bills is concerned, there

is little to differentiate the position of the banker from that of any

ordinary bill-discounter. It has been contended, however, that the peculiar

attribute of the banker's lien entitled him to hold funds of the customer

against his liability on current discounted bills. This contention was

ultimately disposed of by _Bowen_ v. _Foreign & Colonial Gas Company_, 22

W.R. 740, where it was pointed out that the essential object of a

customer's discounting bills with his banker was to feed the current

account, and that a possible liability constituted no set-off against an

existing debt. Whether a particular bill has been taken for discount or

collection is a question of fact. As in the payment of bills, so in the

collection of them, there is no statutory protection whatever for the

banker; as against third parties he can only rely either on the customer's

title or his own as a holder for value, if no forged endorsement intervene

and he can establish a consideration.

[Sidenote: Deposit accounts.]

A deposit account, whether at call or on fixed notice, does not constitute

any fiduciary relation between the depositor and the banker, but merely a

debt due from the latter to the former. It has been suggested that cheques

can be drawn against deposit account on call, and, though a banker might

safely honour such a cheque, relying, if necessary, on his right of lien or

set-off, there appears no legal right in the customer to enforce such

payment. Deposit receipts given by bankers are exempt from stamp duty, even

though they contain an undertaking with respect to payment of principal and

interest. They are clearly not negotiable instruments, but it is difficult

to deduce from the cases how far dealings with them may amount to an

equitable assignment of the moneys they represent. Probably deliberate

definite transfer, coupled with endorsement, would confer an effective

title to such moneys. Where, as is not uncommon, the form of deposit note

includes a cheque, the banker could not refuse to pay were the cheque

presented and any superadded formalities complied with.

[Sidenote: Overdrafts and advances.]

There is no obligation on a banker to permit his customer to overdraw,

apart from agreement express or implied from course of business. Drawing a

cheque or accepting a bill payable at the banker's which there are not

funds meet is an implied request for an overdraft, which the banker may or

may not comply with. Interest is clearly chargeable on overdrafts whether

stipulated for or not. There is no direct authority establishing this right

in the banker, and interest is not usually recoverable on mere debts, but

the charge is justifiable on the ground of the universal custom of bankers,

if not otherwise. The charging of compound interest or interest with

periodical rests has been supported where such system of keeping the

accounts has been brought to the notice of the customer by means of the

pass-book, and not objected to by him, but in the present attitude of the

courts towards the pass-book some further recognition would seem necessary.

Such system of charging interest, even when fully recognized, only prevails

so long as the relation of banker and customer, on which it is founded,

continues in force; the taking a mortgage for the existing debt would put

an end to it.

[Sidenote: Lien.]

The main point in which advances made by bankers differ from those made by

other people is the exceptional right possessed by bankers of securing

repayment by means of the banker's lien. The banker's lien is part of the

law merchant and entitles him, in the absence of agreement express or

implied to the contrary, to retain and apply, in discharge of the

customer's liability to him, any securities of the customer coming into his

possession in his capacity as banker. It includes bills and cheques paid in

for collection (_Currie_ v. _Misa_, 1 A.C. 564). Either by virtue of it, or

his right of set-off, the banker can retain moneys paid in by or received

for the credit of the customer, against the customer's debt to him. Goods

deposited for safe custody or moneys paid in to meet particular bills are

exempt from the lien, the purpose for which they come to the banker's hands

being inconsistent with the assertion of the lien. The existence of the

banker's lien entitles him to sue all parties to bills or cheques by virtue

of sec. 27, subs. 3 of the Bills of Exchange Act, and to the extent of his

advances his title is independent of that of the previous holder. Moreover,

the banker's lien, though so termed, is really in effect an implied pledge,

and confers the rights of realization on default pertaining to that class

of bailment. But with regard to the exercise of his lien, as in many other

phases of his relation to his customer, the banker's strict rights may be

curtailed or circumscribed by limitations arising out of course of

business. The principle, based either on general equity or estoppel and

independent of definite agreement or consideration, requires that when

dealings between banker and customer have for a reasonable space of time

proceeded on a recognized footing, the banker shall not suddenly break away

from such established order of things and assert his strict legal rights to

the detriment of the customer. By the operation of this rule, the banker

may be precluded from asserting his lien in particular cases, as for

instance for an overdraft on one account against another which had

habitually been kept and operated on separately. It equally prevents the

dishonouring of cheques in circumstances in which they have hitherto been

paid independent of the actual available balance.

Restrictions arising from course of business can of course be put an end to

by the banker, but only on reasonable notice to the customer and by

providing for outstanding liabilities undertaken by the latter in reliance

on the continuance of the pre-existing state of affairs (see _Buckingham_

v. _London & Midland Bank_, 12 Times L.R. 70). As against this, the banker

can, in some cases, fortify his position by appeal to the custom of

bankers. The validity of such custom, provided it be general and

reasonable, has frequently been recognized by the courts. Any person

entering on business relations with a banker must be taken to contemplate

the existence of such custom and implicitly agree that business shall be

conducted in accordance therewith. Practical difficulty has been suggested

with regard to proof of any such custom not already recognized in law, as

to how far it can be established by the evidence of one party, the bankers,

unsupported by that of members of the outside public, in most cases

impossible to obtain. It is conceived, however, that on the analogy of

local custom and the Stock Exchange rules, such outside evidence could be

dispensed with, and this is the line apparently indicated with relation to

the pass-book by the court of appeal in Vagliano's case (23 Q.B.D. at p.

245). The unquestionable right of the banker to summarily debit his

customer's account with a returned cheque, even when unindorsed by the

customer and taken by the banker in circumstances constituting him a

transferee of the instrument, is probably referable to a custom of this

nature. So is the common practice of bankers to refuse payment of a

so-called "stale" cheque, that is, one presented an unreasonable time after

its ostensible date; although the fact that some banks treat a cheque as

stale after six months, others not till after twelve, might be held to

militate against the validity of such custom, and lapse of time is not

included by the Bills of Exchange Act among the matters working revocation

of the banker's duty, and authority to pay his customer's cheque.

Indirectly, this particular custom obtains some support from sec. 74 (2) of

the Bills of Exchange Act, although the object of that section is

different.

That section does, however, import the custom of bankers into the reckoning

of a reasonable time for the presentation of a cheque, and with other

sections clears up any doubts which might have arisen on the common law as

to the right of the holder of a cheque, whether crossed or not, to employ

his banker for its collection, without imperilling his rights against prior

parties in case of dishonour. On dishonour of a cheque paid in for [v.03

p.0353] collection, the banker is bound to give notice of dishonour. Being

in the position of an agent, he may either give notice to his principal,

the customer, or to the parties liable on the bill. The usual practice of

bankers has always been to return the cheque to the customer, and sec. 49,

subs. 6 of the Bills of Exchange Act is stated to have been passed to

validate this custom. Inasmuch as it only provides for the return of the

dishonoured bill or cheque to the drawer or an endorser it appears to miss

the case of a cheque to bearer or become payable to bearer by blank

endorsement prior to the customer's.

Where a bank or a banker takes a mortgage, legal or equitable, or a

guarantee as cover for advances or overdraft, there is nothing necessarily

differentiating the position from that of any other mortgagee or guaranteed

party. It has, however, fallen to banks to evoke some leading decisions

with respect to the former class of security. In _London Joint Stock Bank_

v. _Simmons_ ([1892], A.C. 201) the House of Lords, professedly explaining

their previous decision in _Sheffield_ v. _London Joint Stock Bank_, 13

A.C. 333, determined that negotiable securities, commercial or otherwise,

may safely be taken in pledge for advances, though the person tendering

them is, from his known position, likely to be holding them merely as agent

for other persons, so long as they are taken honestly and there is nothing

tangible, outside the man's position, to arouse suspicion. So again in

_Lloyd's Bank_ v. _Cooke_ [1907], 1 K.B. 794, the bank vindicated the

important principle that the common law of estoppel still obtains with

regard to bills, notes and cheques, save where distinctly annulled or

abrogated by the Bills of Exchange Act, and that therefore a man putting

inchoate negotiable instruments into the hands of an agent for the purpose

of his raising money thereon is responsible to any one taking them bona

fide and for value, although the agent may have fraudulently exceeded and

abused his authority and the case does not fall within the provisions of

the Bills of Exchange Act.

[Sidenote: Guarantees.]

With regard to guarantees, the main incidents peculiarly affecting bankers

are the following. The existence of a guarantee does not oblige the banker

to any particular system of keeping the account. So long as it is not

unfairly manipulated to the detriment of the guarantor, there is no

obligation to put moneys paid in, without appropriation, to the guaranteed

rather than to the unguaranteed account, and on the termination of a

guarantee, the banker may close the account, leaving it to be covered by

the guarantee, and open a new one with the customer, to which he may devote

payments in, not otherwise appropriated. Where by its nature or terms a

continuing guarantee is revocable either summarily or on specified notice,

difficult questions may arise on such revocation as to the banker's duty

and obligations towards the customer, who has probably incurred liabilities

on the strength of the credit afforded by the guarantee. Although the

existence of a guarantee does not bind the banker to advance up to the

prescribed limit, he could not well, on revocation, immediately shut off

all facilities from the customer without notice, while subsequent purely

voluntary advances might not be covered by the guarantee. These

contingencies should therefore be fully provided for by the guarantee,

particularly the crucial period of the pendency of notice.

AUTHORITIES.--The Institute of Bankers (London), _Questions on Banking

Practice_ (6th ed., 1909); J. Douglas Walker, _A Treatise on Banking Law_

(2nd ed., 1885); Chalmers, _Bills of Exchange_ (7th ed., 1909); Sir J. R.

Paget, _The Law of Banking_ (2nd ed., 1908); H. Hart, _The Law of Banking_

(2nd ed., 1906).

(J. R. P.)

[1] A translation of the act of the 3rd of May 1619 may be found in the

appendix to the _Quarterly Journal of Economics_ (Boston, U.S.A.) for April

1892. These documents present a distinct picture of banking in its true

sense.

[2] The clearest account of its early days is found in Thorold Rogers'

_History of the First Nine Years of the Bank of England._

[3] The date 1876 is taken as being that when the Imperial Bank of Germany

came into full operation.

[4] _"The Grasshopper" in Lombard Street_, by John Biddulph Masters (1892).

[5] See _Vortraege und Aufsaetze hauptsaechlich aus dem Handels- und

Wechselrecht_, von Dr R. Koch, pp. 163-164.

[6] The imperial treasury is bound to pay the state notes in cash at any

time when this is required, but an independent fund of cash set apart for

this purpose does not exist. See _Handwoerterbuch der

Staatswissenschaften_, vol. v. art. "Papiergeld," p. 97 (Jena, 1893; ed. J.

Conrad, L. Elster, W. Lexis and E. Loening).

BANKSIA, an Australian genus of shrubs and trees (natural order

Proteaceae), with leathery leaves often deeply cut and handsome dense

spikes of flowers. It is named after Sir Joseph Banks (_q.v._). The plants

are grown in England for their handsome foliage as evergreen greenhouse

shrubs.

BANKURA, a town and district of British India, within the Burdwan division

of Bengal. The town has a population of 20,737. The district has an area of

2621 sq. m., and in 1901 its population was 1,116,411, showing an increase

of 4% in the decade. It is bounded on the N. and E. by Burdwan district; on

the S. by Midnapur district; and on the W. by Manbhum district. Bankura

forms a connecting link between the delta of the Ganges on the E. and the

mountainous highlands of Chota Nagpur on the W. Along its eastern boundary

adjoining Burdwan district the country is flat and alluvial, presenting the

appearance of the ordinary paddy lands of Bengal. Going N. and W., however,

the surface gradually rises into long undulating tracts; rice lands and

swamps give way to a region of low thorny jungle or forest trees; the

hamlets become smaller and more scattered, and nearly disappear altogether

in the wild forests along the western boundary. Large quantities of lac and

tussur silk are gathered in the hilly tract. The stone quarries and

minerals are little worked. There are indigo factories and two coal-mines.

Both cotton and silk are woven, and plates, &c., are carved from

soap-stone. The old capital of the country was at Bishnupur, which is still

the chief centre of local industries. The north-east part of the district

is skirted by the East Indian railway beyond the river Damodar. The

Midnapur-Jherria line of the Bengal-Nagpur railway passes through the

district, and there is a line from Howrah to Bankura. The climate of

Bankura is generally healthy, the cold season being bracing, the air

wholesome and dry, and fogs of rare occurrence. The district is exposed to

drought and also to destructive floods. It suffered in the famines of 1866,

1874-1875 and 1896-1897. The temperature in the hot season is very

oppressive and relaxing. The Bishnupur raj was one of the largest estates

in Bengal in the end of the 18th century, but it was sold for arrears of

revenue shortly after the conclusion of the permanent settlement in 1793.

BANN, the principal river in the north of Ireland. Rising in the Mourne

mountains in the south of the Co. Down it runs N.W. until it enters Lough

Neagh (_q.v._), which it drains N.N.W. to an estuary at Coleraine, forming

Lough Beg immediately below the larger lough. The length of its valley

(excluding the lesser windings of the river) is about 90 m. The total

drainage area, including the other important feeders of Lough Neagh, is

about 2300 sq. m., extending westward to the confines of the Co. Fermanagh,

and including parts of the Cos. Down and Antrim, Armagh and Monaghan,

Tyrone and Londonderry. The river has valuable salmon fisheries, but is not

of much importance for navigation. Above Lough Neagh it is known as the

Upper Bann and below as the Lower Bann.

BANNATYNE, GEORGE (1545-?1608), collector of Scottish poems, was a native

of Newtyle, Forfarshire. He became an Edinburgh merchant and was admitted a

burgess in 1587. Some years earlier, in 1568, when the "pest" raged in the

capital, he retired to his native county and amused himself by writing out

copies of poems by 15th and early 16th century Scots poets. His work

extended to eight hundred folio pages, divided into five parts. The MS.

descended to his only daughter Janet, and later to her husband's family,

the Foulises of Woodhall and Ravelston, near Edinburgh. From them it passed

to the Advocates' library, where it is still preserved. This MS., known as

the "Bannatyne Manuscript," constitutes with the "Asloan" and "Maitland

Folio" MSS. the chief repository of Middle Scots poetry, especially for the

texts of the greater poets Henryson, Dunbar, Lyndsay and Alexander Scott.

Portions of it were reprinted (with modifications) by Allan Ramsay in his

_Ever Green_ (1724), and later, and more correctly, by Lord Hailes in his

_Ancient Scottish Poems_ (1770). The entire text was issued by the

Hunterian Club (1873-1902) in a handsome and generally accurate form. The

name of Bannatyne was honoured in 1823 by the foundation in Edinburgh of

the Bannatyne Club, devoted to the publication of historical and literary

material from Scottish sources. The thirty-third issue of the club (1829)

was _Memorials of George Bannatyne_ (1545-1608), with a memoir by Sir

Walter Scott and an account of the MS. by David Laing.

See also Gregory Smith, _Specimens of Middle Scots_ (1902).

BANNERET (Fr. _banneret_, from _banniere_, banner, elliptical for

_seigneur_ or _chevalier banneret_, Med. Lat. _banneretus_), in feudalism,

the name given to those nobles who had the right to lead their vassals to

battle under their own banner. Ultimately bannerets obtained a place in the

feudal hierarchy between [v.03 p.0354] barons and knights bachelors, which

has given rise to the idea that they are the origin of King James I.'s

order of baronets. Selden, indeed, points out that "the old stories" often

have _baronetti_ for _bannereti_, and he points out that in France the

title had become hereditary; but he himself is careful to say (p. 680) that

banneret "hath no relation to this later title." The title of knight

banneret, with the right to display the private banner, came to be granted

for distinguished service in the field. "No knight banneret," says Selden,

of the English custom, "can be created but in the field, and that, when

either the king is present, or at least his royal standard is displayed.

But the creation is almost the self-same with that in the old French

ceremonies by the solemn delivery of a banner charged with the arms of him

that is to be created, and the cutting of the end of the pennon or streamer

to make it a square or into the shape of a banner in case that he which is

to be created had in the field his arms on a streamer before the creation."

The creation of bannerets is traceable, according to Selden, to the time of

Edward I. "Under these bannerets," he adds, "divers knights bachelors and

esquires usually served; and according to the number of them, the bannerets

received wages." The last authentic instance of the creation of a knight

banneret was that of John Smith, created banneret at the battle of Edgehill

by Charles I. for rescuing the royal standard from the enemy.

See Selden, _Titles of Honor_ (3rd ed., London, 1672), p. 656; Du Cange,

_Glossarium_ (Niort, 1883), s.v. "Bannereti."

BANNERS, FEAST OF (Jap. _Nobori-no-Sekku_), a Japanese festival in honour

of male children held on the 5th of May. Every householder who has sons

fastens a bamboo pole over his door and hangs from it gaily-coloured paper

fishes, one for each of his boys. These fishes are made to represent carp,

which are in Japanese folklore symbolical of health and longevity. The day

is recognized as a national holiday.

For banners in general see FLAG.

BANNISTER, CHARLES (1738-1804), English actor and singer, was born in

Gloucestershire, and after some amateur and provincial experience made his

first London appearance in 1762 as Will in _The Orators_ at the Haymarket.

Gifted with a fine bass voice, Bannister acquired a reputation as a singer

at Ranelagh and elsewhere, as well as an actor, and was received with such

favour that Garrick engaged him for Drury Lane. He died on the 26th of

October 1804.

His son JOHN BANNISTER (1760-1836), born at Deptford on the 12th of May

1760, first studied to be a painter, but soon took to the stage. His first

formal appearance was at the Haymarket in 1778 as Dick in _The Apprentice_.

The same year at Drury Lane he played in James Miller's version of

Voltaire's _Mahomet_ the part of Zaphna, which he had studied under

Garrick. The Palmira of the cast was Mrs Robinson ("Perdita"). Bannister

was the best low comedian of his day. As manager of Drury Lane (1802) he

was no less successful. He retired in 1815 and died on the 7th of November

1836. He never gave up his taste for painting, and Gainsborough, Morland

and Rowlandson were among his friends.

See Adolphus's _Memoirs of John Bannister_ (2 vols., 1838).

BANNOCK (adapted from the Gaelic, and apparently connected with Lat.

_panis_, bread), the term used in Scotland and the north of England for a

large, flattish, round sort of bun or cake, usually made of barley-meal,

but also of wheat, and sometimes with currants.

BANNOCK, the name of a county in the south-east of the state of Idaho,

U.S.A., and of a river in the same state, which runs northward in Oneida

county into the Snake or Lewis river. It is taken from that of the Bannock

Indians (see BANATE), a corruption of the native _Panaiti_.

BANNOCKBURN, a town of Stirlingshire, Scotland. Pop. (1901) 2444. It is

situated on the "burn" from which its name is derived, the Bannock (Gaelic,

_ban oc_, "white, shining stream"), a right-hand affluent of the Forth,

which was once a considerable river. The town lies 2-1/4 m. S.S.E. of

Stirling by the Caledonian railway, and now has thriving manufactures of

woollens (chiefly tweeds, carpets and tartans) and leather, though at the

beginning of the 19th century it was only a village. The Bore Stone, in

which Bruce planted his standard before the battle in which he defeated

Edward II. in 1314 (see below), is preserved by an iron grating. A mile to

the west is the Gillies' Hill, now finely wooded, over which the Scots'

camp-followers appeared to complete the discomfiture of the English, to

which event it owes its name. Bannockburn House was Prince Charles Edward's

headquarters in January 1746 before the fight at Falkirk.

The famous battle of Bannockburn (24th June 1314) was fought for the relief

of Stirling Castle, which was besieged by the Scottish forces under Robert

Bruce. The English governor of Stirling had promised that, if he were not

relieved by that date, he would surrender the castle, and Edward II.

hastily collected an army in the northern and midland counties of England.

Bruce made no attempt to defend the border, and selected his defensive

position on the Bannock Burn, 2-1/2 m. S. of Stirling. His front was

covered by the marshy bed of the stream, his left flank by its northerly

bend towards the Forth, his right by a group of woods, behind which, until

the English army appeared, the Scots concealed themselves. Two corps were

left in the open in observation, one at St Ninian's to watch the lower

course of the burn, one to guard the point at which the Falkirk-Stirling

road crosses the burn. On the 23rd the van of the army of Edward, which

numbered about 60,000 against the 40,000 of the Scots, appeared to the

south of the burn and at once despatched two bodies of men towards

Stirling, the first by the direct road, the other over the lower Bannock

Burn near its junction with the Forth. The former was met by the Scottish

outpost on the road, and here occurred the famous single combat in which

Robert Bruce, though not fully armed for battle, killed Sir Henry Bohun.

The English corps which took the other route was met and after a severe

struggle defeated by the second Scottish outpost near St Ninian's. The

English army assembled for battle on the following day. Early on St John's

day the Scottish army took up its assigned positions. Three corps of

pikemen in solid masses formed the first line, which was kept out of sight

behind the crest until the enemy advanced in earnest. A line of "pottes"

(military pits) had been previously dug to give additional protection to

the front, which extended for about one mile from wing to wing. The reserve

under Bruce consisted of a corps of pikemen and a squadron of 500 chosen

men-at-arms under Sir Robert Keith, the marischal of Scotland. The line of

the defenders was unusually dense; Edward, in forming up on an equal front

with greatly superior numbers, found his army almost hopelessly cramped.

The attacking army was formed in an unwieldy mass of ten "battles," each

consisting of horse and foot, and the whole formed in three lines each of

three "battles," with the tenth "battle" as a reserve in rear. In this

order the English moved down into the valley for a direct attack, the

cavalry of each "battle" in first line, the foot in second. Ignoring the

lesson of Falkirk (_q.v._), the mounted men rode through the morass and up

the slope, which was now crowned by the three great masses of the Scottish

pikemen. The attack of the English failed to make any gap in the line of

defence, many knights and men-at-arms were injured by falling into the

pits, and the battle became a _melee_, the Scots, with better fortune than

at Falkirk and Flodden, presenting always an impenetrable hedge of spears,

the English, too stubborn to draw off, constantly trying in vain to break

it down. So great was the press that the "battles" of the second line which

followed the first were unable to reach the front and stood on the slope,

powerless to take part in the battle on the crest. The advance of the third

English line only made matters worse, and the sole attempt to deploy the

archers was crushed with great slaughter by the charge of Keith's mounted

men. Bruce threw his infantry reserve into the battle, the arrows of the

English archers wounded the men-at-arms of their own side, and the remnants

of the leading line were tired and disheartened when the final impetus to

their rout was given by the historic charge of the "gillies," some

thousands of Scottish camp-followers who suddenly emerged from the woods,

blowing horns, waving such weapons as they possessed, and holding aloft

[v.03 p.0355] improvised banners. Their cries of "slay, slay!" seemed to

the wearied English to betoken the advance of a great reserve, and in a few

minutes the whole English army broke and fled in disorder down the slope.

Many perished in the burn, and the demoralized fugitives were hunted by the

peasantry until they re-crossed the English border. One earl, forty-two

barons and bannerets, two hundred knights, seven hundred esquires and

probably 10,000 foot were killed in the battle and the pursuit. One earl,

twenty-two barons and bannerets and sixty-eight knights fell into the hands

of the victors, whose total loss of 4000 men included, it is said, only two

knights.

See J. E. Shearer, _Fact and Fiction in the Story of Bannockburn_ (1909).

BANNS OF MARRIAGE (formerly _bannes_, from A.S. _gebann_, proclamation, Fr.

_ban_, Med. Lat. _bannum_), the public legal notice of an impending

marriage. The church in earliest days was forewarned of marriages

(Tertullian, _Ad Uxorem, De Pudicitia_, c. 4). The first canonical

enactment on the subject in the English church is that contained in the

11th canon of the synod of Westminster in London (A.D. 1200), which orders

that "no marriage shall be contracted without banns thrice published in the

church, unless by special authority of the bishop." It is, however,

believed that the practice was in France as old as the 9th century, and

certainly Odo, bishop of Paris, ordered it in 1176. Some have thought that

the custom originated in the ancient rule that all "good knights and true,"

who elected to take part in the tournaments, should hang up their shields

in the nearest church for some weeks before the opening of the lists, so

that, if any "impediment" existed, they might be "warned off." By the

Lateran Council of 1215 the publication of banns was made compulsory on all

Christendom. In early times it was usual for the priest to betroth the pair

formally in the name of the Blessed Trinity; and sometimes the banns were

published at vespers, sometimes during mass. In the United Kingdom, under

the canon law and by statute, banns are the normal preliminary to marriage;

but a marriage may also be solemnized without the publication of banns, by

obtaining a licence or a registrar's certificate. In America there is no

statutory requirement; and the practice of banns (though general in the

colonial period) is practically confined to the Roman Catholics.

BANNU, a town and district of British India, in the Derajat division of the

North-West Frontier Province. The town (also called Edwardesabad and

Dhulipnagar) lies in the north-west corner of the district, in the valley

of the Kurram river. Pop. (1901) 14,300. It forms the base for all punitive

expeditions to the Tochi Valley and Waziri frontier.

The district of Bannu, which only consists of the Bannu and Marwat tahsils

since the constitution of the North-West Frontier Province in 1901,

contains an area of 1680 sq. m. lying north of the Indus. The cis-Indus

portions of Bannu and Dera Ismail Khan now comprises the new Punjab

district of Mianwali. In addition to the Indus the other streams flowing

through the district are the Kurram (which falls into the Indus) and its

tributary the Gambila. The valley of Bannu proper, stretching to the foot

of the frontier hills, forms an irregular oval, measuring 60 m. from north

to south and about 40 m. from east to west. In 1901 the population was

231,485, of whom the great majority were Mahommedans. The principal tribes

inhabiting the district are: (1) Waziri Pathans, recent immigrants from the

hills, for the most part peaceable and good cultivators; (2) Marwats, a

Pathan race, inhabiting the lower and more sandy portions of the Bannu

valley; (3) Bannuchis, a mongrel Afghan tribe of bad physique and mean

vices. The inhabitants of this district have always been very independent

and stubbornly resisted the Afghan and Sikh predecessors of the British.

After the annexation of the Punjab the valley was administered by Herbert

Edwardes so thoroughly that it became a source of strength instead of

weakness during the Mutiny. The inhabitants of the valley itself are now

peaceful, but it is always subject to incursion from the Waziri tribes in

the Tochi valley and the neighbouring hills. Salt is quarried on government

account at Kalabagh and alum is largely obtained in the same neighbourhood.

The chief export is wheat. A military road leads from Bannu town towards

Dera Ismail Khan. The Indus, which is nowhere bridged within the district,

is navigable for native boats throughout its course of 76 m. The chief

frontier tribes on the border are the Waziris, Battannis and Dawaris. All

these are described under their separate names.

BANSDA, a native state in the south Gujarat division of Bombay, India,

belonging to the Surat agency. Area, 215 sq. m. Pop. (1901) 40,382, showing

a decrease of 2% in the decade; estimated revenue L19,508. Its chief is a

rajput. About half the total area of the state is cultivable, but the bulk

is forested.

BANSHEE (Irish _bean sidhe_; Gaelic _ban sith_, "woman of the fairies"), a

supernatural being in Irish and general Celtic folklore, whose mournful

screaming, or "keening," at night is held to foretell the death of some

member of the household visited. In Ireland legends of the banshee belong

more particularly to certain families in whose records periodic visits from

the spirit are chronicled. A like ghostly informer figures in Brittany

folklore. The Irish banshee is held to be the distinction only of families

of pure Milesian descent. The Welsh have the banshee under the name _gwrach

y Rhibyn_ (witch of Rhibyn). Sir Walter Scott mentions a belief in the

banshee as existing in the highlands of Scotland (_Demonology and

Witchcraft_, p. 351). A Welsh death-portent often confused with the gwrach

y Rhibyn and banshee is the _cyhyraeth_, the groaning spirit.

See W. Wirt Sikes, _British Goblins_ (1880).

BANSWARA (literally "the forest country"), a rajput feudatory state in

Rajputana, India. It borders on Gujarat and is bounded on the N. by the

native states of Dungarpur and Udaipur or Mewar; on the N.E. and E. by

Partabgarh; on the S. by the dominions of Holkar and the state of Jabua and

on the W. by the state of Rewa Kantha. Banswara state is about 45 m. in

length from N. to S., and 33 m. in breadth from E. to W., and has an area

of 1946 sq. m. The population in 1901 was 165,350. The Mahi is the only

river in the state and great scarcity of water occurs in the dry season.

The Banswara chief belongs to the family of Udaipur. During the vigour of

the Delhi empire Banswara formed one of its dependencies; on its decline

the state passed under the Mahrattas. Wearied out by their oppressions, its

chief in 1812 petitioned for English protection, on the condition of his

state becoming tributary on the expulsion of the Mahrattas. The treaty of

1818 gave effect to this arrangement, Britain guaranteeing the prince

against external enemies and refractory chiefs; he, on his part, pledging

himself to be guided by her representative in the administration of his

state. The chief is assisted in the administration by a _hamdar_ or

minister. The estimated gross revenue is L17,000 and the tribute L2500. The

custom of suttee, or widow-burning, has long been abolished in the state,

but the people retain all their superstitions regarding witches and

sorcery; and as late as 1870, a Bhil woman, about eighty years old, was

swung to death at Kushalgarh on an accusation of witchcraft. The

perpetrators of the crime were sentenced to five years' rigorous

imprisonment, but they had the sympathy of the people on their side. The

chief town is Banswara, situated about 8 m. W. of the Mahi river,

surrounded by an old disused rampart and adorned by various Hindu temples,

with the battlements of the chief's palace overlooking it. Its population

in 1901 was 7038. The petty state of Kushalgarh is feudatory to Banswara.

BANTAM, the westernmost residency of the island of Java, Dutch East Indies,

bounded W. by the Strait of Sunda, N. by the Java sea, E. by the

residencies of Batavia and Preanger, and S. by the Indian Ocean. It also

includes Princes Island and Dwars-in-den-weg ("right-in-the-way") Island in

Sunda Strait, as well as several smaller islands along the coasts. Bantam

had a population in 1897 of 709,339, including 302 Europeans, 1959 Chinese

and 89 Arabs and other Asiatic foreigners. The natives are Sundanese,

except in the northern or Serang division, where they are Javanese. The

coast is low-lying and frequently marshy. The northern portion of the

residency constitutes the most fertile portion, is generally flat with a

hilly group in the middle, where the two inactive volcanoes, Karang and

Pulosari, [v.03 p.0356] are found, while the north-western corner is

occupied by the isolated Gede Mountain. The southern portion is covered by

the Kendang (Malay for "range") Mountains extending into the Preanger. The

rivers are only navigable at their mouths. Various geysers and cold and

warm sulphur springs are found in the centre of the residency, and on a

ridge of the Karang Mountain is the large crater-lake Dano, a great part of

which was drained by the government in 1835 for rice cultivation. Pulse

(_kachang_), rice and coffee are the principal products of cultivation; but

in the days of government culture sugar, indigo and especially pepper were

also largely grown. The former considerable fishing and coasting trade was

ruined by the eruption of Krakatoa in 1883, a large stretch of coast line

and the seaport towns of Charingin and Anjer being destroyed by the

inundation. The prosperity of the residency was further affected by a

cattle plague in 1879, followed by a fever epidemic which carried off

50,000 people, and except in the rice season there is a considerable

emigration of natives. Bantam contains five native regencies or territorial

divisions, namely, Serang, Anjer, Pandeglang, Charingin, Lebak. The

principal towns are Serang, the capital of the residency, Chilegon,

Pandeglang, Menes and Rangkas Betug. The chief town, Serang, is situated 2

1/2 m. from Bantam Bay on the high road from Batavia. The port of Serang is

Karangantu, on Bantam Bay, and close by is the old ruined town of Bantam,

once the capital of the kingdom of Bantam, and before the foundation of

Batavia the principal commercial port of the Dutch East India Company. The

ruins include the remains of the former pepper warehouses, the old factory,

called Fort Speelwijk, belonging to the company, the fortified palace of

the former sultans and a well-preserved mosque thought to have been built

by the third Mahommedan ruler of Bantam about 1562-1576, and containing the

tombs of various princes of Bantam. Before the Dutch conquest Bantam was a

powerful Mahommedan state, whose sovereign extended his conquests in the

neighbouring islands of Borneo and Sumatra. In 1595 the Dutch expelled the

Portuguese and formed their first settlement. A British factory was

established in 1603 and continued to exist till the staff was expelled in

1682. In 1683 the Dutch reduced the sultan to vassalage, built the fort of

Speelwijk and monopolized the port, which had previously been free to all

comers; and for more than a century afterwards Bantam was one of the most

important seats of commerce in the East Indies. In 1811 after Batavia had

surrendered to the British, Bantam soon followed; but it was restored to

the Dutch in 1814. Two years later, however, they removed their chief

settlement to the more elevated station of Serang, or Ceram, 7 m. inland,

and in 1817 the ruin of Bantam was hastened by a fire.

For "Bantam" fowls see POULTRY.

BANTIN, or BANTING, the native name of the wild ox of Java, known to the

Malays as sapi-utan, and in zoology as _Bos (Bibos) sondaicus._ The white

patch on the rump distinguishes the bantin from its ally the gaur (_q.v._).

Bulls of the typical bantin of Java and Borneo are, when fully adult,

completely black except for the white rump and legs, but the cows and young

are rufous. In Burma the species is represented by the tsaine, or h'saine,

in which the colour of the adult bulls is rufous fawn. Tame bantin are bred

in Bali, near Java, and exported to Singapore. (See BOVIDAE.)

BANTRY, a seaport, market-town and seaside resort of Co. Cork, Ireland, in

the west parliamentary division, 58 m. S.W. of Cork by the Cork, Bandon &

South Coast railway, on the bay of the same name. Pop. (1901) 3109. It is

an important centre both for sea fisheries and for sport with the rod. It

is the terminus of the railway, and a coaching station on the famous

"Prince of Wales" route (named after King Edward VII.) from Cork to

Glengarriff and Killarney. The bay, with excellent anchorage, is a

picturesque inlet some 22m. long by 3 to 6 broad, with 12 to 32 fathoms of

water. It is one of the headquarter stations of the Channel Squadron, which

uses the harbour at Castletown Bearhaven on the northern shore, behind Bear

Island, near the mouth of the bay. It was the scene of attempts by the

French to invade Ireland in 1689 and 1796, and troops of William of Orange

were landed here in 1697. There are several islands, the principal of which

are Bear Island and Whiddy, off the town. Ruins of the so-called "fish

palaces" testify to the failure of the pilchard fishery in the 18th

century.

BANTU LANGUAGES. The greater part of Africa south of the equator possesses

but one linguistic family so far as its native inhabitants are concerned.

This clearly-marked division of human speech has been entitled the Bantu, a

name invented by Dr W. H. I. Bleek, and it is, on the whole, the fittest

general term with which to designate the most remarkable group of African

languages.[1]

It must not be supposed for a moment that all the people who speak Bantu

languages belong necessarily to a special and definite type of negro. On

the contrary, though there is a certain physical resemblance among those

tribes who speak clearly-marked Bantu dialects (the Babangi of the upper

Congo, the people of the Great Lakes, the Ova-herero, the Ba-tonga,

Zulu-Kaffirs, Awemba and some of the East Coast tribes), there is

nevertheless a great diversity in outward appearance, shape of head and

other physical characteristics, among the negroes who inhabit Bantu Africa.

Some tribes speaking Bantu languages are dwarfs or dwarfish, and belong to

the group of Forest Pygmies. Others betray relationship to the Hottentots;

others again cannot be distinguished from the most exaggerated types of the

black West African negro. Yet others again, especially on the north, are of

Gala (Galla) or Nilotic origin. But the general deduction to be drawn from

a study of the Bantu languages, as they exist at the present day, is that

at some period not more than 3000 years ago a powerful tribe of negroes

speaking the Bantu mother-language, allied physically to the negroes of the

south-western Nile and southern Lake Chad basins (yet impregnated with the

Caucasian Hamite), pushed themselves forcibly from the very heart of Africa

(the region between the watersheds of the Shari, Congo and western Nile)

into the southern half of the continent, which at that time was probably

sparsely populated except in the north-west, east and south. The Congo

basin and the south-western watershed of the Nile at the time of the Bantu

invasion would have been occupied on the Atlantic seaboard by West Coast

negroes, and in the centre by negroes of a low type and by Forest Pygmies;

the eastern coasts of Victoria Nyanza and the East African coast region

down to opposite Zanzibar probably had a population partly Nilotic-negro

and partly Hottentot-Bushman. From Lakes Tanganyika and Nyasa

south-westwards to the Cape of Good Hope the population was Forest-negro,

Nilotic-negro, Hottentot and Bushman. Over nearly all this area the Bantu

swept; and they assimilated or absorbed the vast majority of the preceding

populations, of which, physically or linguistically, the only survivors are

the scattered tribes of pygmies in the forests of south-west Nile land,

Congo basin and Gabun, the central Sudanese of the N.E. Congo, a few

patches of quasi-Hottentot, Hamitic and Nilotic peoples between Victoria

Nyanza and the Zanzibar coast, and the Bushmen and Hottentots of south-west

Africa. The first area of decided concentration on the part of the Bantu

was very probably Uganda and the shores of Tanganyika. The main line of

advance south-west trended rather to the east coast of Africa than to the

west, but bifurcated at the south end of Lake Tanganyika, one great branch

passing west between that lake and Nyasa, and the other southwards.

Finally, when the Bantu had reached the [v.03 p.0357] south-west corner of

Africa, their farther advance was checked by two causes: first, the

concentration in a healthy, cattle-rearing part of Africa of the Hottentots

(themselves only a superior type of Bushman, but able to offer a much

sturdier resistance to the big black Bantu negroes than the crafty but

feeble Bushmen), and secondly, the arrival on the scene of the Dutch and

British, but for whose final intervention the whole of southern Africa

would have been rapidly Bantuized, as far as the imposition of language was

concerned.

The theory thus set forth of the origin and progress of the Bantu and the

approximate date at which their great southern exodus commenced, is to some

extent attributable to the present writer only, and has been traversed at

different times by other writers on the same subject. In the nearly total

absence of any historical records, the only means of building up Bantu

history lies in linguistic research, in the study of existing dialects, of

their relative degree of purity, of their connexion one with the other and

of the most widely-spread roots common to the majority of the Bantu

languages. The present writer, relying on linguistic evidence, fixed the

approximate date at which the Bantu negroes left their primal home in the

very heart of Africa at not much more than 2000 years ago; and the reason

adduced was worth some consideration. It lay in the root common to a large

proportion of the Bantu languages expressing the domestic fowl--_kuku_

(_nkuku_, _ngoko_, _nsusu_, _nguku_, _nku_). Now the domestic fowl reached

Africa first through Egypt, at the time of the Persian occupation--not

before 500 to 400 B.C. It would take at that time at least a couple of

hundred years before--from people to people and tribe to tribe up the Nile

valley--the fowl, as a domestic bird, reached the equatorial regions of

Africa. The Muscovy duck, introduced by the Portuguese from Brazil at the

beginning of the 17th century, is spreading itself over Negro Africa at

just about the same rate. Yet the Bantu people must have had the domestic

fowl well established amongst themselves before they left their original

home, because throughout Bantu Africa (with rare exceptions and those not

among the purest Bantu tribes) the root expressing the domestic fowl recurs

to the one vocable of _kuku_.[2] Curiously enough this root _kuku_

resembles to a marked degree several of the Persian words for "fowl," and

is no doubt remotely derived from the cry of the bird. Among those Negro

races which do not speak Bantu languages, though they may be living in the

closest proximity to the Bantu, the name for fowl is quite different.[3]

The fowl was only introduced into Madagascar, as far as researches go, by

the Arabs during the historical period, and is not known by any name

similar to the root _kuku_. Moreover, even if the fowl had been (and there

is no record of this fact) introduced from Madagascar on to the east coast

of Africa, it would be indeed strange if it carried with it to Cameroon, to

the White Nile and to Lake Ngami one and the same name. It may, however, be

argued that such a thing is possible, that the introduction of the fowl

south of the equator need not be in any way coincident with the Bantu

invasion, as its name in North Central Africa may have followed it

everywhere among the Bantu peoples. But all other cases of introduced

plants or animals do not support this idea in the least. The Muscovy duck,

for instance, is pretty well distributed throughout Bantu Africa, but it

has no common widely-spread name. Even tobacco (though the root "taba"

turns up unexpectedly in remote parts of Africa) assumes totally different

designations in different Bantu tribes. The Bantu, moreover, remained

faithful to a great number of roots like "fowl," which referred to animals,

plants, implements and abstract concepts known to them in their original

home. Thus there are the root-words for ox (_-nombe_, _-ombe_, _-nte_),

goat (_-budi_, _-buzi_, _-buri_), pig (_-guluba_), pigeon (_-jiba_),

buffalo (_nyati_), dog (_mbwa_), hippopotamus (_-bugu_, _gubu_), elephant

(_-jobo_, _-joko_), leopard (_ngwi_), house (_-zo_, _-do_, _-yumba_,

_-anda_, _-dago_, _-dabo_), moon (_-ezi_), sun, sky, or God (_-juba_),

water (_-ndi_, _-ndiba_, _mandiba_), lake or river (_-anza_),[4] drum

(_ngoma_), name (_-ina_ or _jina_), wizard (_nganga_), belly, bowel (_-vu_,

_-vumo_), buttocks (_-tako_); adjectives like _-bi_ (bad), _-eru_ (white);

the numerals, 2, 3, 4, 5, 10 and 100; verbs like _fwa_ (to die), _ta_ (to

strike, kill), _la (da)_ or _lia_ (_di_, _dia_) (to eat). The root-words

cited are not a hundredth part of the total number of root-words which are

practically common to all the spoken dialects of Bantu Africa. Therefore

the possession amongst its root-words of a common name for "fowl" seems to

the present writer to show conclusively that (1) the original Bantu tribe

must have possessed the domestic fowl before its dispersal through the

southern half of Africa began, and that (2) as it is historically certain

that the fowl as a domestic bird did not reach Egypt before the Persian

conquest in 525 B.C., and probably would not have been transmitted to the

heart of Africa for another couple of hundred years, the Bantu exodus (at

any rate to the south of the equatorial region) may safely be placed at a

date not much anterior to 2100 years ago.

The creation of the Bantu type of language (pronominal-prefix) was

certainly a much more ancient event than the exodus from the Bantu

mother-land. Some form of speech like Fula, Kiama (Tern), or Kposo of

northern Togoland, or one of the languages of the lower Niger or Benue, may

have been taken up by ancient Libyan, Hamite or Nilotic conquerors and cast

into the type which we now know as Bantu,--a division of sexless Negro

speech, however, that shows no obvious traces of Hamitic (Caucasian)

influence. We have no clue at present to the exact birth-place of the Bantu

nor to the particular group of dialects or languages from which it sprang.

Its origin and near relationships are as much a puzzle as is the case with

the Aryan speech. Perhaps in grammatical construction (suffixes taking the

place of prefixes) Fula shows some resemblance; and Fula possesses the

concord in a form considerably like that of the Bantu, as well as offering

affinities in the numerals 3 and 4, and in a _few_ nominal, pronominal and

verbal roots. The Timne and cognate languages of Sierra Leone and the north

Guinea coast use pronominal prefixes and a system of concord, the

employment of the latter being precisely similar to the same practice in

the Bantu languages; but in word-roots (substantives, numerals, pronouns,

verbs) there is absolutely _no_ resemblance with this north Guinea group of

prefix-using languages. In the numerals 2, 3, 4, and sometimes 5, and in a

few verbal roots, there is a distinct affinity between Bantu and the

languages of N. Togoland, the Benue river, lower Niger, Calabar and Gold

Coast. The same thing may be said with less emphasis about the Madi and

_possibly_ the Nyam-Nyam (Makarka) group of languages in Central Africa

_though in none of these forms of speech is there any trace of the

concord_. Prefixes of a simple kind are used in the tongues of Ashanti, N.

Togoland, lower Niger and eastern Niger delta, Cross River and Benue, to

express differences between singular and plural, and also the quality of

the noun; but they do not correspond to those of the Bantu type, though

they sometimes fall into "classes." In the north-west of the Bantu field,

in the region between Cameroon and the north-western basin of the Congo,

the Cross river and the Benue, there is an area of great extent occupied by

languages of a "semi-Bantu" character, such as Nki, Mbudikum, Akpa, Mbe,

Bayon, Manyan, Bafut and Bansh[=o], and the Munshi, Jarawa, Kororofa,

Kamuku and Gbari of the central and western Benue basin. The resemblances

to the Bantu in certain word-roots are of an obvious nature; and prefixes

in a very simple form are generally used for singular and plural, but the

rest of the concord is very doubtful. Here, however, we have the nearest

relations of the Bantu, so far as [v.03 p.0358] etymology of word-roots is

concerned. Further evidence of slight etymological and even grammatical

relationships may be traced as far west as the lower Niger and northern and

western Gold Coast languages (and, in some word-roots, the Mandingo group).

The Fula language would offer some _grammatical_ resemblance if its

suffixes were turned into prefixes (a change which has actually taken place

in the reverse direction in the English language between its former

Teutonic and its modern Romanized conditions; _cf._ "offset" and "set-off,"

"upstanding" and "standing-up").

The legends and traditions of the Bantu peoples themselves invariably point

to a northern origin, and a period, not wholly removed from their racial

remembrance, when they were strangers in their present lands. Seemingly the

Bantu, somewhat early in their migration down the east coast, took to the

sea, and not merely occupied the islands of Pemba and Zanzibar, but

travelled as far afield as the Comoro archipelago and even the west coast

of Madagascar. Their invasion of Madagascar must have been fairly

considerable in numbers, and they doubtless gave rise to the race of black

people known traditionally to the Hovas as the Va-zimba.

The accompanying map will show pretty accurately the distribution of the

Bantu-speaking Negroes at the present day.

[Illustration]

It will be seen by a glance at this map that the areas in which are spoken

Bantu languages of typical structure and archaic form are somewhat widely

spread. Perhaps on the whole the most archaic dialects at the present day

are those of Mount Elgon, Ruwenzori, Unyoro, Uganda, the north coast of

Tanganyika and of the Bemba country to the south-west of Tanganyika; also

those in the vicinity of Lake Bangweulu, and the Nkonde and Kese dialects

of the north and north-east coasts of Lake Nyasa; also (markedly) the

Subiya speech of the western Zambezi. Another language containing a good

many original Bantu roots and typical features is the well-known Oci-herero

of Damaraland (though this S.W. African group also presents marked

peculiarities and some strange divergencies). Kimakonde, on the east coast

of Africa, is a primitive Bantu tongue; so in its roots, but not in its

prefixes, is the celebrated Ki-swahili of Zanzibar. Ci-bodzo of the Zambezi

delta is also an archaic type of great interest. The Zulu-Kaffir language,

though it exhibits marked changes and deviations in vocabulary and

phonetics (both probably of recent date), preserves a few characteristics

of the hypothetical mother-tongue: so much so that, until the languages of

the Great Lakes came to be known, Zulu-Kaffir was regarded as the most

archaic type of Bantu speech, a position from which it is now completely

deposed. It is in some features unusually divergent from the typical Bantu.

_Classification._--With our present knowledge of the existing Bantu tongues

and their affinities, it is possible to divide them approximately into the

following numbered groups and subdivisions, commencing at the north-eastern

extremity of the Bantu domain, where, on the whole, the languages

approximate nearest to the hypothetical parent speech.

(1) The _Uganda-Unyoro_ group. This includes all the dialects between the

Victoria Nile and Busoga on the east and north, the east coast of Lake

Albert, the range of Ruwenzori and the Congo Forest on the west; on the

south-east and south, the south coast of the Victoria Nyanza, and a line

from near Emin Pasha Gulf to the Malagarazi river and the east coast of

Tanganyika. On the south-west this district is bounded more or less by the

Rusizi river down to Tanganyika. It includes the district of Busoga on the

north-east and all the archipelagoes and inhabited islands of the Victoria

Nyanza even as far east as Bukerebe, except those islands near the

north-east coast. The dialects of Busoga, the Sese Islands and the west

coast of Lake Victoria are closely related to the language of the kingdom

of Uganda. Allied to, yet _quite_ distinct from the Uganda subjection, is

that which is usually classified as _Unyoro_.[5] This includes the dialects

spoken by the Hima (Hamitic aristocracy of these equatorial

lands--_Uru-hima_, _Ru-hinda_, &c.), _Ru-songora_, _Ru-iro_, _Ru-toro_,

_Ru-tusi_, and all the kindred dialects of Karagwe, Busiba, _Ruanda_,

Businja and Bukerebe. _Ki-rundi_, of the Burundi country at the north end

of Tanganyika, and the other languages of eastern Tanganyika down to Ufipa

are closely allied to the Unyoro sub-section of group 1, but perhaps adhere

more closely to group 12. The third independent sub-section of this group

is _Lu-konjo_, the language which is spoken on the southern flanks of the

Ruwenzori Range and thence southwards to Lake Kivu and the eastern limits

of the Congo Forest.

(2) The second group on the geographical list is _Lihuku-Kuamba_, the

separate and somewhat peculiar Bantu dialects lingering in the lands to the

south and south-west of Albert Nyanza (Mboga country). Lihuku (or

Libvanuma) is a very isolated type of Bantu, quite apart from the

Uganda-Unyoro groups, with which it shows no special affinity at all,

though in close juxtaposition. Its alliance with _Kuamba_ of western

Ruwenzori is not very close. Other affinities are with the degraded Bantu

dialects (_Ki-bira_, &c.) of the Ituri-Aruwimi forests. Kuamba is spoken on

the west and north slopes of Ruwenzori. Both Kuamba and Lihuku show a

marked relationship with the languages on the northern Congo and Aruwimi,

less in grammar than in vocabulary.

(3) The _Kavirondo-Masaba_ section. This group, which includes the

_Lu-nyara_, _Luwanga_, _Lukonde_ and _Igizii_ of the north-east and eastern

shores of the Victoria Nyanza and the northern Kavirondo and Mount Elgon

territories, is related to the Luganda section more than to any group of

the Bantu tongues, but it is a very distinct division, in its prefixes the

most archaic. It includes the languages spoken along the western flanks of

Mount Elgon, those of Bantu Kavirondo, and of the eastern coast-lands of

the Victoria Nyanza (Igizii).

(4) The _Kikuyu-Kamba_ group of British East Africa, east of the Rift

valley. It includes, besides the special dialects of Kikuyu and Ukambani,

all the scattered fragments of Bantu speech on Mount Kenya and the upper

Tana river (_Dhaicho_).

(5) The _Kilimanjaro_ (_Chaga-Siha_) group, embracing the rather peculiar

dialects of Mount Kilimanjaro, Mount Meru and Ugweno.

(6) The _Pokomo-Nyika-Giriama-Taveita_ group represents the Bantu dialects

of the coast province of British East Africa, between (and including) the

Tana river on the north and the frontier of German East Africa on the

south.

(7) _Swahili_, the language of Zanzibar and of the opposite coast, a form

of speech now widely spread as a commercial language over Eastern and

Central Africa. Swahili is a somewhat archaic Bantu dialect, indigenous

probably to the East African coast south of the Ruvu (Pangani) river, which

by intermixture with Arabic has become the _lingua franca_ of eastern

Africa between the White Nile and the Zambezi. It was almost certainly of

mainland origin, distinct from the original local dialects of Zanzibar and

Pemba, which may have belonged to group No. 6. There are colonies of

Swahili-speaking people at Mombasa, Malindi, Lamu, and even as far north as

the Shebeli river in Somaliland, also along the coast of German and

Portuguese East Africa as far south as Angoche. In the coast-lands between

the Ruvu or Pangani river on the north and the Kilwa settlements on the

south, the local languages and dialects are more or less related to

Swahili, though they are independent languages. Amongst these may be

mentioned _Bondei_, _Shambala_ (north of the Ruvu), _Nguru_, _Zeguha_,

_Ki-mrima_ and _Ki-zaramo_.

(8) This group might be described as _Kaguru-Sagala-Kami_. It is one which

occupies the inland territories of German East Africa, between the Swahili

coast dialects on the east and the domain of the Nyamwezi (No. 11) on the

west. On the north this group is bounded by the non-Bantu languages of the

Masai, Mbugu and Taturu, and on the south by the Ruaha river. This group

includes _Kigogo_ and _Irangi_.

[v.03 p.0359] (9) The dialects of the Comoro Islands, between the East

African coast and Madagascar, are styled _Hi-nzua_ or _Anzuani_ and

_Shi-ngazija_. They are somewhat closely related to Swahili.

(10) The archaic _Makonde_ or _Mabiha_ of the lower Ruvuma, and the coast

between Lindi and Ibo; this might conceivably be attached to the Swahili

branch.

(11) The _Nyamwezi_ group includes all the dialects of the Nyamwezi country

west of Ugogo as far north as the Victoria Nyanza (where the tongues melt

into group No. 1), and bounded on the south by the Upper Ruaha river, and

on the west by the eastern borderlands of Tanganyika. The Nyamwezi genus

penetrates south-west to within a short distance of Lake Rukwa. A language

of this group was at one time a good deal spoken in the southern part of

the Belgian Congo, having been imported there by traders who made

themselves chiefs.

(12) The _Tanganyika_ languages (_Ki-rega_, _Kabwari_, _Kiguha_, &c). These

dialects are chiefly spoken in the regions west-north-west, and perhaps

north and east of Tanganyika, from the vicinity of Lake Albert Edward on

the north and the Lukuga outlet of Tanganyika on the south. On the west

they are bounded by the Congo Forest and the Manyema genus (No. 13). The

languages on the east coast of Tanganyika (_Ki-rundi_, _Kigeye_, &c.) seem

to be more nearly connected with those of group No. 1 (_Uganda-Unyoro_),

yet perhaps they are more conveniently included here.

(13) The _Manyema_ (_Baenya_) group includes most of the corrupt Bantu

dialects between the western watershed of Tanganyika and the main stream of

the Luapula-Congo, extending also still farther north, and comprising

(seemingly) the languages of the Aruwimi basin, such as _Yalulema_, _Soko_,

_Lokele_, _Kusu_, _Tu-rumbu_, &c. On the west the Manyema group is bounded

by the languages of the Lomami valley, which belong to groups Nos. 15 and

16; on the east the Manyema genus merges into the much purer Bantu dialects

of groups Nos. 1 and 12. An examination of the Lihuku-Kuamba section (No.

2) shows these tongues to be connected with the Manyema group. The _Kibira_

dialects of the north-eastern Congo Forest (Ituri district) may perhaps be

placed in this section.[6]

(14) The _Rua-Luba-Lunda-Marungu_ group (in which are included _Kanyoka_,

_Lulua_ and _Ki-tabwa_) occupies a good deal of the south central basin of

the Congo, between the south-west coast-line of Tanganyika on the east and

the main streams of the Kasai and Kwango on the west, between the Bakuba

country on the north and the Zambezi watershed on the south.

(15) The _Bakuba_ assemblage of Central Congo dialects (_Songe_,

_Shilange_, _Babuma_, &c.) probably includes all the Bantu languages

between the Lomami river on the east and the Kwa-Kasai and Upper Kwilu on

the west. Its boundary on the north is perhaps the Sankuru river.

(16) The _Balolo_ group consists of all the languages of the Northern Congo

bend (bounded on the north, east and west by the main stream of the Congo),

and perhaps the corrupt dialects of the Northern Kasai, Kwilu and Kwango

(_Babuma_, _Bahuana_, _Bambala_, _Ba-yaka_, _Bakutu_, &c.), where these are

not nearer allied to Teke (No. 18) or to _Bakuba_.

(17) The _Bangala-Bobangi-Liboko_ group comprises the commercial languages

of the Upper Congo (_Ngala_, _Bangi_, _Liboko_, _Poto_, _Ngombe_, _Yanzi_,

&c.) and all the known Congo dialects along and to the north and sometimes

south of the main stream, from as far west as the junction of the Sanga to

as far east as the Rubi and Lomami rivers, and those between the Congo and

the Lower Ubangi river and up the Ubangi, as far north as the limits of the

Bantu domain (about 3deg 30' N.). Allied to these perhaps are the

scarcely-known forms of speech in the basin of the Sanga river, besides the

"Ba-yanzi" dialects of Lakes Mantumba and Leopold II.

(18) The _Bateke_ (_Batio_) group. This may be taken roughly to include

most of the Bantu dialects west of the Sanga river, northwest of the Lower

Congo, south of the Upper Ogowe and Ngoko rivers and east of the Atlantic

coast-lands.

(19) The _Di-Kele_ and _Benga_ dialects of Spanish Guinea and the Batanga

coast of German Cameroon.

(20) The _Fan_ or _Pangwe_ forms of speech (so corrupt as to be only just

recognizable as Bantu), which occupy the little-known interior of German

Cameroon and French Gabun, down to the Ogowe, and as far east and north as

the Sanga, Sanaga and Mbam rivers, and the immediate hinterland of the

"Duala" Cameroon.

(21) The _Duala_ group, which on the other hand is of a much purer Bantu

type, includes the languages spoken on the estuary and delta of the

Cameroon river.

(22) The _Isubu-Bakwiri_ group of the coast-lands north of Cameroon delta

(Ambas Bay), and on the west slopes of Cameroon Mts.

(23) The Bantu dialects of _Fernando Po_ (_Ediya_, _Bateti_, _Bani_, &c.)

distantly allied to Nos 24, 2 and 13.

(24) The _Barondo-Bakundu_ group, which begins on the north at the Rio del

Rey on the extremity of the Bantu field, near the estuary of the Cross

river. This group may also include _Barombi_ and _Bas[=a]_, _Bonken_,

_Abo_, _Nkosi_ and other much-debased dialects, which are spoken on the

eastern slopes of the Cameroon mountains and on the Cameroon river

(Magombe), and thence to the Sanaga and Nyong rivers. Eastwards and

north-eastwards of this group, the languages (such as _Mbe_, _Bati_, _Nki_,

_Mbudikum_, _Bafut_, _Bayon_) may be described as "semi-Bantu," and

evincing affinities with the forms of speech in the basin of the Central

Benue river and also with the _Fan_ (No. 20).

(25) Turning southwards again from the north-westernmost limit of the

Bantu, we meet with another group, the _Mpongwe-Orungu_ and _Aduma_

languages of French Gabun, and the tongues of the Lower Ogowe and Fernan

Vaz promontory.

(26) These again shade on the south into the group of _Kakongo_ dialects of

the Loango and Sete Kama coast--such as _Ba-kama_, _Ba-nyanga_, _Ma-yombe_,

_Ba-vili_, _Ba-kamba_ and _Ka-kongo_ (_Kabinda_).

(27) The _Kongo_ language group comprises the dialects along the lower

course of the Congo from its mouth to Stanley Pool; also the territory of

the old kingdom of Congo, lying to the south of that river (and north of

the river Loje) from the coast eastwards to the watershed of the river

Kwango (and the longitude, more or less, of Stanley Pool).

(28) In the south the Kongo dialects melt imperceptibly into the

closely-allied Angola language. This group may be styled in a general way

_Mbundu_, and it includes the languages of Central Angola, such as

_Ki-mbundu_, _Mbamba_, _Ki-sama_, _Songo_, _U-mbangala_. The boundary of

this genus on the east is probably the Kwango river, beyond which the Lunda

languages begin (No. 14). On the north, the river Loje to some extent

serves as a frontier between the _Kongo_ and _Mbundu_ tongues. On the south

the boundary of group No. 28 is approximately the 11th degree of south

latitude.

(29) Very distinct from the _Ki-mbundu_ speech (though with connecting

forms) is the _Oci-herero_ group, which includes the _Herero_ language of

Damaraland, the _Umbundu_ of the Bihe highlands of south Angola, the _Nano_

of the Benguela coast, and _Si-ndonga_, _Ku-anyama_ and _Oci-mbo_ of the

southern regions of Portuguese Angola and the northern half of German

South-West Africa. The languages of group No. 29 probably extend as far

inland as the Kwito and Kubango rivers, in short, to the Zambezi watershed.

On the south they are confronted with the Hottentot languages. The Haukoin

or Hill Damaras--a Negro race of unexplained affinities and apparently

speaking a Hottentot language--occupy an enclave in the area of _Herero_

speech.

(30) What may be called the _Kiboko_ or _Kibokwe_ (also _Kioko_) family of

eastern Angola is a language-group which seems to offer affinities to the

languages of the Upper Zambezi and to those of groups Nos. 28 and 29. It

extends eastwards into the south-western portion of the Belgian Congo, and

includes the _Lubale_ of northern Barotseland and the sources of the river

Zambezi, and possibly the _Gangela_ of south-western Angola.

(31) Southwards of group No. 30 is that of the _Barotseland_ languages, of

which the best-known form--almost the only one that is effectively

illustrated--is _Si-luyi_. To _Si-luyi_ may be related the _Mabunda_ of

Western Barotseland. The dialects of the _Ambwela_, _A-mbwe_, _Ma-bukushu_

and _A-kwamashi_ are probably closely related.

(32) Next is a group which might be styled the _Subiya-Tonga-Ila_, though

some authorities think that _Tonga_ and _Ila_ deserve to be ranked as an

independent group. There is, however, a close alliance in structure between

the languages of each of the two subsections. The _Tonga_ subgroup would

include the dialects of the _Ba-tetela_, the _Ba-ila_ (_Mashukulumbwe_) and

of all Central Zambezia. _Ci-subiya_ is the dominant language of South-West

Zambezia, along a portion of the Zambezi river south of Barotseland, and in

the lands lying between the Zambezi and the Chobe-Linyante river. _Subiya_

is one of the most archaic of Bantu languages, more so than _Tonga_. Both

are without any strong affinity to _Oci-herero_, and only evince a _slight_

relationship with the Zulu group (No. 44).

(33) The _Bisa_ or _Wisa_ family includes the languages of Iramba, Bausi,

Lukinga, in the southernmost projection of the Belgian Congo, and the

dialects of _Lubisa_ and _Ilala_ between the Chambezi river and Lake

Bangweulu on the north, and the Luangwa river on the east and south;

perhaps also some of the languages along the course of the Upper Luapula

river.

(34) With it is closely allied that of the _Bemba_ or _Emba_ dialects. This

interesting genus occupies the ground between the south-west and south

coasts of Tanganyika, Lake Mweru, and the Upper Chambezi river. The

_Ki-bemba_ domain may be taken to include the locally-modified _Ki-lungu_

and _Ki-mambwe_ of South and South-East Tanganyika.

(35) What may be called the _North Nyasa_ or _Nkonde_ group comprises all

the dialects of the north-west and north coasts of Lake Nyasa (such as

_Ici-wandia_ and _Iki-nyikiusa_) and _Ishi-nyi[chi]a_ of the

Nyasa-Tanganyika plateau, and extends perhaps as far north west as the Fipa

country (_Iki-fipa_), and the shores of Lake Rukwa (_Ici-wungu_) in the

vicinity of the Nyamwezi domain (No. 11). _Iki-fipa_, however, has some

affinities to the Tanganyika and western Victoria-Nyanza languages (groups

Nos. 1 and 12).

[v.03 p.0360] (36) The western part of Nyasaland, south of group No. 35, is

occupied by the _Tumbuka_ section, which includes the languages of the

_Tumbuka_, _Henga_ and _A-tonga_ peoples, and occupies the area between the

western shores of Lake Nyasa and the Upper Luangwa river.

(37) Eastwards of No. 35 (North Nyasa group) lies the _Kinga_ speech of the

lofty Livingstone mountains, which is sufficiently distinct from its

neighbours to be classified as a separate group.

(38) East of the Livingstone mountains and west of the Ruaha river, south

also of the Unyamwezi domain, extends the _Sango-Bena-Hehe-Sutu_ group.

(39) The extensive _Yao_ genus of languages stretches from just behind the

coast of the Lindi settlements in German East Africa (_Ki-mwera_)

south-westward across the Ruvuma river to the north-east shores of Lake

Nyasa (_Ki-kese_), and thence back to the valley of the Lujenda-Ruvuma

(_Cingindo_), and southwards in various dialects of the _Yao_ language to

the south-east corner of Lake Nyasa and the region east of the Shire river,

between Lake Nyasa, the Shire highlands and Mt. Mlanje. It is only since

the middle of the 19th century that the _Yao_ language has conquered

territory to the south of Lake Nyasa. There still remain within its domain

colonies of Nyanja-speaking people.

(40) Eastwards of the _Yao_ domain, and bounded on the north by the range

of that language in the Ruvuma valley and by the separate group of

_Ki-makonde_ (No. 10), ranges the well-marked _Makua_ genus. The languages

thus described occupy the greater part of Portuguese East Africa away from

the watershed of Lake Nyasa. The _Makua_ language is probably divided into

the following dialects:--_I-medo_, _I-lomwe_, _I-tugulu_ and _Anguru_.

There are other dialects unnamed in the Angoji coast-region, where,

however, strong colonies of Swahili-speaking people are settled. The

southern part of the _Makua_ domain is occupied by the _Ci-cuambo_ of the

Quelimane district.

(41) _Nyanja_, perhaps the most extensive group of cognate languages in the

Bantu field, is principally associated with the east and west shores of the

southern half of Lake Nyasa. It also covers all the valley of the Shire,

except portions of the Shire highlands, down to the junction of that stream

with the Zambezi, and further, the lands on both banks of the Zambezi down

to and including its delta. West of Lake Nyasa, the _Nyanja_ domain extends

in the _Senga_ language to the river Luangwa and the Central Zambezi, also

along both banks of the Central Zambezi. South of the Central Zambezi,

_Nyanja_ dialects are spoken as far west as the Victoria Falls. Thence they

extend eastwards over Mashonaland to the sea-coast. With this family may

also be associated the languages of the Portuguese coast-region south of

the Zambezi as far as Inhambane. The principal dialects of the _Nyanja_

language are the _Cinyanja_ of Eastern Nyasaland, _Ci-peta_ and _Ci-maravi_

of South-West Nyasaland to as far as the watershed of the Luangwa river,

the _Ci-mananja_ of the Shire highlands, _Ci-mobo_ and _Ci-machinjiri_ of

the Shire valley, _Ci-sena_ or _Ci-nyungwe_ of Tete and Sena (Zambezi), and

_Ci-mazaro_ of the Lower Zambezi. The Luangwa regions, as already

mentioned, are occupied by the distinct but closely-allied Senga language.

South of the Central Zambezi there are _Ci-nanzwa_ in the region near the

Victoria Falls, _Ci-nyai_, _Shi-kalana_, _Ci-shuna_ (_Ci-gomo_), _Ci-loze_,

and possibly _Ci-shangwe_ (or _Ci-hlangane_) and _Shi-lenge_ which link on

to the Beira coast dialects. In the delta of the Zambezi is to be found

_Ci-podzo_, a very distinct language, yet one which belongs to the _Nyanja_

genus. _Ci-shangane_, _Chopi_ or _Shi-lenge_ and other dialects of the

Beira and Inhambane coast-lands and of Manika have been much influenced by

Zulu dialects (_Tebele_ and _Ronga_).

(42) The well-marked _Bechuana_ language group has very distinct features

of its own. This includes all the Bantu dialects of the Bechuanaland

protectorate west of the Guai river. Bechuana dialects (such as _Ci-venda_,

_Se-suto_, _Se-peli_, _Se-rolon_, _Se-[chi]lapi_, &c.) cover a good deal of

the north and west of the Transvaal, and extend over all the Orange River

Colony and Bechuanaland. _Se-suto_ is the language of Basutoland;

_Se-rolon_, _Se-mangwato_, of the Eastern Kalahri; _Se-kololo_ is the court

language of Barotseland; _Ci-venda_ and _Se-pedi_ or _Peli_ are the

principal dialects of the Transvaal. Group No. 42, in fact, stretches

between the Zambezi on the north and the Orange river on the south, and

extends westward (except for Hottentot and Bushmen interruptions) to the

domain of the _Oci-herero_.

(43) The _Ronga_ (_Tonga_) languages of Portuguese South-East Africa

(Gazaland, Lower Limpopo valley, and patches of the North Transvaal

(_Shi-gwamba_), Delagoa Bay) are almost equally related to the _Nyanja_

group (41) on the one hand, and to _Zulu_ on the other, probably

representing a mingling of the two influences, of which the latter

predominates.

(44) Lastly comes the _Zulu-Kaffir_ group, occupying parts of Rhodesia, the

eastern portion of the Transvaal, Swaziland, Natal and the eastern half of

Cape Colony. In vocabulary, and to some degree in phonetics, the Zulu

language (divided at most into three dialects) is related in some phonetic

features to No. 42, and of course to No. 43; otherwise it stands very much

alone in its developments. It may have distant relations in groups Nos. 29

and 32. Dialects of Zulu (_Tebele_ and _Ki-ngoni_ or _Ci-nongi_) are spoken

at the present day in South-West Rhodesia and in Western Nyasaland and on

the plateaus north-east of Lake Nyasa, carried thither by the Zulu raiders

of the early 19th century.

The foregoing is only an attempt to classify the known forms of Bantu

speech and to give their approximate geographical limits. The writer is

well aware that here and there exist small patches of languages spoken by

two or three villages which, though emphatically Bantu, possess isolated

characters making them not easily included within any of the

above-mentioned groups; but too detailed a reference to these languages

would be wearisome and perhaps puzzling. Broadly speaking, the domain of

Bantu speech seems to be divided into four great sections:--(a) the

languages of the Great Lakes and the East Coast down to and including the

Zambezi basin; (b) the South-Central group (_Bechuana-Zulu_); (c) the

languages of the South-West, from the southern part of the Belgian Congo to

Damaraland and the Angola-Congo coast; and (d) the Western group, including

all the Central and Northern Congo and Cameroon languages, and probably

also group No. 2 of the Albert Nyanza and Semliki river.

_Common Features_.--There is no mistaking a Bantu language, which perhaps

is what renders the study of this group so interesting and encouraging. The

homogeneity of this family is so striking, as compared with the

inexplicable confusion of tongues which reigns in Africa north of the Bantu

borderland, that the close relationships of these dialects have perhaps

been a little exaggerated by earlier writers.

The phonology of the Western group (d) is akin to that of the Negro

languages of Western and West-Central Africa. A small portion of (b) the

South-Central group (_Zulu_) has picked up clicks, perhaps borrowed from

the Hottentots and Bushmen. Otherwise, the three groups (a), (b) and (c)

are closely related in phonology, and never, except here and there on the

borders of the Western group, adopt the peculiar West African combinations

of _kp_ and _gb_, which are so characteristic of African speech between the

Upper Nile and the Guinea coast.

The following propositions may be laid down to define the special or

peculiar features of the Bantu languages:--

(1) They are agglutinative in their construction, the syntax being formed

by adding prefixes principally and also suffixes to the root, but no

infixes (that is to say, no mutable syllable incorporated into the middle

of the root-word).[7] (2) The root excepting its terminal vowel is

practically unchanging, though its first or penultimate vowel or consonant

may be modified in pronunciation by the preceding prefix, or the last vowel

in the same way by the succeeding suffix.

(3) The vowels of the Bantu languages are always of the Italian type, and

no true Bantu language includes obscure sounds like _oe_ and _ue_. Each

word must end in a vowel (though in some modern dialects in Eastern

Equatorial, West and South Africa the terminal vowel may be elided in rapid

pronunciation, or be dropped, or absorbed in the terminal consonant,

generally a nasal). No two consonants can come together without an

intervening vowel, except in the case of a nasal, labial or sibilant.[8] No

consonant is doubled. Apparent exceptions occur to this last rule where two

nasals, two _r_'s or two _d_'s come together through the elision of a vowel

or a labial.

(4) Substantives are divided into classes or genders, indicated by the

pronominal particle prefixed to the root. These prefixes are used either in

a singular or in a plural sense. With the exception of the "abstract"

prefix _Bu_ (No. 14), no singular prefix can be used as a plural nor vice

versa. There is a certain degree of correspondence between the singular and

plural prefixes (thus No. 2 prefix serves almost invariably as a plural to

No. 3; No. 8 corresponds as a plural to No. 7). The number of prefixes

common to the whole group is perhaps sixteen. The pronominal particle or

prefix of the noun is attached as a prefix to the roots of the adjectives,

pronouns, prepositions and verbs of the sentence which are connected with

the governing noun; and though in course of time these particles may differ

in form from the prefix of the substantive, they were akin in origin. (This

system is the "concord" of Dr Bleek.[9]) The pronominal particles, whether

in nominative or accusative case, must always precede the nominal,

pronominal, adjectival and verbal roots, though they often follow the

auxiliary prefix-participles used in conjugating verbs,[10] and the roots

of some prepositions.

[v.03 p.0361]

(5) The root of the verb is the second person singular of the imperative.

(6) No _sexual gender_ is recognized in the _pronouns_ and _concord_.

Sexual gender may be indicated by a male "prefix" of varying form, often

identical with a word meaning "father," while there is a feminine prefix,

_na_ or _nya_, connected with the root meaning "mother," or a suffix _ka_

or _kazi_, indicating "wife," "female." The 1st and 2nd prefixes invariably

indicate living beings and are Usually restricted to humanity.

The sixteen original prefixes of the Bantu languages are given below in the

most archaic forms to be found at the present day. The still older types of

these prefixes met with in one or two languages, and deduced generally by

the other forms of the particle used in the syntax, are given in brackets.

It is possible that some of these prefixes resulted from the combination of

a demonstrative pronoun and a prefix indicating quality or number.

_Old Bantu Prefixes._

Singular. Plural.

Class 1. Umu- (Ngu-mu-).[11] Class 2. Aba (Mba-ba or Nga-ba).[11]

" 3. Umu- (Ngu-mu-). " 4. Imi- (Ngi-mi-).

" 5. Idi (Ndi-di-). " 6. Ama- (Nga-ma-).

" 7. Iki- (Nki-ki-). " 8. Ibi- (Mbi-bi-).

" 9. I-n- or I-ni- (?Ngi-ni-). " 10. Iti-, Izi-, Iti-n-, Izi-n-

(?Ngi-ti-).

" 11. Ulu (Ndu-du-). " 12. Utu (?Ntu-tu-);

often diminutive in sense.

" 13. Aka (?Nka-ka-); usually diminutive, sometimes honorific.

" 14. Ubu- (?Mbu-bu-); sometimes used in a plural sense;

generally employed to indicate abstract nouns.

" 15. Uku (?Nku-ku-); identical with the preposition "to,"

used as an infinitive with verbs, but also with

certain nouns indicating primarily functions of the body.

" 16. Apa (Mpa-pa-); locative; applied to nouns and other

forms of speech to indicate place or position;

identical with the adverb "here," as Ku- is with "there."

To these sixteen prefixes, the use of which is practically common to all

members of the family, might perhaps be added No. 17, _Fi-_ or _Vi-_, a

prefix in the singular number, having a diminutive sense, which is found in

some of the western and north-western Bantu tongues, chiefly in the

northern half of the Congo basin and Cameroon. It is represented as far

east (in the form of _I-_) as the Manyema language on the Upper Congo, near

Tanganyika. This prefix cannot be traced to derivation from any others

among the sixteen, certainly not to No. 8, as it is always used in the

singular. Its corresponding _plural_ prefix is No. 12 (_Tu-_). Prefix No.

18 is _Ogu-_, which has, as a plural prefix, No. 19, _Aga-_. These are both

used in an augmentative sense, and their use seems to be confined to the

Luganda and Masaba dialects, and perhaps some branches of the Unyoro

language. These, like No. 17, are regular prefixes, since they are supplied

with the concord (_-gu-_ and _-ga-_). Lastly, there is the 20th prefix,

_Mu-_, which is really a preposition meaning "in" or "into," often combined

in meaning with another particle, _-ni_, used always as a suffix.[12] The

20th prefix, _Mu-_, however, does not seem to have a complete concord, as

it is only used adjectivally or as a preposition and has no pronominal

accusative.

The concord may be explained thus:--Let us for a moment reconstruct the

original Bantu mother-tongue (as attempts are sometimes made to deduce the

ancient Aryan from a comparison of the most archaic of its daughters) and

propound sentences to illustrate the repetition of pronominal particles

known as the concord.

_Old Bantu._

_Babo_ _mbaba_-ntu[13] _ba_bi _ba-bo_-ta tu-_ba_-oga.

They these-they person they bad they who kill we fear them.

Rendered into the modern dialect of _Luganda_ this would be:--

_Bo_ _aba_-ntu _ba_-bi _ba_bota tu-_ba_-tia.

They these-they person they bad they who kill we them fear.

(They are bad people who kill; we fear them.)

_Old Bantu._

_Ngu-mu_-ti _ng_uno _ngu_-gwa ku-_ngu_-mbona.

This tree this here this falls; thou this seest?

Rendered into _Kiguha_ of North-West Tanganyika, this would be:--

_U_m_u_ti _gu_no _gu_gwa u_gu_mona?

It tree this here it falls; thou it seest?

(The tree falls; dost thou see it?)

The prefixes and their corresponding particles have varied greatly in form

from the original syllables, as the various Bantu dialects became more and

more corrupt. Assuming these prefixes to have consisted once of two

distinct particles, such as, for example, Nos. 1 and 3, _Ngu-mu-_, or the

6th plural prefix _Nga-ma-_, the first syllable seems to have been of the

nature of a demonstrative pronoun, and the second more like a numeral or an

adjective. _Mu-_ probably meant "one," and _Ma-_ a collective numeral of

indefinite number, applied to liquids (especially water), a tribe of men, a

herd of beasts--anything in the mass.[14] In the corresponding particles of

the concord as applied to adjectives, verbs and pronouns, sometimes the

first syllable, _Ngu_ or _Nga_ was taken for the concord and sometimes the

second _mu_ or _ma_. This would account for the seemingly inexplicable lack

of correspondence between the modern prefix and its accompanying particle,

which so much puzzled Bleek and other early writers on the Bantu languages.

In many of these tongues, for example, the particle which corresponds at

the present day to the plural prefix _Ma-_ is not always _Ma_, but more

often _Ga-_, _Ya-_, _A-_; while to _Mu-_ (Classes 1 and 3) the

corresponding particle besides _-mu-_ is _gu-_, _gw-_, _u-_, _wu-_, _yu-_,

_n-_, &c.

The second prefix. _Ba-_ or _Aba-_, is, in the most archaic Bantu speech

(the languages of Mt. Elgon), _Baba-_ in its definite form (_Ngaba_

sometimes in Zulu-Kaffir). The concord is _-ba-_ in all the less corrupt

Bantu tongues, but this plural prefix degenerates into _Va-_, _Wa-_, _Ma-_,

and _A-_. The concord of the 4th prefix, _Mi-_, is _gi-_, _-i-_, _-ji-_,

and sometimes _-mi-_. The commonest form of the 5th prefix at the present

day is _Li-_ (the older and more correct is _Di-_), and its concord is the

same; this 5th prefix is often dropped (the concord remaining) or becomes

_Ri-_, _I-_, _Ji-_, and _Ni-_. The 7th prefix, _Ki-_, in many non-related

dialects pursues a parallel course through _Ci-_ into _Si-_ (=_Shi_) and

_Si-_ and its concord resembles it. The 8th prefix is still more variable.

In its oldest form this is _Ibi-_ or _Mbibi-_. It is invariably the plural

of the 7th. It becomes in different forms of Bantu speech _Vi-_, _Pi-_,

_Fi-_, _Fy-_, _P[vs]i-_, _[vS]i-_, _I-_, _By-_, _Bzi-_, _Psi-_, _Zwi-_,

_Zi-_ and _Ri-_, with a concord that is similar. The 10th prefix, which was

originally _Ti-_ or _Tin-_, or _Zi-_ or _Zin-_, becomes _Jin-_, _Rin-_,

_Din-_, _Lin-_, [theta]_in-_, [theta]_on-_. &c. The _n_ in this prefix is

really the singular prefix No. 9, which is sometimes retained in the

plural, and sometimes omitted. In the case of the 10th prefix, the concord

or corresponding pronoun persists long after the prefix has fallen out of

use as a definite article. Thus, though it is absent as a plural prefix for

nouns in the _Swahili_ of Zanzibar, it reappears in the concord. For

instance:--_Nombe hizi zangu_--Cows these mine (These cows are mine),

although _Nombe_ has ceased to be _zinombe_ in the plural, the _Zi-_

particle reappears in _hizi_ and _zangu_. In fact, the persistence of this

concord, which exists in almost every known Bantu language in connexion

with the 10th prefix, shows that prefix to have been in universal use at

one time. The 11th prefix _-Lu-_ seems to be descended from an older form,

_Ndu-_. Its commonest type is _Lu-_, but it sometimes loses the _L_ and

becomes _U-_, and in the more archaic dialects is usually pronounced _Du-_

or _Ru-_. It is also _Nu-_ in one or two languages. The 12th prefix

(_Tu-_), always used in a diminutive sense, disappears in many of these

languages. Where met with it is generally _Tu-_ or _To-_, but sometimes the

initial _T_ becomes _R_ (_Ru-_, _Ro-_) or _L_ (_Lu-_, _Lo-_) or even _Y_

(_Yo-_), the concord following the fortunes of the prefix. The 13th prefix

(_Ka-_) is sometimes confused with the 7th (_Ki_) and merged into it and

vice versa. _Ka-_ very often takes the 8th prefix as a plural, more

commonly the 12th, sometimes the 14th. This prefix (_Ka-_) entirely

disappears in the north-western section of the Bantu languages. Bleek

thought that it persisted in the attenuated form of _E-_ so characteristic

of the Cameroon and northern Congo languages, but later investigations show

this _E-_ to be a reduction of _Ki-_ (_Ke-_) the 7th prefix. The 14th

prefix _Bu-_ is very persistent, but frequently loses its initial letter

_B_, which is either softened into _V_ or _W_, or disappears altogether,

the prefix becoming _U-_ or _O-_ or _Ow-_. Sometimes this prefix becomes

palatized into _By-_ or even _T[vs]-_ (_C-_). The concord follows suit. The

15th prefix, _Ku-_, occasionally loses its initial _K_ or softens into _Hu_

or [Greek: chu] or strengthens into _Gu_. Its concord under these

circumstances sometimes remains in the form of _Ku-_. The 16th, _Pa-_,

prefix is one of the most puzzling in its distribution and its phonetic

changes. A very large number of the Bantu languages in the north, east and

west have a dislike to the consonant P, which they frequently transmute

into an aspirate (_H_), or soften into _V_, _W_, or _F_, or simply drop

out. There is too much evidence in favour of this prefix having been

originally _Pa-_ or _Mpa-pa_ to enable us to give it any other form in

reconstructing the Bantu mother-tongue. Yet in the most archaic Bantu

dialects to the north of the Victoria Nyanza it is nowhere found in the

form of _Pa-_. It is either _Ha-_ (and _Ha-_ changes eastward into _Sa-_!)

or _Wa-_.[15] But for its existence in this shape in the language of Uganda

one might almost be led to think that the 16th locative prefix began as

_Ha-_, and by some process without a parallel changed in the east and south

to the form of _Pa-_. There are, however, a good many place names in the

northern part of the Uganda protectorate, in the region now occupied by

Nilotic negroes, which begin with _Pa-_. These place names would seem to be

of ancient Bantu origin in a [v.03 p.0362] land from which the Bantu

negroes were subsequently driven by Nilotic invaders from the north. They

may be relics therefore of a time before the _Pa-_ prefix of those regions

had changed to the modern form of _Ha-_. In S.W. and N.W. Cameroon the

initial _p_ of the 16th prefix reappears in two or three dialects; but

elsewhere in North-West Bantu Africa and in the whole basin of the Congo,

except the extreme south and south-east, the form _Pa-_ is never met with;

it is _Va-_, _Wa-_, _Ha-_, _Fa-_, or _A-_. In the _Secuana_ group of

dialects it is _Fa-_ or _Ha-_; in the Luyi language of Barotseland it

assumes the very rare form of _Ba-_, while the first prefix is weakened to

_A-_.

The pronouns in Bantu are in most cases traceable to some such general

forms as these:--

I, me, my .....................ngi, mi,[16] ngu.

Thou, thee, thy................gwe, ku; -ko.

He or she, him, her, his, &c...a-, ya-, wa- (nom.); also ngu-

(which becomes yu-, ye-, wu-,

hu-, u-); -mu (acc.); -ka,

-kwe (poss.); there is also

another form, ndi (nom. and

poss.) in the Western Bantu

sphere.

We, us, our....................isu, swi-, tu-, ti-; -tu- (acc.);

-itu (poss.).

Ye, you, your..................inu, mu-, nyu-, nyi-, -ni;

-nu, -mu- (acc.); -inu

(poss.).

They, them, their..............babo, ba-; -ba- (acc.); -babo

(poss.).

The Bantu verb consists of a practically unchangeable root which is

employed as the second person singular of the imperative. To this root are

prefixed and suffixed various particles. These are worn-down verbs which

have become auxiliaries or they are reduced adverbs or prepositions. It is

probable (with one exception) that the building up of the verbal root into

moods and tenses has taken place independently in the principal groups of

Bantu languages, the arrangement followed being probably founded on a

fundamental system common to the original Bantu tongue. The exception

alluded to may be a method of forming the preterite tense, which seems to

be shared by a great number of widely-spread Bantu languages. This may be

illustrated by the Zulu _tanda_, love, which changes to _tandile_, have

loved, did love. This _-ile_ or _-ili_ may become in other forms _-idi_,

_didi_, _-ire_, _-ine_, but is always referable back to some form like

_-ili_ or _ile_, which is probably connected with the root _li_ or _di_

(_ndi_ or _ni_), which means "to be" or "exist." The initial _i_ in the

particle _-ile_ often affects the last or penultimate syllable of the

verbal root, thereby causing one of the very rare changes which take place

in this vocable. In many Bantu dialects the root _pa_ (which means to give)

becomes _pele_ in the preterite (no doubt from an original _pa-ile_).

Likewise the Zulu _tandile_ is a contraction of _tanda-ile_.

Two other frequent changes of the terminal vowel of the common root are

those from _a_ (which is almost invariably the terminal vowel of Bantu

verbs), (1), into _e_ to form the subjunctive tense, (2) into _i_ to give a

negative sense in certain tenses. With these exceptions the vowel _a_

almost invariably terminates verbal roots. The departures from this rule

are so rare that it might almost be included among the elementary

propositions determining the Bantu languages. And these instances when they

occur are generally due (as in Swahili) to borrowed foreign words (Arabic,

Portuguese or English).[17] This point of the terminal _a_ is the more

interesting because, by changing the terminal vowel of the verbal root and

possibly adding a personal prefix, one can make nouns from verbs. Thus in

Luganda _senyua_ is the verbal root for "to pardon." "A pardon" or

"forgiveness" is _ki-senyuo_. "A pardoner" might be _mu-senyui_. In Swahili

_patani[vs]a_ would be the verbal root for "conciliate"; _mpatana[vs]i_ is

a "conciliator," and _upatani[vs]o_ is "conciliation." Another marked

feature of Bantu verbs is their power of modifying the sense of the

original verbal root by suffixes, the affixion of which modifies the

terminal vowel and sometimes the preceding consonant of the root. Familiar

forms of these variations and their usual meanings are as follows:--