tion._--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