DWARFS Off THE CONGO- FOREST.

Evening Post, Volume LXIII, Issue 87, 12 April 1902, Page 7 (Supplement)

DWARFS Off THE CONGO- FOREST.

Sir Harry Johnston, in his paper in the Pall Mall Magasdne, pn the ape-liko men whom he has met during his recent travels, writes: — "Tho demeanour and aotions of the little Congo dwarfs at the present day remind ono, he says, over and over again of tho traits attributed to the brownies and goblins of our fairy stories. Tlieir remarkable power of becoming invisible by adroit hiding in herbage, and behind rocks, their probable habits in sterile or open countries of making thoir homes in holes and caverns, their misohievousness and their prankish good nature,~all seem to suggest that it was some race like this which inspired most of Jhe stories of Teuton and Celt regarding tc dwarfish people of quasi-supernatural attributes. "The^dwarfs of the Congo Forest can ho good 3r bad neighbours to the black people, according to the treatment they receive. If their selfish depredations on the banana groves or their occasional thofts of tobacco dr maize are condoned, or even if they are conciliated by email gifts of such food being left exposed wheVe it can be easily taken, they will in turu leave behind them in their nightly visitations gifts of meat and products of the chase, such as skins &V ivory. "I havo been informed by some of the forest negroes that the dwarfs will occasionally steal their children, and put in their places pygmy babies of ape-like appearance— changelings, in fact, bringing up tho children they have stolen in. the dwarf tribe. Theso collections of pygmies, which one enn scarcely call tribes, certainly exhibit from time to time individuals of ordinary stature, and with features not strongly resembling those of the pygmy type. "Sometimes, no doubij, these muy be runaways or Wcatfts, who have joined tho dwarfs artd severed themselvOß from other tribes."