THE PIGMIES OF CENT PAT AFRICA.

Waipawa Mail, Volume XIII, Issue 2499, 30 August 1890, Page 5 (Supplement)

THE PIGMIES OF CENT PAT AFRICA.

(FROM. HANOILSTfcB WRKKX.Y TIKBS.j In his address before the Royal Geographical Society, on Monday night, Mr. Stanley spoke as follows of tlie race nt* pygmies whom he met with in his recent travels in Africa : —Near a place called Avatiko, on the Ituri river, our hungry men found the first male and female of tlie pygmies squatted in tlie midst of a wild 33dcti peeling plaintaint*. You can imagine what a shock it wa* to the poor little creatures at finding themselves surrounded by gigantic Soudanese lift. 4in. in height, nearly double their own height and weight, and black as coal. But my Zanzibaris, always more tender-hearted than Soudanese, prevented the club'*od rifle and cutlasses from extinguishing their lives there and then, and brought them to me aa prizes in the same spirit, as they would have brought a big hawk, moth, or mammoth longicom for inspection. As they stood trembling before me I named the little man Adam, and the names iu°the wdd Eden on’thl°DuJiTic'u ri e Vukukum and Akiokwa which they gave us. As I look' d at them and thought how tho-e represented tho oldest people on the globe, my admiration would have gone to greater lengths than scoffing nyuit s would have expected. 7’ouv CreckisU heroes and Jewish patriarchs, how their glory paled before the ancient ancestry of those manikins ! Had Adam known how to assume a tragic pose, how fitly he might have said, “Yea, you may well look on us, for we are the only I>eople living on the face of the earth who from primeval time have never been removed from their homes. Before Yusuf and Me>*u were ever heard of we lived iu those wild shades, from tlie Nile Fountains to tlie S'a of Darkness, aud, like tbc giants of the forest, we despise time and fate.” Bur, poor little things, they said nothing of the kind. They did not know they were heirs of such proud and unequalled heritage. Ou the contrary, their faces saiu clearly enough, as they furtivi ly looked at out and the other of us, “ Where have these big people come from Y Will they cat us ; ” There were some nervous twitches about the angles cf the nose and quick upliftings of the eyelids, and swift, searching looks to note what fate was in store lbr them. It is not a comfortable feeling which jossessc a victim in the presence of a po-sible but-her, and a possible consumer of its flesh. That raise: y was evident in the little Adam aud Eve < f the African Kd«n. The height of the man was 41t., that of the woman a little le- . He may have weighed 6olh. : the colour f the body was that of a hatf-bak •! brkk. So far as natural intelligence was concern* !, within his limited exporicn lu was certainly superior to any black man in our camp. T e mysteries of woodcraft, for instance, Le knew better than any of us : he know what wild fruits were wholesome, aud what fungi were poisonous. II<? could have given us valuable lessons how to find our way through the forest. I saw also that lie ccul.l adapt himself to circumstances. If tLc pot was to end him, a very little shriuking only would be truly his fear of p.iiu : if he were to bo treated affectionately, none eouM be so ready to appreciate affection and kindness. We began to question him by gestures. ” J>o you know where we can got bananas ? ” ll© catches the cue, he grasps his leg to show ;is the size, and noils his head rapidly, informing us that ho know* where to find banana* 1 the size of his leg.. One sees that he cun exaggerate as well as Mark Twain. (Laughter.) We point to tho four quarters of the conuxn-s, qu*-'t,’ouingly. He point* to the ranr&e ia reply. “£s it turf* 9 He shows a han't * length. Ah, a good day's journey withect loads, two days with loads ! “Do you know the Thorn 1 ” He nods his head rapidly. “How far is it r ” He rests his right hand sideways c-n the elbow joint. “Oh, four days' journey.” "Is there mm li food on the road / ” “He pats his a bio me a lovingly with an artful smile, and brings his two •fiands to a point iu front of him, from which we may infer that our paunches will Income like prostrate pyramids. YVe ask him why Aveliko has so little food. The little m..n attempts to imitate the sound of gunshots, and cries “ Do-o-o-o,*” and we are informed quite intelligently that tho devastation is due to the Manyucma. I supjK>sc wo must have passed through us matiy as 100 villages occupied ly the pigmies. Long, however, before we reached them they were deserted aud utterly cleaned out. Our forag. is aud scouts may have captured about fifty of these dwarfs, only one of whom reached the height of dlin. They varied from 30in. to ©din. generally. They arc so well pr ’portioned that at lire * right they might b" taken for ordi-.ary ninnki'.d, but when we place by their sale a Europe i, a Soudanese, «>»• a Mahrti thc\ appear cxc< ingly diminutive. By the side of dwarfs f mature age a Zanzibari boy of thirteen would appear large. A forest building consist* of from twenty to TOO families of pygmies, and probably in that area between the Ihuru and ituri rivers there are as many as 2,000 families living this nomadic and free life in the perpetual twilight of Or* great and umbrageous forest of Equatorial Africa.