The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1878-12-05

| III reached them from the West coast.
Schweinfurth went around the Blue Noun
tains, back of Albert Lake, and struck them
on the Welle river, which is tributary ol
the Congo, while Stanley went through their
country. Neither of these travellers actually
| got among the pygmies, but each saw speci
mems of them.
We now know that the Ancients really had
reliable information about them, and when
Homer describes them as battling with the
cranes he only speaks of a race which had
long been known, the aborigines Of Africa,
who had occupied the land from sea to sea,
until scattered and driven into the most mac
cessible ejungles by the continual incursions OF
wandering tribes from the North for thou
sands of years. This is Homer's allusion:
"To warmer seas the cranes embodied fly,
With noise, and order, through the midway sky;
To pygmy nations wounds and death they bring,
And all the war descends upon the wing"
Herodotus speaks of the Nasamonians, who
crossed the Libyan desert (tae Sahara) and
were seized by some little men of less than
middle stature who carried them away.
This was not more than three or four hun
dred miles from the present country of the
pygmies, and where they were doubtless found
in his days. Aristotle says: "The cranes
fly to the lakes above Egypt, from which flows
the Nile; there dwell the Pygmies, and this is
no table but the pure truth"
How happily SHAKESPEARE hits it in Othello,
even to CHASING the Cannibals and Pygmies
together, for they occupy the same District,
and neither are found out of the great Congo
Valley:
wherein spake of most disastrous chances,
OF moving accidents by food and fire,
OF fhar-breadth scapes tn imminent deadly breach
OF being taken by the insoent foe,
And sold to slavery; of my redemption thence,
And portance in my travels history:
Wherein OF antres vast and deserts idle,
Rough quarries. rocks and hills whose heads touch
heaven,
1t was my hint to speak,-such was the process;
And of the Cannibals that each other eat,
The Anthropophagi, and men whose heads
Do grow beneath their shoulders
How natural this seems now. The young
Moor is taken prisoner, sold into slavery,
carried across the Sahara some 900 miles,
where he finally escapes, follows the Kong
mountain chain, where he would find "antres
vast" trough quarries, rocks, aud hills whose
heads touch heaven" as some of the peaks
rise as high as Mont Blanc. Then he would
come into the land of the Anthropophagi
and OF the Pygmies. 1t is true their heads
do not exactly grow beneath their shoulders,
but that is natural exaggeralion, for Stan
leys first informants described them as the
queerest looking creatures alive, just yard
high, with long boards and large heads" and
as "plucky little devils," though they laughed
to see them. They went entirely naked, even
their King, and fired clouds of reed arrows
tipped with poison, and screamed and yelled
like monkeys.
Stanley captured specimen who was akin
to them, little thin-sharked, bow-legged
fellow, 4 feet 81 inches high, 80 inches around
the chest and "a about the waist, with large
head and scraggy whiskers. His complexion
was light chocolate, and he was armed with
short bow and tiny reed arrows foot long.
The points of the arrows were smeared with
poison.
These people are reported to have plenty
OF ivory, but the Arab traders dare not go
into their land to get it, as few of those who
have tried it have come back alive.
Schweinfurth was intensely interested in
the accounts which he received of this race,
and after penetrating the countries of two
cannibal races, the Niam-niams and the
Monbuttoos, his curiosity was rewarded by
finding among the latter some of the Aka
tribe, which he at first took for children, as
the tallest were not over four feet, ten inches
high, and their average height was four feet
| seven inches. He gives picture of one, and
hideous little fellow he is. He undertook
to bring him home, but he died on the way
| OF over-eating. These Akkas are something
like the Aztec men who have been exhibited
in our country, and are not bearded. But
! Du Chaillu found pygmies in Ashango land,
with shaggy hair on their bodies, and beard:
like those described to Stanley. Schwein
| furth heard! many stories about the bearded
dwarfs in the Congo Valley, and these &C
counts are now corroborated by Stanley
They are also remarkable for their large ears
which probably gave rise to the tales about
tribes who could cover themselves with thei
ears. The accounts of men with tails, th,
connecting link, are proved fabulous, ant
arose from some of the natives decorating
themselves with the tails of animals.
All around the pygmies live the Anthro
pophagi. Schweinfurth found undoubtet
traces Of cannibalism among the Mann
Mans and the Manbuttoos. Du Chailu fell
in with them at the other extremity of the
4 range, and Stanley went straight through
their country, meeting with many differen
tribes of them, and sometimes, near then
tribes who abhorred them and their customs
The former pronounces the Monbuttoos 9
noble race of men in many respects, but says
they are unsurpassed as cannibals by any
race In the world, for he bought many skull
OF their victims, and sent them home. Blu
he had not seen Stanley's friends on the Con
go who ornamented their village streets will
skulls so that they looked like the walks il
Mistress Marys garden,
"With cookie shells and silver bells
And fair maids all in a row.
"while thigh-bones, ribs and vertebr@ la,
piled at garbage corner. bleached witnesse
of their hideous carniverous tastes" and tn,
festive anthropophagi followed the 'sWsjiwa'
the "Children of the Sun" in their war
canoes, shooting their arrows, darting thei
spears, chanting their war-songs and cheerful,
singing
eve shall eat wajlwa meat
To-day, Oh no!
i We shall eat Wajlwa meat
To-day!''
Ii the German traveller could have me
these merry gentlemen, he would indeed
have seen noble race: men free from al
trifng prejudices of society or creed. An,
this royal savage of the great Congo Vale
can rise up and say with Abou ben Adhem
@ Write me then
l As one who loves his fellow men!'' Yum! Yum!
SIR ROBERT GARDEN, London magis
trate, is one of the latest railers at women
dress. "The most monstrous things in tn
| world" he declares. "are the ladies' pocb