The Democratic advocate. [volume] (Westminster, Md.) 1865-1972, 1889-07-27
Our 0liu.
GIANTS AND DwARFs.
From chambers,s Journal.

II has always been matter for discus
sion whether there ever existed, or still
exist, any nations who may absolutely come
under the terms of giants and dwarfs. In
many ancient writings are mentioned va
riOas races of pygmies as inhabiting the
cold northern cIimes of Scythia or the
tropical deserts of Libya and Asia Minor.
Herodotus also speaks of race Of little
men ofinky-blaek complexion who inhabit-
ed a large city on river which flowed from
west 20 east OF L;bya, and swarmed with
horrible crocodiles. Ctesias, another Greek
traveller, contemporary Of XenoPhon,
states that be saw in Central India race
Of pygmies only two feet in stature. They
inhabited a province in which the animals
were proBoEtiouately small, the sheep being
no larger than newborn lambs, and the
horse, cattle, asses, and mules no larger
than ram. Aristotle mentions likewise
nation Of dwarfs, and places them in Cen
trail Africa; whereas Pliny gives Thraee
as their original cradle. Ptolemy in his
History talks Of .little people called the
Pechinians, whom he describes as inhabit-
ing a large portion Of the eastern frontiers
OF Ethiopia In later times an English
sailor, Andrew Battel, who was taken pri-
soner by the Portuguese in 1888 and ear
ried into Congo, relates in his book called
sStrange Adventures that he met with a
nation of dwarfs called the "Matimbas.
A Dutch traveller, Oliver Dapper, also de-
seribes little nation of elephant-hunters
called the Mimos or Bake Bakkes. whom
he found in 1856 inhabiting district near
the Congo river called the Kingdom Of
Macoco.
One Of the latest travellers who make
mention of dwarf nation is VI. du Chaillu,
WAC in 1860 speaks of strange people,
Of wild and timid habits. whom he found
inhabiting a large tract of land in the
country of Ashango; they were styled ovon-
Cos by their neighbors, the Ashoungas, but
they neither intermarried with nor eultiyat-
ed the ground of the nation amongst whom
they lived. The 0vongos were negroes OF
hideous aspect and yellow complexion, and
measured about four feet five inches in
height.
As regards giants, primitive traditions
are as full of accounts of men of enormous
stature as they are of dwarfs. The poets
and historians of antiquity aver that the
human race did not begin to deteriorate
till the time of Homer; sculptures exist,
and are now preserved in the British Mu-
scum. of the frieze of the temple of Athena
PolIas. at Priene-one of the twelve lonian
cities of Asia Minor-representing COM
bat between men and giants; and similar
ones are to be seen in the temples Of Sell
monte, Argos, Agrigente, Athens, and
Pergamus. Pliny says that on the occa-
sion of terrible earthquake in Italy ifs
sure opened, revealing the skeleton of
man imbedded upright in the Garth meas
uring about twenty-six feet in height.
Plutarch goes further; he declares that a
skeleton was found by Sertorious at Tan
pier. in Mauritania, measuring about forty
feet; and PhIegon, of Lydia, in his Urea
ties on Wonders" says that there were
discovered in the Cimmerian Bosporus and
IN Africa vast number Of skeletons aver
aeing between twelve and fifteen feet in
stature.
The traveller Magellan recounts in his
Gravel" written in 1920, that in latitude
thlrty-four degrees, near the mouth Of the
Plata river. he met with gigantic tribe of
Patagonians He says that he measured
many of them and that they exceeded seven
md often nine feet in height But whether
d is that the race is degenerating, or that
Magellan exaggerated his measurements, it
) certain that they do not at the present
Law exceed seven feet, and their normal
height is about six and half feet, the wo-
men being quite as tall and as powerfully
as the men. l