The Opelousas courier., 1890-09-27
THE DWARFs OF ARUMWL.
SOME PIGMY PEOPLE STANLEY
FOUND IN CENTRAL AFRICA.
Remarkable People Ranging From
Thirty-nine to Fifty-four Inches
in stature-Their Manner of Life.

XnifCy-nlQe TO F1Aty-1ouf ASnCs
in stature-Their Manner of Life.
A step only it is, according to Darwin
ism, from the ~chimpanzees, balloons and
monkeys, with which the forest abounds
to these pigmy tribes which we found
inhabiting tn tract of country between
Ihuru and Itugi Rivers, says Stanley in
an address reported in the London Times
They were known to exist by the father
of poets nine centuries before the begin
ming of the Christian era. You may re-
member Homer wrote about the sanguin-
ary battle that was reported to have
taken place between the pigmies and the
storks. In the fifth century B. c.,
Herodotus described the capture Of five
young explorers from Nassamoves while
thew were examining some curious trees
in the Niger basin, and how the little
men took them to their villages and
showed them about to their fellow pig
mics, much as you would like us to show
the pigmies about England. The
geographer Hekataus in the fifth cen
fury located the plgmies near The equa-
tor of Africa, under the shadows OF the
Mountains of the Moon, and I find that
from Hiparchus downward geographers
have faithfully followed the example of
Hekateus, and nearly a year ago we
found them where they had been located
by tradition, under the names of Watwa
and Wambutti. The forest which we
have been just considering extends right
I'D to the base line of the Mountains of
the Moon.
Near a place called Avetiko, on the
Tturi River, our hungry men found the
first male and female of the pygmies
souatted in the midst of q wild Eden,
peeling plantains. You a imagine
what a shock it was to the poor little
creatures at finding themselves suddenly
surrounded by gigantic s%oudanese, six
feet, four inches in height, nearly double
their W height and weight, and black
as coal. But my Zanzibaris, always
more tender-hearted than Soudanese,
prevented the dubbed rife and cutlasses
from extinguishing their lives there and
then, and brought them to me as prizes
in the same spirsst as they would have
brought a big hawk, moth or mammoth
longicorn for inspection. As they stood
trembling before me, I named the little
man Adam, and the miniature woman
Eve-far more appropriate names in the
wild Eden on the Ituri, than the Vrku-
kuru and Akiokwa, which they gay{1us.
The height of the man was four FEET;
that of the woman a little less. He may
have weighed about eighty-ive pounds;
the color of the body was that Of a half
baked brick, and a light brown foil
stood out very clearly. So far as natur-
al intelligence was concerned, within his
limited experience, he was certainly SUI
perior to any black man in our camp.
The mysteries of woodcraft, for instance,
he knew better than any of US; he knew
what wild fruits were wholesome, and
what fungi were poisonous. He could
have given us valuable lessons how to
find our way through the forest. | saw
also that he could adapt himself to cir
cumstances. If the pot was to end him,
a very little shrinking only -would betray
his fear of pain; if he were to be treated
affectionately, none could be so ready as
to appreciate affection and kindness.
We began to question him by gestures.
stDo you know where we can get
bananasa" He catches the cue, he grasps,
his leg to show us the size, and mods his
head rapidly, informing us that he knows
where to find bananas of the size of his
leg. One sees that he can exaggerate as
well as Mark Twain. We point to the
four quarters of the compass question
ingly. He POINTS, to the sunrise in reply.
IT'S it far2" He shows a hands length.
All, a good days journey without loads,
two days with loads! do you know
the Ihuru2n He mods his head rapidly.
ssHow far is it2" He rests his right
hand sideways on his elbow joint. "oh,
four day. journey" 'tIs there much
food on the roada' He pats his abdl
men lovingly, with an artful smile, and
brings his two hands to a point in front
of him, from which we may infer that
our paunches will become like PROSTATE
pyramids. We ask him why Aveliko has
SO little food. The little man attempts
to initiate the sound of gunshots and cries
nDo-o.o-op and we are informed quite
intclligently that the devastation is due
to the Manyuema."
I suppose we must have passed through
as many as one hundred villages inhabited
by the pygmies. Long, however, before
we reached them they were deserted and
utterly cleaned out. Our foragers and
scouts may have captured about fifty of
these dwarfs, only one of whom reached
the height Of fifty-four inches. They
varied from thirty-nine inch to fifty
inches generally. They are so well pro-
portioned that, at first sight, they might
be taken for ordinary ninkind, but when
we place by their side a European, a
soudanese or a Mahdi, they appear ex-
ceedingly dininutive. BY the side of
dwarfs of mature age a Zanzibar boy of
thirteen would appear large.
The agricultural settlements in this
region are to be found every nine or ten
miles apart, and near each settlement, at
an hours march distance, will be found
from four to eighty pygmy villages stu
ated along the paths leading to it. The
larger aborigines are very industrious,
and form a clearing Of from four hundred
to one thousand acres. Amid the pros
trate forests, they plant their banana and
p~laintain bulbs. In twelve months, the
PROSTATE trees are almost hidden by the
Iuxuriant frnnds and abundant fruit Of