The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1896-12-06

the kind. Feeding infants with sour cider
instead of milk is another alleged method,
and 1t Is said that the amounting of the
backbone of the child with the fat of moles
and bats will accomplish the purpose OBJ
viously, these suggestions belong to the do
main of folk lore rather than to that of
science 1t is an unQuestionable fast that
insufficient feeding tends to dwarf a hui
man being or any other animal. In coun-
tries where food is scarce and hard to get,
the people are of small stature.
Not long ago the bureau of ethnology
received an unofficial report which de-
scribed an ancient pigmy city newly dis
covered on a slope of the Andes, in Peru,
nearly three miles above the sea. The
locality had remained unexplored until
recently, because the mountain was sup
posed to be a dwelling place of ghosts. A
tradition ran to the effect that, the town
was occupied in former days by race of
little men who at an earlier period had
inhabited the lowlands on the Pacific
coast. They were driven to the hills by
strange tribes, and built a walled town
for protection against their enemies, who
were cannibals. After a long siege they
were captured or killed. The houses of
the pigmy city, as found, were mostly
of two or three stories and built around
quadrangular courts. The biggest rooms
were only 1--WE or six feet square and neat
ly plastered. The roofs were of stone
slabs, cemented together, and over these
earth was laid. The doors of the dwell
ings were only two feet high, and the
broadest streets were not more than four
feet wide. In three of the house-courts
were discovered holes opening into circu-
lar rooms below ground-very likely dun
geons-which were about six feet in diam
eter.
Stories Of this sort do not pass with mod
ern scientists without careful investiga-
- I'll
In this pigmy city of Peru when one of its
authorized experts has investigated 1t. At
the same time, 1t must be owned that the
tales of the ancients respecting dwarf
races, so long derided by m ,derns, have
been confirmed in a remarkable manner by
recent discoveries. Homer tells of tiny
men who in his time, as he says, occupied
a region near the sources Of the Nile. Not
long ago the explorer Schweinfurth found
these little people in that very part Of At
RIGA, 3 deg north latitude and rs deg. east
longitude. In the same neighborhood he
came across the Lilliputian cows and
sheep, to which the poet Of the Had in
cidentally referred. The pigmies being
measured averaged four inches above four
feet being the smallest human beings now
living in the world, with the possible ex-
ception Of the Bushmen. They were very
brave great elephant hunters, and had
way of hopping about over the tall herb
age like graSShOpDeTs. Ohe VI the men,
who was brought to Europe. could never
learn, on account OF his skipping habit, to
carry plate without spilling more or less
of the contents f
Stanley speaks OF the unusual inteiii-
gence Of the pigmies whom he found In
Africa. They had much more sense than
the full-sized zanzibaris and other negroes
whom he employed. 1t is not because Of
lack Of brains but by reason Of their in
ferior physique that the pigmy races have
been crowded and killed all over The
world wherever they exist, they seem
TO have been the earliest inhabitants-as
for example, IN the Philippine Islands
The black dwarfs of the Philippines popu-
lated the whole Of the Malay Archipelago
at one time. Even now they hold the intc-
rior of the larger islands Of the Philippine
group with such a strength for fight that
extensive regions remain wholly unex-
plored because white men do not dare
venture within the disputed territory
These little negroes, very black, with small
and woolly heads have stature averag.
ing only four feet and seven inches for
tho men, They are exceedingly muscular
and are wonderful runners. A scratch
from ono of their poisoned arrows means