The Montgomery advertiser., 1905-07-23
Lady Henry Somerset Describes Dimin
 utive Black People and Their Customs-Have No God Hut Only Fear of . Devil.

Fifteen years ago H. NJ. Stanley, the great African explorer, gave to the civ
 ilized world a startling description of
 the primeval forest of Central Africa He told of those three thousand square miles of towering trees, Of the twilight mystery beneath the dense fo- liage of the terrific storms which shook the forest giants as the night winds swayed the branches and hurled them
 against each other, and how in the
 midst of this wierd world he found
 tribes of pigmies who lived in the un-
 cleared virgin forest. and supported
 themselves on game which they killed
 with their little bows and arrows, the
 points of which are thickly covered
 with poison.
 He described their dwellings, low
 structures in the shape of an oval fig
 ure, looking like mounds of leaves, and
 more resembling the work of insects than of men. At the time that this book was pub lished I met Paul Du Challa, the French explorer. and learned how. many years before. he, too, had found the pigmy tribes. but his accounts had not been credited, and when l heard this 1 recollected that Heroditas himself gave a like description of men smaller than any in the world, but he added cautious
 ly that 1t was but a travellers tale Undoubtedly the pigmies were known to the ancients, for Homer wrote of
 them in the "Iliad.' and they are de-
 scribed as figuring in Roman and Egyp- tian processions: since then, for hun dreds of years. they have remained liv- ing in the swamps of their dense, dark forests, unknown to the world until Stanley found them sixteen years ago Some months back I heard that Col onel Harrison, ope of the mighty hunt CTS of Africa, had applied to the Bel gian Government to bring over some
 members of the tribe. that he had ob- tained permission, and that after some difficulty with the Colonial Office here the little people had really started, and would soon land in England.
 was so deeply interested in all 1 had heard and read of this strange tribe so old in its genealogy. and so small | in stature. that l asked Colonel Harri- son whether he would allow me the privilege of seeing them privately, and | he most kindly took me yesterday to visit the little guests.
 We walked up the winding stairs Of | the private house attached to the hip | podrome. and he opened the door of the room in which the diminutive black people were huddled around a fire. On | seeing him they greeted him with a wave of the hand. and appeared dis l tinctly glad to see him. They were a strange group. these six l tiny men and women, dressed in clothes which seemed very foreign to them. and | surely since Sir Watler Raleigh brought his red Indians to England over three I hundred years ago. we have seen no stranger visitors than these dusky dwarfs. Hfgs&l5A88 Magani the chief" is four feet hign, | the tallest of the six. He Is attaining venerable years. as he Is already thirty | five, and the pigmy rarely lives over | forty Deep-chested and broad. with | the suspicion of a gray beard, he smoked his long bamboo pipe, occa- sionally handing 1t to one of the other men with a condescending air.
 Mongongo, the youngest and best | looking of the men, Is about twenty | two. His height is not more than threo | feet Colonel Harrison told me that they | had found this little man living with native chief at Trumu. and that he had | been invaluable. as he could talk Sha- hili. the only language through which | they were able to communicate, and l that he had been of the greatest service. leading the caravan into the depths of | the great forest to find the little folk I he had come to seek.
 The features of the men are distin guished by the extraordinary breadth l of their noses. but when I heard that | they used their features to brighten their spear heads, and would sit rub bine their weapons across them by the hour, their abnormal shape was no long, | CT a matter for wonder.
 I The most interesting to me was the youngest woman. A tiny creature with | beautiful hands and large, pathetic eyes. She would have been really good looking save for the three rings with | which her lip was adorned. and which 1 in pigmy land Is the mark of a profess l sional beauty. She sat a little apart. with some dignity in her carriage. and l evident pleasure in the pink robe with I which she was enveloped. occasionally | batting 1t and looking at 1t with pride. | Then suddenly she would turn and fall i asleep. then wake again. and gaze at