Omaha daily bee., 1907-05-05
PIGMIES MUCH LIKE APES
Found Living in Trees in the Tropical
African Forest
CANNIBALs NOT GIVEN TO RACE SUICIDE
ViscOunt MOuntmOrres the First
Writer to Have Glimpse of
Them-HOpeful View of
Congo Natives Future.

The report which Viscount Mountmorres
made to the British Foreign office of his
eight months OF Investigations In the Congo
Free State has just been published. He
adopted the unusual plan of keeping away
from the beaten paths and the main lines
OF communication as much as possible.
He covered about 8, 400 miles large part
of the way on foot or in native canoes
manned by blacks whom he picked up at
the villages. He has nothing to say of the
hackneyed and writes only of peoples who
are not yet we'll known to readers of Afri-
can literature
He followed to be sure, one well Travelled
route. the Ubangi river. the largest tribu-
tary of the Congo; but what he has to say
about the Ubangi tribes is new. 1t is a
curious fact that though some Of the most
fiourishing stations of the whites are scat
tered along this great river scarcely book
has been written that even mentions these
leading tribes,
MountmorIes has now supplied the lack
ing information. He also pushed far
through the great tropical forest and came
across the lowest type Of pigmies. Of whoIn
we had previously heard only vague re-
ports. Mountmorres in fact saw them only
for a minute, but he is the first writer who
has seen them at all.
Glimpse of the PiRmies.
He was forcing his way through the dense
forest when some tiny arrows fell close to
him and looking up in the trees he saw
what seemed to be a number OF chimpan-
zees springing from branch to branch and
then stopping to look at the intruder. after
the manner Of the larger apes, He thinks
that none OF them was over three feet nine
inches IN height.
They were entirely naked, had features
as fiat and foreheads as Teceding as the
chimpanzee. and. II It were not for their
use OF the bow and arrow. they would be
taken for apes. They showed their teeth
and iabbered just as apes do, and 1t was
difficult TO imagine that the noises they
emitted could form an intelligent language
All we had heard Of them was that they
live in the trees. The explorer had no OPP
portunity to investigate this question, for
he would have been compelled 70 fire on
the pigmies In self-defence II he had re-
NAMED under those trees.
Mr.. Wieslet, a state Ofhcial, told him that
he had broken IN upon a group OF these
strange little people In exactly the same
way, and he assured the explorer that he
had seen their habitations. which consist Of
shelters In the forks OF the trees made by
plating the smaller boughs together. An
other white man in the neighborhood also
told him that he had seen them retreating
into Just such shelters as Mr.. Wieslet de-
scribed.
AS for Mountmorres. he was 50 busy
watching the little men and women spring
ing from one branch 70 another with the
| agility OF monkeys that II did not occur TO
him 70 look for any shelters.
The most remarkable feature OF the
Dongo cannibals on the lower Ubangi Is
their prolifcness. A family Of twenty wives
and fourscore children is by no means a
rarity and sometimes a man brings for
ward over 100 OF his own offspring.