The Montgomery advertiser., 1908-11-15
DR. WERNER
 ON AFRICA
fosntsnnea from Page one.y

kCsnsfnnea from Page 0ne.l
 measursd at Bona, and the measure msuts compared with those made q year before. Those had declared to be the real Batwa pygmies had not grown a millimeter. while some Bakuba boys. brought along to show another type and to keep the Batwa company. ana who had been of the same size as tn Batwa. had grown between two and three Inches.
 This was conclusive evidence. The Batwa were no larger than 13-year- old boys some smaller, but they had not grown at all In a years time. They were very much atouter, however, for beet and watermelons- at the fair had. been more fattening than the cat erpillars and wild fruits on which they sometimes fed at home.
 When the customs offioers at Ma tadi made them open their numerous bags and boxes. doubt if he had ever had such an array before him in all his life before. Jumbied together. though packed most securely, were about everything one can imagine from a Jews harp to canned besf and California prNches--suits of clothes. 1 tan shoes. red cravats. high collars. sombreros and helmets. shoe polish, GU de cologne, bottled lemonade, fire- crackers matches Gan enormous quan- tity), razors. hair brushes, mirrors, | pocket Knives. table ware, fifes and trumpets. all sorts of bright cloth, walking canes, books and pictures, bottles of ammonia (they delight to 1 take whiffs of 1t and snee3e), and above all. Lumbangu had a phonograph. The | official took a look at 1t, and then told them to pack up the stuff and go on their way rejoicing. They made me laugh by offering that worthy man cigars. which he accepted. to find them the best he had ever smok ed, for some one had given the boys some splendid Havanas when they were in Cuba, ana they had sense enough to recognize the quality and to take them to 1 Ndombe Some of the, most amusing articles in their return cargo were quantities of watermelon seeds. besides other seeds. 1 shall never forget the sight of the first watermelon which l ripened in Ndombe's country, and the eager throng which gathered around if. After a thousand-nile trip inland, | when at last they reached their old ! forest haunts. 1t would have made an immortal picture if their faces could have been depicted as they caught | sight of objects dear and familiar. There was a giant cottonwood under | whose mighty limbs they had chased an elephant. There was a little Lubi | chasing over its glacial boulders, along | whose banks they had followed the wild boar. When they struck the trail | through the forest. they fairly danced as they ran along. Leaving one or | their number to guard their goods at the rivers they rushed along towaro i the woods of Sassabwe, where were the | ft4N1. Ats4n ,xrhfoh hnwhyar primitive and humble. were still their homes
 ''Gettine in a little after dark, their | arrival was not anticipated, so the Malengu ran into his old mothers arms | before she knew he had come. Then a hurricane of jubflation broke out, l They had to sit up all night telling about their experience. They told how, | in Amertca, one could travel for many
 moons and see only fields; how the | railway trains ran faster than an an" | tslope: how there were more people in | one town than all the Bukuba and | Bawa put together, and more towns than there were Bakuba houses; how | people could live in big house and | never know t was raining outside how the soldiers had big guns which made a noise louder than many thun- ders, and could destroy a whole VII laRe, with one shot; how the sQldiers made a line longer than across the Bionsba plains; how the big chief was d great hunter, and had a sort of steamer In the air in which he could sail over the woods and shoot down at the elephants; how elephants and uona and leopards were put in houses and men played with them, and make them dance. and so on. When one
 thinks of those little fellows now Tn
 the depths of their wilderness homee
 with the memory of what they saw
 behind them. one almost enVies them an experience so bizarre and almos'
 unparalleled in the history of the
 world, It Is almost as if one. of ui
 could go to some distant planet more
 advanced than we are and return to
 tell the tale.
 "I did not see nor have I beard Oi
 any bad effects Of their trip on theil
 subsequent lives. Africa is still home
 to them, and they took back wealth
 enough for each to have one or mort
 wives as the result of their Journey
 They seeemd happy and contentee
 when left them. They did not forge
 to warn their people that 1t was folly
 to fight against the white man. anc
 the fact that the whole Kasai is nov
 completely at peace may have come
 partly as result of their reports.
 "In subsequent explorations l fount
 many other settlements of these Bawa
 and established beyond a doubt th'
 line of their migratory movement iron
 Upper Nile where Stanley found them
 Major von Wissmann and Dr. Wolf
 also found some of these Kasai-Sun
 duru pygmies They seemed to be th'
 remnants of once much wider dis
 tribution, as schweinfurth suggested 1T
 1889 when he found them at the oour
 of Munza on the. Welle.
 asked Dr. Werner about the politl
 cal situation in the Congo, and he re
 piled that whatever may be the dif
 ferences of opinion about the conduc IeoS affairs there. every one will agre
 that 1t is desirable to have the politlca
 status of the country clearly defined
 as soon as possible.
 Some reforms are most urgentl!
 needed there," said pr. Werner. Prob
 ably Belgium Is disposed to gran
 many of these reforms, but there ha
 been so much money made out of tn rubber business of late years that
 strong party has developed in Belgium