354 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 



nose large and flat, the mouth large, the lips thick, the teeth big and sharp, 

 and remarkably white, (they sharpen their teeth.) Their hair is curly, but 

 not very woolly, short, and not thick. What, however, peculiarly distin- 

 guishes this people, is the external prolongation of the vertebral column, 

 which in every individual, male or female, forms a tail of from two to 

 three inches long." 



Of their way of living, he says : 



" They livain numerous bands, in a completely savage state, without any 

 clothing, and feed on what they get by the chase or fishing, on roots, and 

 on plants and fruits, which without the least labor a bountiful Paradise 

 puts within their reach, and causes to grow spontaneously. They are 

 armed with small lances, bows and arrows, and they poison the latter skil- 

 fully ; with clubs of very hard wood ; with shields made from the skins 

 of the elephant, rhinoceros, hippopotamus, and crocodile ; they often seek 

 quarrels with neighboring negro tribes, with the sole object of carrying off 

 their women, to whom they are very partial, their children, and other 

 victims, whom they devour without pity. They are idolatrous. Former- 

 ly the Arabs bought great numbers of them from the slave dealers, (djelabs,) 

 but at present they will not take any of them, became the children belong- 

 ing to this race who were sold to them became, on growing up, dominated 

 by the ferocious instincts natural to their species, and devoured the chil- 

 dren of their masters." 



The author declares, to his great regret, that he was not able to reach 

 the country of the Niam-Niams ; but he says that the existence of the 

 people was confirmed to him, not only by the Arab slave dealers, but by 

 Nubians, Noubahs, Schellouks, Nouerrs, and other tribes of the interior 

 of Africa whom he visited. He, however, saw a Niam-Niam at Mecca, 

 and he thus describes him : 



" I resided at Mecca in 1842. An emir, to whom I expressed doubts 

 as to the existence of men with tails, determined to convince me of the 

 reality of the fact. He caused to be brought before me one of his slaves 

 named Belial, aged 30, belonging to the race of Ghilanes. This slave 

 spoke Arab perfectly, and appeared very intelligent. I conversed a long 

 time with hfm, and he informed me that in his country people speak a 

 language which, from want of practice, he had completely forgotten ; that 

 his countrymen, whose number he calculates at about thirty or forty 

 thousand, adore the sun, the moon, certain fixed stars, and the sources of 

 a great river to which they immolated victims, (probably the sources of the 

 Nile;) that their customary and most agreeable food is raw flesh, and that 

 they prefer it bleeding ; that they particularly like human flesh ; and that, 

 in their combats with their neighbors, they immolate the prisoners they 

 take, and eat them, without distinction of sex or age ; but that women and 

 children are preferred, because their flesh is more succulent. 



"This Ghilane had become a Mussulman full of fervor ; he had resided 

 in the holy city for more than fifteen years. However, the desire, or 

 rather the necessity, for such it was for him, of eating raw flesh, manifested 



