THE PIGMIES OF THE GREAT CONGO FOREST. 



481 



Suniniing- up the o:^pei'iences of many Afrk-an travelers, tooether 

 with my own observati.onti,'4 should venture to say tliat there is a prog-- 

 nathous beetling-browed, \short-le<4'ged, long-armed ''ape-like" type 

 of negro, dwelling in pariah tribes or ei'opping up as reversionary 

 individuals in a l)etter-loolving people, to be 

 met with all down Central Africa, from tiie 

 Bahr-al-Clhazal to the upper waters of the 

 Zaml)ezi and westward from the Blount 

 Elo-on and I)ritish East Africa to Portuguese 

 Guinea. I have seen during my experience 

 in British Central Africa very prognatlious 

 ape-like negroes coming from the regions 

 roundabout tiie Congo-Zambezi watiU'shed. 

 They were slaves in Arab caravans. Messrs. 



Grogan and Sharp noticed this strange I'ygmy wnman. 4 foot i.; inchr.s in 

 simian type between Lake Kivu and Lake "wgu. 



All)ert Pxlward. on tiie eastern edge of the C-ongo forest. Knowing 

 nothing at the time of their ol)servations in this respect, I was much 

 struck on entering the countries west of Kuwenzori at the ape-lilce 

 appearance of some of the negroes whom I encoun- 

 tered. These were ostensibly members of the 

 Bakonjo or Baand)a trilies on the western Hanks of 

 that snowy range, or they were pariahs dwelling 

 by themselves on the fringe of the great Congo 

 forest, west of the Semliki River. This a])e-like 

 t3'pe was generally known to the surrounding 

 negroes as "'" Banande.'" Whenever I encountered 

 a rather brutish individual in this part of the 

 country, he always turned out to be a ^lunande, 

 l)ut I am not able to s'ay that tlun-e was any deli- 

 lute ape-like tribe known as '* lianande." On the 

 contrary, whilst here and ther(> prognathous short- 

 logged individuals existed in separate conununi- 

 ties in a pariah like condition, \ery often they 

 might be the oti'spring of l)akonjo, Babira, 

 Baamba, Lcndu, or Bambuba peoples, who, in 

 their ordinary type, were decidedly not simian, 

 but who may have mingled in times past with the 

 lowest stratum of the aboriginal population, with 

 from Semliki forest (Mui.- the Tcsult that the apc-Hkc stiU cropped up by 

 ^'^""""'^ occasional reversion. I should also observe that 



similar prognathous, long upper-lipped, short-legged negroes reap- 

 pear, though in a less marked form, among the Bantu people on the 

 western slopes of Mount Elgon, in the dense forests clothing the 

 thinks of that huge extinct volcano. ''^ * * 

 sM 1902 31 



Short-legged type of negro 



