288 STANLEY AND THE MAP OF AFRICA. 



"Take a thick Scottish copse, dripping with rain. Imagine this copse 

 to be a mere undergrowth, nourished under the impenetrable shade of 

 ancient trees, ranging from 100 to 180 feet high; briars and thorns 

 abundant; h\zj creeks, meandering through the depths of the jungle, 

 and sometimes a deep aftinent of a great river. Imagine this forest 

 and jungle in all stages of decay and growth — old trees falling, leaning 

 perilously over, fallen prostrate; ants and insects of all kinds, sizes, 

 and colors murmuring around ; monkeys and chimpanzees above, queer 

 noises of birds and animals, crashes in the jungle as troops of elephants 

 rush away; dwarfs with poisoned arrows securely hidden behind some 

 buttress or in some dark recess; strong brown-bodied aborigines with 

 terribly sharp spears standing poised, still as dead stumps; rain pat- 

 tering down on you every other day in the year ; an impure atmosphere 

 with its dread consequences, fever and dysentery; gloom throughout 

 the day, and darkness almost palpable throughout the night, and then 

 if you will imagine such a forest extending the entire distance from 

 Plymouth to Peterhead, you will have a fair idea of some of the incon- 

 venience endured by us from June 28 to December 5, 1887, and from 

 June 1, 1888, to the present date, to continue again from the present 

 date till about December 10, 1888, when I hope to say a last farewell 

 to the Congo forest." 



Mr. Stanley tries to account for this great forest region by the abund- 

 ance of moisture carried over the continent from tHfe wide Atlantic by 

 the winds which blow landward through a great part of the year; but 

 it is to be feared the remarkable phenomenon is not to be accounted for 

 in so easy a way. Investigation may prove that the rain of the rainiest 

 region in Africa comes not from the Atlantic, but the Indian Ocean, 

 with its moisture ladeij monsoons; and so we should have here a case 

 analogous to that which occurs in South America, the forests of which 

 resemble in many features those of the region through which Mr. Stanley 

 has jiassed. 



But the forest itself is not more interesting than its human denizens. 

 The banks of the river in many places are studded with large villages, 

 some, at least, of the native tribes being cannibals. We are here on the 

 northern border of the true negro peoples, so that when the subject is 

 investigated the Aruwimi savages may be found to be much mixed. 

 But unless Europe promptly intervenes, there will shortly be few people 

 left in these forests to investigate. Mr. Stanley came upon two slave- 

 hunting parties, both of them manned by the merciless people of Man- 

 yuema. Already great tracts have been turned into a wilderness, and 

 thousands of the natives driven from their homes. From the ethnolo- 

 gist's point of view the mostinterestinginhabitantsof the Aruwimi for- 

 ests are the hostile and cunning dwarfs, or rather pigmies, who caused 

 the expidition so much trouble. No doubt they are the same as the 

 Monbuttu pigmies found farther north, and essentialy similar to the 

 pigmy population found scattered all over Africa, from the Zambesi to 



