274 THROUGH UNKNOWN AFRICAN COUNTRIES. 
of some zinc, which they had flattened and cut into disks 
to ornament their faces. The septum of the nose was 
bored, and from this hung a zinc plate that almost con- 
cealed the lips. Two more disks covered the ears, while a 
fourth hung over the forehead, suspended from a leather 
band that encircled the head. 
It was hard to make out what their features were like, so 
concealed were they by the four large glistening plates, 
that reflected the rays of the sun like so many mirrors. 
Those that could not afford to wear zinc, substituted 
pieces of ostrich shells instead. Their woolly hair is worn 
as a single puff running from behind forward, in the 
middle line of the head, the rest of the head being shaved. 
Three or four of them wore only bracelets made of ivory, 
and little brass pendants from the ears; but, except what I 
have mentioned, they possessed no ornaments whatever. 
Pygmies, I believe, inhabited the whole of the country 
north of Lakes Stephanie and Rudolf long before any of 
the other tribes now to be found in the neighborhood; but 
they have been gradually killed off in war, and have lost 
their characteristics by inter-marriage with people of large 
stature, so that only this one little remnant, the Dume, 
remains to prove the existence of a pygmy race. They are 
probably the aborigines of Africa, and the more or less 1so- 
lated specimens of pygmies met with by Stanley, Emin 
Pasha, Harris, and others, are of a common origin with the 
Dume: The Dume are five or six inches taller than the 
pygmies described in various books of travel,and are much 
darker im color, so that. am led to belseve they are not 
quite pure-blooded ; but their uniformity in size disproves 
the idea that they have degenerated in recent years, which 
is the case with the Bunno and one or two other tribes 
which I shall mention later on. Formerly they lived prin- 
cipally by hunting, and they still kill a great many ele- 
