THKOUGH AFRICA FROM THE CAPE TO CAIRO. 439 



rising a few miles from Kivu. Thus within six days we passed the 

 two actual sources of the Nile, which, rising close together, but flowing 

 in different directions, inclose such a vast tract of country ))efore they 

 finally merge at the north end of the Albert Lake preparatory to the 

 long voyage via Khartoum to the Mediterranean. The height of the 

 crest of the pass is 7,000 feet, and the ground quickly falls away to the 

 north till one drops to the dead level of the vast Albert Edward plains. 

 When exploring with a small number of followers, I observed some 

 ape-like creatures leering at me from behind Ijanana palms, and with 

 considerable difficulty my Ruanda guide induced one of them to come 

 and be inspected; he was a tall man, with the long arms, pendant 

 paunch, and short legs of the ape, pronouncedly microcephalous and 

 prognathous. At first he Avas terribly alarmed, but soon gained confi- 

 dence, and when I asked him about elephant and other game, he gave 

 me most realistic representations of them and of how they should be 

 attacked. I failed to exactly define their social status, Ijut from the 

 contempt in which the}^ were held by the Waruanda their local caste 

 must be very low. The stamp of the brute was so strong on them that 

 I shoukl place them lower in the human scale than an}- other natives I 

 have seen in Africa. Their type is totally distinct from the other 

 peoples, and, judging from the twenty to thirty specimens I saw, very 

 consistent. Their face, )>ody, and limbs are covered with wiry hair, 

 and the hang of the long powerful arms, the slight stoop of the trunk, 

 and the hunted, vacant expression of the face made up a tout ensemble 

 that was a terrible pictorial proof of Darwinism. The pygmies are of 

 similar build, but have the appearance of full-grown, exceedingly 

 powerful men compressed, and with much more intelligent faces. The 

 pygmies are to these ape-like beings as the dog-faced baboons are to 

 the gorillas. Probably they are, like.the pygmies, survivals of former 

 inhabitants of the country, the difference in their type depending on 

 the surroundings in which they have had to struggle for existence. 

 The true type of pygmy is a magnificent example of nature's adapta- 

 bility, being a comlfination of immense strength, necessary for the 

 precarious hunting life they lead, and compactness indispensaljle to 

 rapid movement in-dense forest where the pig runs are the only means 

 of passage. While I was with the main cara\'an I never saw either a 

 pygmy or one of these creatures, and to study them it is necessary to go 

 aimost unattended; this obviously entails great risk, and it is conse- 

 quently very difficult to find out much about them. They both have 

 the furtive way of looking at you characteristic of the wild animal, 

 and though I had one of these curious men with me for a week when 

 I made the circuit of the volcanoes, he would always start if I looked 

 at him, and he followed mv every move with his eyes as would a 

 nervous dog; he refused an offer of cloth for his services, and sud- 

 denly vanished into the forest without a word, though several times 



