392 A BRAVE GERMAN AMONG THE CANNIBALS 



through the grass like grasshoppers, and are so bold and clever that 

 they shoot their arrows into the elephants' eyes and drive their lances 

 into their bellies. After this Schweinfurth met with several hundreds 

 of these diminutive warriors, none of whom, though full grown, 

 exceeded in height the first one seen. He also secured one of the 

 pygmy boys, whom the king gave him as a present to take to Europe, 

 and the boy having no relations living, there was no one to object. 

 Though little 'Tikki-tikki" (the Niam-Niam name for the dwarfs) 

 soon was quite reconciled to the change, and accompanied his master 

 everywhere, delighting in hunting and the fights he witnessed, he so 

 overgorged himself with eating that an illness was brought on, from 

 which he died in Berber. 



^* Schweinfurth's journey ended in a serious misfortune, a fire 

 breaking out in a village in which he was staying and spreading with 

 such rapidity that his journal and nearly all his efifects were destroyed. 

 Much was irretrievably lost, but the traveler was too stout-hearted to 

 give up. From memoranda saved, and from memory, he constructed 

 the greater part of his journal again, though of course the specimens 

 collected, with which he had hoped to enrich the museums of Europe, 

 were gone. At one time he even resolved to make another journey 

 into the Niam-Niam country, but the hostilities going on there pre- 

 vented his realizing this project. Returning to Khartoum, and thence 

 to Suakin on the Red Sea, he embarked for Europe, and arrived on 

 November 2, 1871, after three years and four months* absence, having 

 during that time visited kingdoms till then unknown, and accomplished 

 more than any other traveler in the way of adding to our knowledge 

 of the natural history of the great central regions of the African 

 continent. 



