CONGO AND NEW GUINEA PYGMIES 237 



and form numerous tribes. They are very generally well 

 treated by their more powerful neighbours, as by Moonza. 

 Partly from fear of their poisoned arrows and their crafty 

 methods of attack and subsequent disappearance into the 

 forest, partly on account of a superstitious dread of them, 

 the Congo pygmies are not only tolerated, but protected, 

 by the larger people. They alone are at home in the 

 steaming darkness of the immeasurable forest into which 

 no other natives dare to enter. 



It is a remarkable fact that the Egyptologist Mariette 

 had, before these discoveries, found on an ancient Egyptian 

 monument the portrait of a dwarf inscribed with the word 

 " akka " the identical name by which they are known at 

 this day in the region where Schweinfurth found them. 



Public interest in the pygmy race was re-aroused three 

 years ago by the announcement that the party of English 

 naturalists at that time exploring the interior of New 

 Guinea had come across a tribe of these little people in 

 the mountains of that island. The existence of these 

 pygmies in New Guinea was already well known, but 

 fuller accounts of them will be valuable. The Italian 

 traveller Beccari, in 1876, speaks of them as " Karonis," 

 and states that they occupy a chain of mountains parallel 

 to the north coast of the north-west peninsular of the 

 island. D'Albertis, Lawes, and other travellers have seen 

 and described individuals of the pygmy race of the 

 mountains of New Guinea. It is interesting to find that 

 they are described as having the body covered with fine, 

 woolly hair, a feature which is recorded by Schweinfurth, 

 by Stanley, and by an ancient Greek writer, in regard to 

 the Congo pygmies of Africa, and led in former times to 

 the notion that the old traditions and accounts of African 

 pygmies referred, not to human beings, but to chimpanzees! 



The Laplanders are the only very small-sized people in 

 Europe, but they run from 5 ft. upwards, whereas the 



