276 



small creature almost as large as those of a young gazelle; full, protruding, and extremely 

 lustrous. Absolutely nude, the little demoiselle was quite possessed, as though she were 

 accustomed to be admired and really enjoyed inspection." 



In a later stage of his march Stanley found representatives of the second group of 

 pygmies or Batwa, who "evidently belonged to that same race described as the Akka, with 

 small, cunning monkey eyes, close and deeply set." "The colour of the people," Stanley says, 

 "must be best compared to that of the common red clay brick when half baked." The wife of 

 the chief of this section of the race was captured, and stayed for some time at Fort Bodo. 

 Unlike most of the Equatorial pygmies, this woman wore a series of ornaments, including three 

 rings of polished iron rod around her neck, iron earrings, and armlets. Her clothing consisted 

 of a narrow clout of bark-cloth. 



Another pygmy met with in the same district was a full-grown man, whose height was 

 4 feet. He, like the woman, was comparatively Avell dressed, for he wore a loin-cloth of 

 bark and a cap adorned with a tuft of parrot feathers. He was armed with a knife, spear, 

 and bow and arrows. 



The hair of the Batwa and Akka differs from that of the Bushmen in one important 

 respect; for instead of being collected into small tufts scattered over the head, it is uniformly 

 distributed. The whole body among these tribes is exceptionally hairy. Schweinfurth recorded 

 statements that the Akka are clothed in hair, but remarked that this was not the case 

 with any pygmies he had had an opportunity of inspecting. But Stanley states, in respect to 

 this above-mentioned 4-foot pygmy, "that the felt over the body was almost furry, being 

 nearly an inch in length." This statement is in full agreement with the subsequent 

 observations of Stuhlmann, who records the fact that in some dwarfs from the same district 

 "the whole body was thickly covered with fine hairs from about ^ to of an inch in length." 

 The length of this hairy covering appears to vary greatly, since another of Stuhlmann's dwarfs 

 was covered by a whitish fallow-coloured down from T 1 ? to -^ of an inch long. Jephson's 

 evidence is the same: "Over the whole body is a thick felt of stiff greyish hair, which gives 

 them a peculiarly elfish appearance." Burrows, on the other hand, though remarking that the 



VARIOUS TYPES OF HAIR-DRESSING, ANTANANARIVO. 



