104 HISTORY OF 



attempted seriously to confirm by historical asser- 

 tion.* If we attend to these, we must believe, 

 that in the internal parts of Africa there are whole 

 nations of pigmy beings, not more than a foot in 

 stature, who continually wage an unequal war 

 with the birds and beasts that inhabit the plains 

 in which they reside. Some of the ancients, how- 

 ever, and Strabo in particular, have supposed all 

 these accounts to be fabulous ; and have been 

 more inclined to think this supposed nation of 

 pigmies nothing more than a species of apes, well 

 known to be numerous in that part of the world. 

 With this opinion the moderns have all concurred ; 

 and that diminutive race which was described as 

 human, has been long degraded into a class of 

 animals that resemble us but very imperfectly. 



The existence, therefore, of a pigmy race of 

 mankind being founded in error, or in fable, we 

 can expect to find men of diminutive stature only 

 by accident among men of the ordinary size. Of 

 these accidental dwarfs, every country, and almost 

 every village, can produce numerous instances. 

 There was a time when these unfavoured children 

 of nature were the peculiar favourites of the great, 

 and no prince or nobleman thought himself com- 

 pletely attended unless he had a dwarf among 

 the number of his domestics. These poor little 

 men were kept to be laughed at, or to raise the 

 barbarous pleasure of their masters by their con- 

 trasted inferiority. Even in England, as late as 

 the times of King James the First, the court was 



* Athenseus, ix. 390. 



