28 CURIOUS CREATURES. 



Pygmies are said to exist ; two races, which are but 

 three spans in height, that is to say, twenty-seven inches 

 only. They enjoy a salubrious atmosphere, and a 

 perpetual spring, being sheltered by the mountains from 

 the northern blasts ; it is these people that Homer has 

 mentioned as being waged war upon by Cranes. It is 

 said that they are in the habit of going down every 

 spring to the sea-shore, in a large body, seated on the 

 backs of rams and goats, and armed with arrows, and 

 there destroy the eggs and the young of those birds ; 

 that this expedition occupies them for the space of three 

 months, and that otherwise it would be impossible for 

 them to withstand the increasing multitudes of the 

 Cranes. Their cabins, it is said, are built of mud, mixed 

 with feathers and egg shells." 



Mandeville thus describes them. " When men passe 

 from that citie of Chibens, they passe over a great river 

 of freshe water, and it is nere iiii mile brode, & then 

 men enter into the lande of the great Caan. This river 

 goeth through the land of Pigmeens, and there men are 

 of little stature, for they are but three span long, and 

 they are right fayre, both men and women, though they 

 bee little, and they live but viii l yeare, and he that liveth 

 viii yeare is holden right olde, and these small men are 

 the best workemen in sylke, and of cotton, in all maner 

 of thing that are in the worlde ; and these smal men 

 travail not, nor tyl land, but they have amonge them 

 great men, as we are, to travaill for them, & they have 

 great scorne of those great men, as we would have of 

 giaunts, or, of them, if they were among us." 



Ser Marco Polo warns his readers against pscudo 

 Pygmies. Says he : " I may tell you moreover that 



1 Other editions say, six or seven years. 



