XIX 

 THE PYGMY KACES OF MEN 1 



IT is well known that the nations of antiquity entertained a 

 widespread belief in the existence of a race or races of human 

 beings of exceedingly diminutive stature, who dwelt in some 

 of the remote and unexplored regions of the earth. These 

 were called Pygmies, a word said to be derived from Trvyfjuj, 

 which means a fist, a"nd also a measure of length, the distance 

 from the elbow to the knuckles of an ordinary -sized man, 

 or rather more than 13 inches. 



In the opening of the third book of the Iliad the Trojan 

 hosts are described as coming on with noise and shouting, 

 "like the cranes which flee from the coming of winter and 

 sudden rain, and fly with clamour towards the streams of 

 ocean, bearing slaughter and fate to the Pygmy men, and in 

 early morn offer cruel battle," or, as Pope has it, 



So when inclement winters vex the plain, 

 With piercing frosts, or thick descending rain, 

 To warmer seas the cranes embodied fly, 

 With noise and order through the midway sky, 

 To Pygmy nations wounds and death they bring, 

 And all the war descends upon the wing." 



The combats between the pygmies and the cranes are often 

 alluded to by later classical writers, and are not unfrequently 

 depicted upon Greek vases. In one of these in the Hope 

 Collection at Deepdene, in which the figures are represented 

 with great spirit, the pygmies are dwarfish-looking men with 

 large heads, negro features, and close woolly or frizzly hair. 

 They are armed with lances. Notices of a less poetical and 

 1 Lecture at the Royal Institution of Great Britain, 13th April 1888. 



