292 THE PYGMY RACES OF MEN xix 



the Nasamoniaiis. They were led across extensive marshes, 

 and finally came to a town, where all the men were of the 

 height of their conductors, and black-complexioned. A great 

 river flowed by the town, running from west to east, and 

 containing crocodiles." 



It is satisfactory to know that the narrative concludes by 

 saying that these pioneers of African exploration, forerunners 

 of Bruce and Park, of Earth, Livingstone, Speke, Grant, 

 Schweinfurth, Stanley, and the rest, "got safe back to their 

 country." 



Extension of knowledge of the natural products of the 

 earth, and a more critical spirit on the part of authors, led to 

 attempts to account for this belief, and the discovery of races 

 of monkeys of the doings of which, it must be said, more or 

 less fabulous stories were often reported by travellers 

 generally sufficed the commentators and naturalists of the 

 last century to explain the origin of the stories of the 

 pygmies. To this view the great authority of Buffon was 

 extended. 



Still more recently-acquired information as to the actual 

 condition of the human population of the globe has, however, 

 led to a revision of the ideas upon the subject, and to more 

 careful and critical researches into the ancient documents. 

 M. de Quatrefages, the eminent and veteran Professor of 

 Anthropology at the Museum d'Histoire Naturelle of Paris, 

 especially, has carefully examined and collated all the evidence 

 bearing upon the question, and devoted much ingenuity of 

 argument to prove that the two localities in which the ancient 

 authors appear to place their pygmies, the interior of Africa 

 near the sources of the Nile, and the southernmost parts of 

 Asia, and the characters they assign to them, indicate an 

 actual knowledge of the existence of the two groups of small 

 people which still inhabit these regions, the history of which 

 will form the subject of this lecture. The evidence which 

 has convinced M. de Quatrefages, and which, I have no doubt, 

 will suffice for those who take pleasure in discovering an 

 underlying truth in all such legends and myths, or in the 

 more grateful task of rehabilitating the veracity of the fathers 

 of literature and history, will be found collected in a very 



