CHAPTER II 

 AMONG THE PYGMIES 



ALTHOUGH H. M. Stanley, the great explorer, actually 

 met with the Pygmies in 1888, very little was really 

 known of the dwarf race of Africa until many years 

 later. One of the earliest and best accounts of their 

 habits and customs is given by Mr. A. B. Lloyd, the 

 famous missionary traveller, in his volume of African 

 exploration. I He says : " We had been in the forest 

 for six long days, and had never once seen the slightest 

 sign of Pygmies, and I began to half believe that 

 after all the Pygmy stories were not true.; but on 

 this particular day I was converted to believe most 

 thoroughly in Pygmies. I was still at the head of the 

 caravan, rifle in hand, looking out for a shot at some 

 wild pigs that had been seen a little while before. 

 The forest was not so dense as it had been in the earlier 

 part of the day, and we were making our way along 

 a small antelope track which was in the direction we 

 were going. My boy, who was just behind me, sud- 

 denly stopped and pointed out to me what he described 

 as a ' man -monkey.' I looked up the tree at which 

 he was pointing, and there, near the top of a high 

 cotton-tree, I saw what I thought must be, from the 

 1 See Bibliography, 3. 



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