410 THROUGH THE HEART OF AFRHJA 



them that I should place them lower in the human scale than any other natives 

 I have seen in Africa. Their type is totally distinct from the other people's, 

 and, judging from the twenty to thirty specimens I saw, very consistent. Their 

 face, body, and limbs are covered with wiry hair, and the hands of their long 

 powerful arms, the slight stoop of the trunk, and the hunted, vacant expres- 

 sion of the face made up a tout ensemble that was a terrible pictorial proof of 

 Darwinism. The pigmies are of similar build, but have the appearance of full- 

 grown, exceedingly powerful men compressed, and with much more intelligent 

 faces. The pigmies are to these ape-like beings ias the dog-faced baboons are 

 to the gorillas. 



"Probably they are, like the pigmies, survivals of former inhal^itants of the 

 country, the difference in their type depending on the surroundings in which 

 they have had to struggle for existence. The true type of pigmy is a magniti- 

 cent example of nature's adaptability, being a combination of immense strength 

 necessary for the precarious hunting life they lead and compactness indispens- 

 able to rapid movement in dense forest where the pig-runs are the only means 

 of passage. While I was with the main caravan I never saw either a pigmy 

 or one of these creatures, and to study them it is necessary to go unattended ; 

 this obviously entails great risk, and it is consequently very difficult to find 

 out much about them. They both have tlie furtive way of looking at you 

 characteristic of the wild animal, and, thoiigh I had one of these curious men 

 with me for a week when I made the circuit of the volcanoes, he would always 

 start if I looked at him, and he followed my every move with iiis eyes as would 

 a nervous dog; he refused an offer of cloth for his services, and suddenly van- 

 ished into the forest witliout a word, though several times afterward I found 

 him watching me even when I liad returned to my camp on the base of Mount 

 Eyres." 



Mr Grogan had further experiences with another type of natives later in his 

 journey. 



" The Belegga, who inhabit the hills to the north and who were suffering 

 terribly from the effects of the long drought, looked upon me as a great insti- 

 tution, and swarmed down in hundreds for the meat (an elepiiant killed in 

 the hunt). A weird sight it was. Stark-naked savages, with long, greased 

 plaits of hair hanging down to their shoulders, were perclied on every avail- 

 able inch of the carcass, hacking away with their knives and spears, yelling, 

 whooping, wrestling, cursing, and munching, covered with blood and entrails, 

 the new-comers tearing off lumps of meat and swallowing them raw, the earlier 

 arrivals defending great lumps of offal and other delicacies, while others were 

 crawling in and out of the intestines like so many prairie marmots, old men, 

 young men, prehistoric hags, babies, one and all gorging or gorged, smearing 

 themselves with blood, laughing, and fighting. Pools of l>loo<l, strips of hide, 

 vast bones, blocks of meat, individuals who had not dined wisely but too well, 

 lay around in bewildering confusion, and in two short hours all was finished. 

 Nothing remained but the great gaunt ribs, like the skeleton of a shipwreck, 

 and a few disconsolate-looking vultures perched thereon." 



Vast herds of elephants were met in tlie swamps of the Dinka region, 

 through which the route lay for several hundred miles. Often "they formed 



