516 



PYGMIES AND POREST NEGROES 



The little Pygmies of the Congo Forest do not themselves cultivate or 

 till the soil, but live mainly on the flesh of beasts, birds, and reptiles, on 

 white ants, bee-grubs, and larvae of certain burrowing beetles. Nevertheless,, 

 they are fond of bananas, and to satisfy their hankering for this sweet fruit 

 they will come at night and rob the plantations of their big black agricultural 

 neighbours. If the robbery is taken in good part, or if gifts in the shape of 

 ripe bananas are laid out in a likely spot for the Pygmy visitor who comes 

 silently in the darkness or dawn, the little man will show himself grateful, 



272. THREE BAMBUTE PYGMIES 



and will leave behind him some night a return present of meat, or he will 

 be found to have cleared the plantation of weeds, to have set traps, to have- 

 driven off apes, baboons, or elephants whilst his friends and hosts were 

 sleeping. Children, however, might be lured away from time to time to 

 follow the Dwarfs, and even mingle with their tribe, like the children or 

 men and women carried off by the fairies. On the other hand, it is- 

 sometimes related that when the Negro mother awoke in the morning her 

 bonny, big, black child had disappeared, and its place had been taken by a. 

 frail, yellow, wrinkled Pygmy infant, the changeling of our stories. Any one- 

 who has seen as much of the Central African ?ygmies as I have, and has 

 noted their merry, impish ways; their little songs; their little dances; 

 their mischievous pranks ; unseen, spiteful vengeance ; quick gratitude ^ 

 and prompt return for kindness, cannot but be struck by their singular 



