1^8 The National Geographic Magazine 



A GROUP OF PYGMIES 



elephant to the timid little dik-dik, come 

 down to drink, bathe,, and crop the fine 

 grass at the water's edge. 



The seasons in the forest are very ill- 

 defined. Generally rain falls on four or 

 five days of every week, while seven days 

 without a thunderstorm was the longest 

 dry period I experienced. In any big 

 clearing it was curious to hear a storm 

 coming up, for the sound of the drops 

 pattering on the leaves of the trees 

 reached us long before the rain. The 

 roar of a hurricane through the forest 

 was an experience never to be forgotten. 

 Our camp was nearly wrecked on one 

 occasion, and a passage several hundred 

 yards wide was cleared through the trees 

 for a distance of some miles. In 1905 

 I was in the forest from the last few 

 days of June to the first half of August, 

 while in the following year I spent from 

 the last week of January to the first days 

 of August in practically the same dis- 

 tricts. July of 1905, passed between 

 Irumu and Mawambi, was by far the 

 wettest month of the ten. The following 



July, however, spent between Makala, 

 Mawambi, and towards Beni, was one of 

 the driest. While the forest is damp, I 

 came across but very few boggy places 

 and no large marshes. Mosquitoes are 

 almost unknown. 



THE DENIZENS OF THE FOREST 



The population of the forest is numer- 

 ous, from the pygmies, considered to be 

 the most savage and primitive, to the 

 Mongwana, the followers and descend- 

 ants of the Arab ivory and slave dealers, 

 to whom a certain amount of Moslem 

 civilization and handicraft have been 

 handed down; and dotted about at wide 

 intervals, the neat, well-ordered stations 

 of the Congo government gave evidence 

 of a European civilization that has 

 crushed Mongwana power and effectually 

 abolished the slave trade. 



The climate of the forest seems to have 

 no detrimental influence on the physical 

 development of any of the tribes who find 

 their home under its shelter. The Mong- 

 wana are a tall, well-proportioned race of 



