88 THE PIGMIES. 



Some of the particulars given by him are true to this day, and 

 we are, moreover, indebted to him for a valuable piece of informa- 

 tion. He is the only one of all ancient writers who, in speaking 

 of Pigmies, assigns to them a black complexion. We are perfectly 

 aware at present that this characteristic is found, to a high degree, 

 among the Negritos, and is persistent in Dravidians, even when 

 strongry modified by cross-breeding. 



Ctesias also tells us that Pigmies are flat-nosed and ugly, a des- 

 cription which is entirely confirmed by M. Eousselet's portrait 

 of a Djambal and by photographs taken by M. Beau de St. Pol- 

 Lias. He adds that they are skilful in archery ; well, we all 

 know that from the Philippine to the Andaman Islands, the bow 

 is a formidable weapon in the hands of the Negritos. On the 

 whole, we may infer that Ctesias really referred to the Negritos 

 or to a closely allied race. 



We saw just now that Pliny's assertion touching the opinion of 

 Aristotle was inexact, and there is no need to insist on that point ; 

 but the accounts collected by the celebrated Roman compiler sug- 

 gest other remarks. It is difficult to understand what made him 

 place the Pigmies in Thrace or Asia Minor ; in these countries, 

 the history of man does not, any more than that of animals, 

 furnish any fact which, disguised by ignorance or love of the mar- 

 vellous, could have served as a basis for the legends under remark. 

 Perhaps, as M. Maitry has justly remarked, the explanation of 

 these errors might be fonnd in a general fact. The abode of the 

 more or less extraordinary beings, whose existence was admitted 

 by the ancients, was always placed by them in the remotest 

 "borders of the known world, without much concern for any pre- 

 cise spot or definite direction. It is from this that arise, in dealing 

 with this fancy geography, the uncertainty and discrepancies so 

 often noticed, and of which the history of the Pigmies affords a 

 striking example. 



Differing altogether from the countries to which the preceding 

 remarks apply, tropical Africa and Asia present certain facts which 

 permit the explanation, in different ways, of what the ancients said 

 of their Pigmies, and these facts belong to the history of^ animals 

 as well as to that of man, 



