98 THE PIGMIES. 



by the Nasamons, still exists north of the Niger and has not yet 

 been re-discovered, or that it has completely disappeared from that 

 region. 



"Without wishing in any way to prejudge the future, I think 

 the last hypothesis seems the most probable, and perhaps it 

 must even also be applied to other countries where the ancients 

 have placed their Pigmies. The Egyptians knew the Akkas 

 under the name which they still bear, for M. Maeiette-Pacha 

 saw it inscribed near the figure of a dwarf sculptured on a monu- 

 ment of the old empire. ( x ) In fact, even granting that they were 

 able to explore the Nile far beyond the obstacles which have 

 stopped us until lately, nothing, in my belief, entitles us to suppose 

 that they took a westerly direction and crossed from the watershed 

 of the Nile to that of the Ouellc. It seems to me much more ra- 

 tional to suppose that, at the time of Aristotle, these Akkas tribes 

 lived much further north, occupied at least the watershed of some 

 tributary of the Nile, and perhaps reached the swampy region of the 

 great river. Their retreat towards the south and west has nothing 

 surprising in itself, for we shall see that, wherever we follow these 

 small races, wherever we can gather sufficient information, they will 

 appear to us as having been, in the past, more flourishing than at the 

 present day, and as having also covered a more extensive and 

 more continuous geographical area. Perhaps this general fact 

 might be put forward to prove the accuracy of the account furnished 

 by Pomponius Mela. 



It was not under the attacks of animals — aerial or terrestrial — 

 that these small men gave way, and that their communities were 

 dispersed. "We shall see, on the contrary, that some among them 

 will face and conquer even the elephant. It is to human races 

 taller and stronger than themselves that they are compelled to 

 yield. These are, in Africa and Melanesia, the Negroes and 

 Papuans ; in the Malay countries, the different Malayan races ; 

 and in India, the Dravidians. In many places, in West Africa 

 as well as in the Philippine Islands, and in the two G-angetic 



( i ) Hamy — Easai de Coordination des Materlaux recemment receuhllis sur 

 VEthnologie des Negrilles ou Pygmees, p. 21, 



