32 THE PIGMIES. 



The Gaboon, the Ogooue and the Loango are a long way from 

 Tenda Maie, and the existence of Negrillo tribes has never as yet 

 been reported within these limits. I am, however, inclined to 

 believe that all these races of low stature are closely allied one 

 with another. We know that the whole of the Guinea coast 

 has been the same of successive invasions which have brought the 

 conquering tribes of the interior up to the sea-coast. The purpose 

 of the movement of these swarms of tribes, and their murderous 

 customs, of which the Dahomeyans of our own times still furnish 

 a well known example, explain easily how a comparatively feeble 

 race could, and in fact did disappear over a considerable area. 

 The extinction of some of these tribes has just been carried out 

 in our own generation and under our very eyes. It was no doubt 

 one of the last scenes of a draina, the first acts of which were 

 enacted far back in the past. 



I shall not enter into more detail, the above being sufficient to 

 lead me to the conclusion that the Negrillos of the Rio- Grande 

 and those of the further end of the Gulf of Guinea are closely 

 related with each other and that both have relation to the small 

 beings described to Herodotus by the Nasamons. 



II. 



Almost due East of this Gabonese group of pigmies, there pro- 

 bably exists, in the very heart of Africa, a large centre of Negrillo 

 populations of which the ancients could have had no knowledge. 

 The accounts given to Stanley by Ahmed, son of Djoumah 

 ( x ) seem to me to be of too precise a nature not to be founded on 

 fact. This ivory merchant had himself seen the small men he 

 spoke of and had had to fight them ; he owned having been beaten 

 by them and his statements agree with all the other information 

 c ollected by the great American traveller. From this ensemble 

 of evidence, it follows that towards the centre of the region 

 comprised within the extensive track of Livingstone, there exists 

 a race of dwarfs called Vouatouas, very numerous, spread over a 



(i) Across the Dark Continent. Vol. II, p. 114. 



