34 THE PIGMIES. 



l m 50 ; they are of a black, and occasionally reddish, complexion 

 (taym). (*.) 



The data, which my eminent colleague has been good enough to 

 give me, seem to take these diminutive Negroes a little further 

 North. But, even so, this would indicate that here, as in Western 

 Africa, they are scattered over a more or less extensive area/and 

 that their tribes bear different names. Everything, therefore, tends 

 to show that, to the south of the Gallas countries, there exists a 

 centre of a Negrillo population, and I do not think I am too bold in 

 connecting these eastern tribes with the Pigmies of Pomponius 

 Mela, just as I have compared the small beings of Heeodotus with 

 the dwarfs of Senegambia. It is useless, I think, my repeating 

 liere, in support of this opinion, the arguments which I have men- 

 tioned above. 



We know that it is particular^ the Pigmies of Homee, living in 

 the marshy region of the Nile, who have a ttractect the attention 

 of commentators. I have before this recalled the opiuions expressed 

 by Buffos and Ivoulus" on this subject. ( 2 ) The paper of the Abbe 

 Baniee sums up the various interpretations offered by other 

 savants, who, also regarding these legends as having a certain 

 groundwork of truth, have tried to indentify the dwarfs of mytho- 

 logy with some of the populations known to the ancients. ( 3 ) 

 It is hardly necessary to add that these conjectures, which were 

 based on no solid foundation whatever, could lead to no valua- 

 ble result, and it is easy to understand why earnest investigators 

 should have rejected, as groundless, all that had been said on the 

 subject. It was reserved for modern exploration to give another 

 direction to these researches and to lead to positive conclusions. 



In fact, the further travellers have penetrated in the regions of 

 the Upper Nile, the more evidence they have been able to collect 



C 1 ) M. S. Co nummi cation of M. D'Abbadie with a note by the same 

 author. (Bulletin de la Societ e d 'Anthropologic 3/ne serie, II, p. 100). 



(*) Vide ante. Part I. 



(3) Dissertation svr let Vytjmecs (Memoircs de VAoademie des Insciijj- 

 t'una / Beltes Lettres, vol. V, p. 101). The author endeavours to prove that 

 1' gin'es have really existed and arc to be looked for in ancient Ethiopia, 

 lie id mtifiei liicm with the Pachinian;s of Ptolemy. 



