THE PIGMIES. 43 



nuffering in men and animals, and as never having succeeded in 

 learning Arabic or auy other dialect of the country. (*) Minis- 

 Calciii, on the contrary, found Tebo and Cha.iralla.ii to be 

 affectionate and grateful pupils, always ready to improve them- 

 selves. Both of them, especially Tebo, had a great taste for music. 

 Two years after their arrival in Europe, they knew how to read and 

 write. Their adoptive father showed, in 1879, to one of his col- 

 leagues, two letters entirely worded and written out by them 

 without any help whatever; the fac-siniile of these specimens was 

 inserted in the proceedings of the Congress. ( 2 ) They had not, 

 however, forgotten their mother-tongue and could supply M. 

 Mintscalchi with several hundred words and various information 

 enabling him thus to draw up a grammar which he considers as 

 similar to that of the Niam-Niam language. ( 3 ) 



What have these Akkas become under the influence of a Euro- 

 pean climate and of an education to which they were submitted, for 

 the first time, these representatives of that ancient and wild race that 

 has settled down at two or three degrees from the Equator ? 

 Evidently the question is of great interest, and we must feel grate- 

 ful to' M. Gtiglioli for having' replied to it in detail. (*) 



Tebo has always borne up very well against the cold winters of 

 Verona. Chairallah has had ague and cough pretty often ; he 

 also suffered from rheumatism for the first two or three years, but 

 both are now perfectly well acclimatized, ( 5 ) and so is also Saida. ( 6 ) 



(i) Loc. cit., p. 125. 



(2 ) Zoo. cit., p.p. 302 and 303. 



(3) M. Miniscalchi used to converse with them in Arabic, which they 

 speak fluently. 



(*) Gli Alika viventi in Italia, loc. cit. This memoir was written in 1880, 

 five years after that of Count Miniscalchi. 



(3) Id., p. 407. 



(6 ) M. Giglioli thought that he could discover, by a simple inspection 

 of the head, that it had grown somewhat longer. The examination of the 

 bust and the measures, necessarily approximative, which I took of this plaster- 

 cast, do not, to my mind, justify this opinion. 



