IN THE land of gorillas and pygmies 
3S5 
These little people mostly live on serpents, rats and mice, and 
what berries and nuts they can collect in the forest. On the next occa¬ 
sion the traveler was more successful and found the pygmies. On 
coming to one of their settlements everything appeared to be deserted, 
but Du Chaillu lay flat on the ground at the door of one of the little 
huts, and put his arm in at the entrance in the dark. Sweeping it 
r^und, he suddenly grasped hold of something; then a piercing shriek 
was heard; he had caught some one by the ankle, and unceremoniously 
dragging the creature out, it was found to be a poor wrinkled looking 
old woman. Two poor women were discovered in the other huts, and 
when dragged out they began to shriek and cry and wring their hands, 
probably thinking that their last day had come, and it was for a long 
time in vain that the Ashangos assured them that the Oguisi did not 
mean to harm them. 
“For the first time,” says Du Chaillu, “I was able to look care¬ 
fully at these little Dwarfs. They had prominent cheek-bones, and 
were yellow, their faces being exactly of the same color as the chim¬ 
panzee’s; the palms of their hands were almost as white as those of 
white people; they seemed well proportioned, but their eyes had an 
untamable wildness that struck me at once; they had thick lips and 
flat noses, like the negroes; their foreheads were low and narrow, and 
their cheek-bones prominent; and their hair, which grew in little, short 
tufts, was black, with a reddish tinge. After a while I thought I heard 
a rustling in one of the little houses, so I went there, and looking in¬ 
side, saw it filled with the tiniest children. They were exceedingly 
shy. When they saw me they hid their heads just as young dogs or 
kittens would do, and got into a huddle, and kept still. These were 
the little Dwarf children who had remained in the village under the 
care of the three women, while the Dwarfs had gone into the forest 
to collect their evening meal —that is to say, nuts, fruits and berries— 
and to see if the traps they had set had caught any game/’ 
The finding of these little people was Du Chaillu’s last success. 
He afterwards met with serious misfortunes, and was forced to fight 
his way through hostile tribes to the coast. At last, on the 21st of 
September, 1866, the mouth of the Fernand Vaz was reached, and 
once more the traveler looked on the sea. Six days afterwards, though 
