Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 49.djvu/62

50 west longitude that the Nasamonea reached the Niger." (It should be noted here that a large proportion of our former slave population was brought from a section of Africa only a degree or so south and east of Timbuktu.) The above-quoted author very correctly states that the town in which the Nasamonians were held captave could not have been the famous Timbuktu, for Ahmed Baba, the celebrated Arab historian and annalist, declares that the town was not founded until the fifth century of the Hegira, or 1100 But, taking everything into consideration, I am inclined to believe that it was really in this neighborhood that these adventurous explorers met the pygmies, and that the latter at that time had a town on the banks of the river Niger. The incursions of stronger and more warlike peoples probably drove these little men southward, out of the immediate neighborhood of the present site of Timbuktu.

The older writers, notably Pliny, located the pygmies in more than one country. Pliny not only locates them in Africa, but also in India, and modern research has declared that this historian was correct.

In the Vindhya Mountains, Malwa, India (20° to 25° north latitude, and 75° to 80° east longitude), M. Rousselet has found the Bandra Loks ("man monkeys"), true pygmies, less than five feet in height. These people are, unquestionably, bona fide negritos ("little negroes"). Saint-Pol Lias also found negritos in the province of Perak, called Sakaies. These little negroes were all five feet or under, and presented all the characteristic marks of the African pygmies, with the single exception of the protuberant abdomen. This modification of form is probably due to their surroundings. Not only are the negritos to be found in India, but they are to be observed in the Andaman Islands, Bay of Bengal; in the Malayan Archipelago; in Melonesia and Polynesia; and in Australia. This race has penetrated as far north as Japan, for Dr. Maget has found true negritos among the Japanese. They are also to be found in the archipelago of Loo Choo and in Formosa.

The Andamanese probably approximate more nearly in stature and form the pygmies of the United States than do any other tribe of little people save the Akka and Bushmen of Africa. The Tasmanians, however, resemble our negritos very much, as far as facial angle and expression are concerned. I have, therefore, introduced the portrait of a Tasmanian for the sake of comparison. In recent times explorers have penetrated Central Africa, and have found the smallest of all little people in the region of the country ruled over by King Munza, sovereign of the Monbuttos (18681871). Here Schweinfurth found a small colony of pygmies supported by King Munza; their chief, Adimokou, told