in Kentucky and Tennessee.

Dr. Schweinfurth, the distinguished African traveler, confirms the
statements of Homer, Herodotus, and Aristotle that there was a race of
pygmies near the source of the Nile. Schweinfurth says that they live
south of the country occupied by the Niam-Niam, and that their stature
varies from 4 feet to 4 feet 10 inches. These people are called the
Akkas, and wonderful tales are told of their agility and cunning,
characteristics that seem to compensate for their small stature.

In 1860 Paul DuChaillu speaks of the existence of an African people
called the Obongos, inhabiting the country of the Ashangos, a little to
the south of the equator, who were about 1.4 meters in height. There
have been people found in the Esquimaux region of very diminutive
stature. Battel discovered another pygmy people near the Obongo who are
called the Dongos. Kolle describes the Kenkobs, who are but 3 to 4
feet high, and another tribe called the Reebas, who vary from 3 to 5
feet in height. The Portuguese speak of a race of dwarfs whom they call
the Bakka-bakka, and of the Yogas, who inhabit territory as far as the
Loango. Nubia has a tribe of dwarfs called the Sukus, but little is
known of them. Throughout India there are stories of dwarf tribes
descended from the monkey-God, or Hoonuman of the mythologic poems.

In the works of Humboldt and Burgoa there is allusion to the tradition
of a race of pygmies in the unexplored region of Chiapas near the
Isthmus of Tehuantepec in Central America. There is an expedition of
anthropologists now on the way to discover this people. Professor Starr
of Chicago on his return from this region reported many colonies of
undersized people, but did not discover any pygmy tribes answering to
the older legendary descriptions. Figure 160 represents two dwarf
Cottas measuring 3 feet 6 inches in height.

The African pygmies who were sent to the King of Italy and shown in
Rome resembled the pygmy travelers of Akka that Schweinfurth saw at the
court of King Munza at Monbuttu. These two pygmies at Rome were found
in Central Africa and were respectively about ten and fifteen years
old. They spoke a dialect of their own and different from any known
African tongue; they were partly understood by an Egyptian sergeant, a
native of Soudan, who accompanied them as the sole survivor of the
escort with which their donor, Miani, penetrated Monbuttu. Miani, like
Livingstone, lost his life in African tr