. The Uganda protectorate; an attempt to give some description of the physical geography, botany, zoology, anthropology, languages and history of the territories under British protection in East Central Africa, between the Congo Free State and the Rift Valley and between the first degree of south latitude and the fifth degree of north latitude. African languages; Natural history; Ethnology. 516 PYGMIES AND POREST NEGROES The little Pygmies of the Congo Forest do not themselves cultivate or till the soil, but live mainly on the flesh of beasts, birds, and reptiles, on white ants, bee-grubs, and
. The Uganda protectorate; an attempt to give some description of the physical geography, botany, zoology, anthropology, languages and history of the territories under British protection in East Central Africa, between the Congo Free State and the Rift Valley and between the first degree of south latitude and the fifth degree of north latitude. African languages; Natural history; Ethnology. 516 PYGMIES AND POREST NEGROES The little Pygmies of the Congo Forest do not themselves cultivate or till the soil, but live mainly on the flesh of beasts, birds, and reptiles, on white ants, bee-grubs, and larvae of certain burrowing beetles. Nevertheless,, they are fond of bananas, and to satisfy their hankering for this sweet fruit they will come at night and rob the plantations of their big black agricultural neighbours. If the robbery is taken in good part, or if gifts in the shape of ripe bananas are laid out in a likely spot for the Pygmy visitor who comes silently in the darkness or dawn, the little man will show himself grateful,. 272. THREE BAMBUTE PYGMIES and will leave behind him some night a return present of meat, or he will be found to have cleared the plantation of weeds, to have set traps, to have- driven off apes, baboons, or elephants whilst his friends and hosts were sleeping. Children, however, might be lured away from time to time to follow the Dwarfs, and even mingle with their tribe, like the children or men and women carried off by the fairies. On the other hand, it is- sometimes related that when the Negro mother awoke in the morning her bonny, big, black child had disappeared, and its place had been taken by a. frail, yellow, wrinkled Pygmy infant, the changeling of our stories. Any one- who has seen as much of the Central African ?ygmies as I have, and has noted their merry, impish ways; their little songs; their little dances; their mischievous pranks; unseen, spiteful vengeance ; quick gratitude ^ and prompt return for kindness, cannot but be struck
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