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Taking the Pygmies as a whole, it may be said that, though many of the Akkas are disproportionate in shape and tottering in gait, on the whole these people are well made, their protuberant paunch being probably a result of their habits of eating.
Both they and the horses, as 'tis said, are of a small kind. They are Troglodytes and live in caves." Leaving aside the crane part of the tale, which it has been suggested may really have referred to ostriches, Aristotle's Pigmy race may, from their situation, be fairly identified with the Akkas described by Stanley and others.
Scarcely had they begun to taste it, when they were surprised by a great number of men of a stature much inferior to the middle height, who seized them and carried them off. They were eventually taken to a city, the inhabitants of which were black. Near this city ran a considerable river whose course was from west to east, and in which crocodiles were found. In his account of the Akkas, Mr.
Yet, as in the case of the Akkas mentioned, they can be taught to the level of other children of twelve or fourteen years. Their mind, in the opinion of Dr. Brander, seems rather to be asleep than incapable. One child was taught to read and write, and to speak English fluently, and gained some knowledge of arithmetic; and this was not an exceptional case.
The tribe seen by him, known as the Akka, was made up of very diminutive individuals, none being over four feet ten inches high, and some only four feet. Their bodies were in due proportion to their height, so that they resembled half-grown boys in size. The Akkas, as described by him, have large heads, huge ears, and very prognathous faces.
Some tribes are described as physically and mentally degenerate, and prognathism is in many cases strongly declared, the lower part of the face having an ape-like contour, and the protruding chin, that feature peculiar to man, being very deficient. In their great abdominal development the adult Akkas resemble the children of Arabs and negroes.
The resemblance of the peaked cap and of the beard to those of the little figures carved by Black Forest peasants and intended to represent the mythical "gnomes" or dwarf mining-elves is noteworthy. The Akkas living near the sources of the Nile were known to the ancient Egyptians, and were the foundation of stories and fabulous exaggerations among the ancient Greeks.
Homer refers to the wars of these pygmies with the cranes, and as a matter of fact the African pygmies do wage a kind of war upon the great cranes which swarm in the marsh-land of their country. The Egyptians, as we have seen, knew the pygmy Akkas, and Egyptian fact was ever the romance of the Greeks.
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.
Schweinfurth found to the south of the Niam-Niam country a tribe of full-statured negroes called the Mombootoos, whose chief, Moonza, kept close to the Royal residence a colony of pygmies who were called in that country by the name "Akkas." Schweinfurth ascertained that they are spread to the number of many thousands along the borders of the great Congo forest and form numerous tribes.
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