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When Paul du Chaillu described the Obongo dwarfs of West Africa, his narrative was discredited; but four or five groups of dwarfs, probably numbering many thousands, are now known to be scattered from the lower border of Abyssinia to the Kalahara desert in the far south.
If the reader should desire fuller accounts of such battles, we recommend to him African Hunting, a very interesting work, by W.C. Baldwin, Esquire, to whom, with Dr Livingstone, Du Chaillu, and others, I am indebted for most of the information contained in this volume, R.M.B. "Hallo!" he added, bursting suddenly into the open where they were standing, "what's this a buffalo? dead!
Around another corner into Fourteenth Street and down a block to No. 224, Paul du Chaillu had apartments when he wrote The Land of the Midnight Sun; but the tree-filled yard and the vine-covered cottage next to it, on which the writer's window looked, are buried beneath a dwelling in the full flush of newness.
Michael in the Azores, where a certain cluster of stone huts still bears the name of Seven Cities, and the same name is associated with a small lake by which they stand. As to the habits of the Vikings, the most accessible authorities are "The Age of the Vikings," by Du Chaillu, and "The Sea Kings of Norway," by Laing.
Geographers did not see how to pass the Niger through the" Kong Mountains, which, uniting with the Jebel Komri, are supposed to run in one unbroken chain across the continent;" and these Lunar Mountains of the Moslems, which were "stretched like a chaplet of beads from east to west," undoubtedly express, as M. du Chaillu contends, a real feature, the double versant, probably a mere wave of ground between the great hydrographic basins of the Niger and the Congo, of North Africa and of Central Africa.
Another African traveler Du Chaillu has seen a column of these ants defile past him for twelve hours without stopping on the road. But why be astonished at the sight of such myriads? The fecundity of these insects is surprising; and, to return to our fighting termites, it has been proved that a female deposits as much as sixty thousand eggs in a day!
They are also ape-like in their incessant play of countenance, twitching of eyebrows, rapid gestures of hands and feet, nodding and wagging of the head, and remarkable agility. Their skin is of a dull brown color, "like partly roasted coffee," and destitute of the covering of hair seen by Du Chaillu on the Obongos. The hair of the head and the beard is scanty and of woolly texture.
We might, perhaps, find a name for the individual in this condition as well as for the condition. We must look to Du Chaillu for it, if we do; but it is too serious a distress to make light of, even for a moment. We have all felt it, and we know how it feels; we all see it every day, and we know how it looks.
Were I to describe these I could not make use of more appropriate words than the following of Du Chaillu: “The pure bred native dog is small, has long straight ears, long muzzle and long curly tail; the hair is short and the color yellowish; the pure breed being known by the clearness of his color.
It is by beating on the skin with the hand, the instrument being supported between the legs of the drummer, in a slanting position, that it is played. Du Chaillu, Stanley and other travelers in Africa tell us that, in case of danger and to call the clans together, the big war drum is beaten, and is heard many miles around.
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