ic
of the Catalan map of the world in the National Library of Paris, the date
of which is A.D. 1375. "Here (N.W. of Catayo-Cathay) grow little men who
are but five palms in height, and though they be little, and not fit for
weighty matters, yet they be brave and clever at weaving and keeping
cattle." If such an explanation may be hazarded, we may perhaps go further
and suppose that Paulus Jovius may have been alluding to the
Koro-puk-guru, when, as Pomponius Mela tells us, he taught that there were
Pigmies beyond Japan. In both these cases, however, it is well to remember
that there is a river in Macedon as well as in Monmouth, and that it is
hazardous to come to too definite a belief as to the exact location of the
Pigmies of ancient writers.

[Footnote A: _Maundeville_, p. 211.]

[Footnote B: _Quart. Rev._, 172, p. 431.]

The continent of Africa yielded its share of Pigmies to the same writers.
The most celebrated of all are those alluded to by Aristotle in his
classical passage, "They (the Cranes) come out of Scythia to the Lakes
above Egypt whence the Nile flows. This is the place whereabouts the
Pigmies dwell. For this is no fable but a truth. 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. That this race is an exceedingly ancient one is proved by the fact
that Marriette Bey has discovered on a tomb of the ancient Empire of Egypt
a figure of a dwarf with the name Akka inscribed by it. This race is also
supposed to have been that which, alluded to by Homer, has become confused
with other dwarf tribes in different parts of the world.

"So when inclement winters vex the plain
With piercing frosts or thick-descending rain,
To warmer seas the cranes embodied fly,
With noise and order, through the midway sky;
To Pigmy nations wounds and death they bring,
And all the war descends upon the wing."

Attention may here be drawn to Tyson's quotation (p. 78) from Vossius as
to the trade driven by the Pigmies in elephants' tusks, since, as we have
seen, this corresponds with what we now know as to the habits of the
Akkas.

The account which Herodotus gives of the expedition of the Nasamonians is
well known. Five men, chosen by lo