MODERN HERCULES AND THE PYGMIES.

(_Extracts from the Diary of an Explorer in the Society Islands._)]

From the bears, apes, and foxes with which the thickets of the great
forest of Societas abounded, it is but a step to the Pygmy tribes whom
we found inhabiting the tract of country between the Uperten and the
Suburban rivers. The Pygmies are as old as Swelldom, as ubiquitous as
Boredom, the two secular pests of the earth. You will remember that
Hercules once fell asleep in the deserts of Africa, after his conquest
of Antaeus, and was disturbed in his well-earned rest by an attack of a
large army of these troublesome Lilliputians, who, it is recorded,
"discharged their arrows with great fury upon his arms and legs." The
hero, it is added, "pleased with their courage, wrapped a great number
of them in the skin of the Nemean lion, and carried them to Eurystheus."

I was not "pleased with their courage", but plagued with their
importunities. HERODOTUS described the capture of five young explorers
from Naasamoves while they were examining some curious trees in the
Niger basin, and tells how the little men took them to their villages
and showed them about to their fellow Pygmies. So, in a sense, the
Pygmies of Societas "captured" me, and showed me about to their fellow
denizens of this Land of Lilliput. They "discharged their arrows" (which
they called "In-Vites", and each of which was branded with the mystic
letters, R.S.V.P.) at me in swarms, and though they rather tickled than
hurt, yet after a time their minute but multiplied prickings became no
end of a nuisance.

Let us pause a little, and pay such honour as is due for persistence and
importunity to these "little people", who have outlived the wise men of
Egypt, the prophets of Palestine, the magicians of Persia, and the sages
of Greece and Rome. They have actually been able to hold their own from
the days of HOMER, through those of HORACE, down even to those of
HAGGARD. I have seen the wear and tear of the Pyramids of Egypt (which
is nothing to that of a lionised hero in Societas); I can certify that
the Sphynx presents a very battered appearance indeed (though not so
battered as mine, after the "little people" had done with me), but the
Pygmies of to-day in Societas appear to be as plentiful and as perky as
those that thousands of years ago swarmed in AEthiopia, built their
houses with egg-shells, made war upon the Cranes, and attacked the tired
hero Hercules.