on, a prey to dread and weakness.

That is the forest. But what of its denizens? They are comparatively
few; only some hundreds of thousands living in small tribes from ten to
thirty miles apart, scattered over an area on which ten thousand
million trees put out the sun from a region four times as wide as
Great Britain. Of these pygmies there are two kinds; one a very
degraded specimen with ferretlike eyes, close-set nose, more nearly
approaching the baboon than was supposed to be possible, but very
human; the other very handsome, with frank open innocent features,
very prepossessing. They are quick and intelligent, capable of deep
affection and gratitude, showing remarkable industry and patience.
A pygmy boy of eighteen worked with consuming zeal; time with him was
too precious to waste in talk. His mind seemed ever concentrated on
work. Mr. Stanley said: --

"When I once stopped him to ask him his name, his face seemed to say,
'Please don't stop me. I must finish my task.'

"All alike, the baboon variety and the handsome innocents, are
cannibals. They are possessed with a perfect mania for meat. We were
obliged to bury our dead in the river, lest the bodies should be
exhumed and eaten, even when they had died from smallpox."

Upon the pygmies and all the dwellers of the forest has descended a
devastating visitation in the shape of the ivory raiders of
civilisation. The race that wrote the Arabian Nights, built Bagdad and
Granada, and invented Algebra, sends forth men with the hunger for gold
in their hearts, and Enfield muskets in their hands, to plunder and to
slay. They exploit the domestic affections of the forest dwellers in