They seemed not at all fierce or wild; they had a
human voice, but their dialect was altogether unknown to everybody that
lived about them, much more to those that were with Nonnosus. They lived
upon sea-oysters and fish that were cast out of the sea upon the island.
They had no courage for seeing our men; they were frighted, as we are at
the sight of the greatest wild beast." It is not easy to identify this
race with any existing tribe of Pigmies, but the hairiness of their
bodies, and above all their method of clothing themselves, leave no doubt
that in this account we have a genuine story of some group of
small-statured blacks.
From the foregoing account it will be seen that it is possible with more
or less accuracy and certainty to identify most of those races which,
described by the older writers, had been rejected by their successors.
Time has brought their revenge to Aristotle and Pliny by showing that they
were right, where Tyson, and even Buffon, were wrong.
III.
The little people of story and legend have a much wider area of
distribution than those of real life, and it is the object of this section
to give some idea of their localities and dwellings.
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