[Note: this transcription was produced by an automatic OCR engine]

CHAPTER VIII

SAN TO (continued)——PYGMIES

Tim term of service of my boys had now expired,
and I had to look about for others. Happily, now
that I was known in the region, I had less trouble,
especially as I held out the prospect of a visit to
Noumea. With six boys of my own and a few other
men, I started on another journey.

I had always suspected the existence of a race of
pygmies in the islands, and had often asked the
natives if they had ever seen “small fellow men.”
Generally they stared at me without a sign of in-
telligence, or else began to tell fairy-tales of dwarfs
‘ they had seen in the bush, of little men with tails and
goat’s feet (probably derived from what they had heard
of the devil from missionaries), all beings of whose
existence they were perfectly convinced, whom they
‘ often see in the daytime and feel at night, so that it
is very hard to separate truth from imagination.

I had heard stories of a colony of tailed men
near Mele, and that, near Wora, north of Talamacco,
tailed men lived in trees; that they were very shy
and had long, straight hair. The natives pretended
they had nearly caught one once. All this sounded
interesting and improbable, and I was not anxious to

start on a mere wild-goose chase. More exact in-
II