"I think the wildest people in the world, the most savage, are in those jungles. My uncle had to go to the haunts of the Pygmies."
"Pygmies!" exclaimed Hamilton in surprise. "I didn't know that the Stars and Stripes floated over Pygmy tribes! I thought they were only in Africa!"
"The Negritos are pygmies," answered the editor, "seldom over four feet ten inches for the man and the woman two or three inches shorter; they use their toes like fingers, they wear only a loin-cloth, their hair is fuzzy like a black bush, and they seldom use fire, even for cooking."
"How do they live?" asked Hamilton. "We have got used to thinking of the Red Indians as a part of the United States races, but the Pygmies seem outlandish. Have they huts or do they live in caves, or how?"
"Nothing!" was the answer. "A few have rough huts, but most of them wander in the forests."
"But where do they sleep?"
"On the ground."
"I should think they would be afraid of wild beasts," the boy remarked.
"There are very few in the Philippines," was the reply.
"How about snakes, then?" queried the lad.