How queer the little old woman looked! How frightened she was! she trembled all over. She was neither white nor black; she was of a yellow, or mulatto color. "What a little head! what a little body! what a little hand! what a little foot!" I exclaimed. "Oh, what queer-looking hair!" said I, bewildered. The hair grew on the head in little tufts apart from each other, and the face was as wrinkled as a baked apple. I can not tell you how delighted I was at my discovery.
So, giving my little prize to one of the Ashangos, and ordering my Commi men to catch her if she tried to run away, I went to the other little dwelling where I thought I had seen another of the Dwarfs hide himself. The two little huts stood close together. I shouted, "Nobody here?" No answer. Then I did what I had done before, and, getting my head inside of the hut through the door, again shouted, "Nobody here?" No answer. I moved my right hand to see if I could feel any body, when, lo! I seized a leg, and immediately heard a shriek. I pulled another strange little Dwarf out of the door. It was also a woman, not quite so old as the first, but having exactly the same appearance.
The two Dwarf-women looked at each other, and began to cry and sing mournful songs, as if they expected to be killed. I said to them, "Be not frightened!"
Then the Ashangos called to the last Dwarf who had hid to come out; that it was no use, I had seen them all. They had hardly spoken when I saw a little head peeping out of the door, and my Ashangos made the creature come out. It was a woman also, who began crying, and the trio shrieked and cried, and cried and shrieked, wringing their hands, till they got tired. They thought their last day had come.
"Don't be afraid," said the Ashangos; "the Oguizi is a good oguizi." "Don't be afraid," said my Commi men.
After a while they stopped crying, and began to look at me more quietly.
For the first time I was able to look carefully at these little Dwarfs. They had prominent cheek-bones, and were yellow, their faces being exactly of the same color as the chimpanzee; the palms of their hands were almost as white as those of white people; they seemed well-proportioned, but their eyes had an untamable wildness that struck me at once; they had thick lips and flat noses, like the negroes; their foreheads were low and narrow, and their cheek-bones prominent; and their hair, which grew in little, short tufts, was black, with a reddish tinge.
After a while I thought I heard a rustling in one of the little houses, so I went there, and, looking inside, saw it filled with the tiniest children. They were exceedingly shy. When they saw me they hid their heads just as young dogs or kittens would do, and got into a huddle, and kept still. These were the little dwarfish children who had remained in the village under the care of the three women, while the Dwarfs had gone into the forest to collect their evening meal—that is to say, nuts, fruits, and berries—and to see if the traps they had set had caught any game.
I immediately put beads around the necks of the women, gave them a leg of wild boar and some plantains, and told them to tell their people to remain, and not to be afraid. I gave some meat to the little children, who, as soon as I showed it to them, seized it just in the same manner that Fighting Joe or ugly Tom would have done, only, instead of fighting, they ran away immediately.
Very queer specimens these little children seemed to be. They were, if any thing, lighter in color than the older people, and they were such little bits of things that they reminded me—I could not help it—of the chimpanzees and nshiego-mbouvés I had captured at different times, though their heads were much larger.