The Country of the Dwarfs

by Paul B. Du Chaillu

Before sunrise the next morning we started again for the settlement of the little Dwarfs. We were still more cautious than before in going through the jungle. This time we took another direction to reach them, lest perhaps they might be watching the path by which we had come before.

After a while I thought I saw through the trunks of the trees ahead of us several little houses of the Dwarfs. I kept still, and immediately gave a sign to make my guides maintain silence. They obeyed me on the instant, and we lay motionless on the ground, hardly daring to breathe. There was no mistake about it; we could see, as we peeped through the trees, the houses of the Dwarfs, but there seemed to be no life there, no Obongos. We kept watching for more than half an hour in breathless silence, when lo! Rebouka gave a tremendous sneeze. I looked at him. I wish you had seen his face. Another sneeze was coming, and he was trying hard to prevent it, and made all sorts of faces, but the look I gave him was enough, I suppose, and the second sneeze was suppressed. Then we got up and entered the little settlement of the Dwarfs. There was not one of them there. The village had been abandoned. The leaves over the little houses were dry, and, while we were looking all round, suddenly our bodies were covered with swarms of fleas, which drove us out faster than we came. It was awful, for they did bite savagely, as if they had not had any thing to feed upon for a whole month.

We continued to walk very carefully, and after a while we came near another settlement of the Dwarfs, which was situated in the densest part of the forest. I see the huts; we cross the little stream from which the Dwarfs drew their water to drink. How careful we are as we walk toward their habitations, our bodies bent almost double, in order not to be easily discovered. I am excited—oh, I would give so much to see the Dwarfs, to speak to them! How craftily we advance! how cautious we are for fear of alarming the shy inmates! My Ashango guides hold bunches of beads. I see that the beads we had hung to the trees have been taken away.

All our caution was in vain. The Dwarfs saw us, and ran away in the woods. We rushed, but it was too late; they had gone. But as we came into the settlement I thought I saw three creatures lying flat on the ground, and crawling through their small doors into their houses. When we were in the very midst of the settlement I shouted, "Is there any body here?" No answer. The Ashangos shouted, "Is there any body here?" No answer. I said to the Ashangos, "I am certain that I have seen some of the Dwarfs go into their huts." Then they shouted again, "Is there any body here?" The same silence. Turning toward me, my guides said, "Oguizi, your eyes have deceived you; there is no one here; they have all fled. They are afraid of you." "I am not mistaken," I answered. I went with one Ashango toward one of the huts where I thought I had seen one of the Dwarfs go inside to hide, and as I came to the little door I shouted again, "Is there any body here?" No answer. The Ashango shouted, "Is there any body inside?" No answer. "I told you, Oguizi, that they have all run away." It did seem queer to me that I should have suffered an optical delusion. I was perfectly sure that I had seen three Dwarfs get inside of their huts. "Perhaps they have broken through the back part, and have escaped," said I; so I walked round their little houses, but every thing was right—nothing had gone outside through the walls.

In order to make sure, I came again to the door, and shouted, "Nobody here?" The same silence. I lay flat on the ground, put my head inside of the door, and again shouted, "Nobody here?" It was so dark inside that, coming from the light, I could not see, so I extended my arm in order to feel if there was any one within. Sweeping my arm from left to right, at first I touched an empty bed, composed of three sticks; then, feeling carefully, I moved my arm gradually toward the right, when—hallo! what do I feel? A leg! which I immediately grabbed above the ankle, and a piercing shriek startled me. It was the leg of a human being, and that human being a Dwarf! I had got hold of a Dwarf!

"Don't be afraid; the Spirit will do you no harm," said my Ashango guide.

"Don't be afraid," I said, in the Ashango language, and I immediately pulled the creature I had seized by the leg through the door, in the midst of great excitement among my Commi men.

"A Dwarf!" I shouted, as the little creature came out. "A woman!" I shouted again—"a pigmy!" The little creature shrieked, looking at me. "Nchendé! nchendé! nchendé!" said she. "Oh! oh! oh! Yo! yo! yo!" and her piercing wail rent the air.

What a sight! I had never seen the like. "What!" said I, "now I do see the Dwarfs of Equatorial Africa—the Dwarfs of Homer, Herodotus—the Dwarfs of the ancients."