II.] RUMOURS ABOUT DISTANT LANDS, 29
eddies of the Straits of Messina, as reported to the Greeks by
those who had passed through them1.
But, although the knowledge of the world which the Greeks
of this age possessed was so narrowly limited,
. . J Rumours
there are not wanting intimations that reports had about far im-
penetrated to them of strange races and strange tant Countnes-
sights in the remotest parts of the habitable world, both towards
the south and the north. There was a proverbial saying current
among the Greeks, which Aristotle has preserved for us, that
Africa has always some novelty to offer2; and it is to that land
that we may look to furnish our first instance. At its furthest
extremity, by the Ocean stream, where we have already found the
Aethiopians located, we hear of a diminutive people, the Pygmies,
or 'men no bigger than your fist8.1 Their deadly
, , , , , . / The Pygmies.
enemies are the cranes; and when those birds
migrate southwards at the approach of the cold season, they are
supposed to be preparing to attack these puny foes. Thus in the
Iliad the war-shouts of the Trojan army are compared to the cries
of the embattled cranes, " which flee from the coming of winter
and sudden rain, and fly with clamour towards the streams of
ocean, bearing slaughter and fate to the Pygmy men4." Now, if
this mention of a race of dwarfs in Africa stood alone, we might
consign them to the same class of imaginary beings as the Idaean
Dactyls and similar mythological figures. Tom Thumbs, like
giants, have ever been familiar personages in folk-tales. But the
case is different when we find good evidence, both in ancient and
modern times, of the existence of such a diminutive people in the
heart of the Dark Continent. In the story of the Nasamones in
Herodotus, to which we shall have occasion hereafter to recur, we
are told that far in the interior of Libya those explorers were
seized and carried off by dwarfish men, under the middle height,
and black-complexioned5. Aristotle also speaks of similar tribes
as dwelling beyond the marshy tracts about the upper Nile*.
1 For a thorough discussion of the questions connected with the wanderings
of Ulysses, see Bunbury's Hist. ofAnc. Geography, vol. I. pp. 49—67*
a ffist. Animal.^ 8. 28. 7; del <j>tpei, n AtjSify /cawoV.
8 nirypatot from irvyfuj. * //. 3. 3—6, * Herod, a. 3*.
• Ar. of. fit. 8.13. a; /AerajSaXXoutfi yap [al y4pa,voi] fa T&V S/cu^uc^