Stanley says,[A] “She was brought in to see me, with three rings of polished iron around her neck, the ends of which were coiled like a watch-spring.  Three iron rings were suspended to each ear.  She is of a light-brown complexion with broad round face, large eyes, and small but full lips.  She had a quiet modest demeanour, though her dress was but a narrow fork clout of bark cloth.  Her height is about four feet four inches, and her age may be nineteen or twenty.  I notice when her arms are held against the light a whity-brown fell on them.  Her skin has not that silky smoothness of touch common to the Zanzibaris, but altogether she is a very pleasing little creature.”  To this female portrait may be subjoined one of a male aged probably twenty-one years and four feet in height.[B] “His colour was coppery, the fell over the body was almost furry, being nearly half an inch long, and his hands were very delicate.  On his head he wore a bonnet of a priestly form, decorated with a bunch of parrot feathers, and a broad strip of bark covered his nakedness.”

[Footnote A:  In Darkest Africa, vol. i. p. 345.]

[Footnote B:  Ibid., ii. 40.]

Jephson states[A] that he found continual traces of them from 270 30’ E. long., a few miles above the Equator, up to the edge of the great forest, five days’ march from Lake Albert.  He also says that they are a hardy daring race, always ready for war, and are much feared by their neighbours.  As soon as a party of dwarfs makes its appearance near a village, the chief hastens to propitiate them by presents of corn and such vegetables as he possesses.  They never exceed four feet one inch in height, he informs us, and adds a characteristic which has not been mentioned by Stanley, one, too, which is very remarkable when it is remembered how scanty is the facial hair of the Negros and Negritos—­the men have often very long beards.  The southern parts of the continent are occupied by the Bushmen, who are vigorous and agile, of a stature ranging from four feet six inches to four feet nine inches, and sufficiently well known to permit me to pass over them without further description.  The smallest woman of this race who has been measured was only three feet three inches in height, and Barrow examined one, who was the mother of several children, with a stature of three feet eight inches.  The Akoas of the Gaboon district were a race of pigmies who, now apparently extinct, formerly dwelt on the north of the Nazareth River.  A male of this tribe was photographed and measured by the French Admiral Fleuriot de l’Angle.  His age was about forty and his stature four feet six inches.

[Footnote A:  Emm Pasha, p. 367, et seq.]