Among the Pygmies, I suppose, if one of them grew to the height of
six or eight inches, he was reckoned a prodigiously tall man. It must
have been very pretty to behold their little cities, with streets two
or three feet wide, paved with the smallest pebbles, and bordered
by habitations about as big as a squirrel's cage. The king's palace
attained to the stupendous magnitude of Periwinkle's baby house, and
stood in the center of a spacious square, which could hardly have
been covered by our hearth rug. Their principal temple, or cathedral,
was as lofty as yonder bureau, and was looked upon as a wonderfully
sublime and magnificent edifice. All these structures were built
neither of stone nor wood. They were neatly plastered together by the
Pygmy workmen, pretty much like birds' nests, out of straw, feathers,
egg shells, and other small bits of stuff, with stiff clay instead of
mortar; and when the hot sun had dried them, they were just as snug and
comfortable as a Pygmy could desire.
The country round about was conveniently laid out in fields, the
largest of which was nearly of the same extent as one of Sweet Fern's
flower beds. Here the Pygmies used to plant wheat and other kinds of
grain, which, when it grew up and ripened, overshadowed these tiny
people, as the pines, and the oaks, and the walnut and chestnut trees
overshadow you and me, when we walk in our own tracts of woodland. At
harvest time, they were forced to go with their little axes and cut
down the grain, exactly as a woodcutter makes a clearing in the forest;
and when a stalk of wheat, with its overburdened top, chanced to come
crashing down upon an unfortunate Pygmy, it was apt to be a very sad
affair. If it did not smash him all to pieces, at least, I am sure, it
must have made the poor little fellow's head ache. And O, my stars!
if the fathers and mothers were so small, what must the children and
babies have been? A whole family of them might have been put to bed in
a shoe, or have crept into an old glove, and played hide and seek in
its thumb and fingers. You might have hidden a year-old baby under a
thimble.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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