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 an.d
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 at hide and seek in its thumb and
fingers. You might have hidden a year-old baby
under a thimble.

Now these funny Pygmies, as I told you be-
fore, had a Giant for their neighbor and brother,
who was bigger, if possible, than they were little,

[[73]]

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