_Of the lande of Pygmen,[1] wherein dwell but smal people of
three spanne long._
WHEN men passe from that citie of Chibens, they passe over a great
river of freshe water, and it is nere IIII mile brode & then men enter
into the lande of the great Caan. This river goeth through the land of
Pigmeens, and there men are of little stature for they are but three
span long, and they are right fayre bothe men and women, though they
bee little, and they are wedded when they are halfe a yere olde, and
they live but viii[2] yeare, and he that liveth viii yeare is holden
right olde, and these small men are the best workemen in sylke and of
cotton in all maner of thing that are in the worlde, and these smal
men travail not nor tyl land but they haue amonge them great men, as
we are, to travaill for them & they haue great scorne of those great
men, as we would haue of giaunts or of them if they were among us.
[Footnote 1: Pigmies, dwarfs. Homer, in the third book of the
Iliad, has immortalized the Pigmies and their battles with the
Cranes. (See Appendix for a curious engraving.) Pliny, in his
7th Book, cap. 2, speaks thus of them: "Beyond these people,
and at the very extremity of the mountains, the Trispithami
(_from_ [Greek: treis], _three, and_ [Greek: spithamai],
_spans_), and the Pigmies are said to exist; two races that
are but three spans in height--that is to say, twenty-seven
inches only. They enjoy a salubrious atmosphere and a
perpetual spring, being sheltered by the mountains from the
northern blasts: it is these people that Homer has mentioned
as being waged war upon by cranes. It is said that they are in
the habit of going down, every spring, to the sea shore in a
large body, seated on the backs of rams and goats, and armed
with arrows, and there destroy the eggs and the young of those
birds; that this expedition occupies them for the space of
three months, and that otherwise it would be impossible for
them to withstand the increasing multitudes of the cranes.
Their cabins, it is said, are built of mud, mixed with
feathers and egg-shells. Aristotle, indeed, says that they
dwell in caves; but, in other respects, he gives the same
details as other writers."]
[Footnote 2: Other editions say six or seven years.]
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