Adventures In The African Jungle Hunting Pigmies 1917 PDF Download

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1917 edition. Excerpt: ... chapter xii A human panther as pigmies could not be found on the shore /% of the Victoria Nyanza, Billy was eager to J. . push on to Mengo, the capital of Uganda, and a day or two later the travellers were on their way westward. Now the road from Port Alice to the Five-peak Hill of Mengo lay through a village of Ankole people, one of whose great chiefs was held for ransom. When the Explorer's caravan entered the village, it so happened that a native was sweeping out a hut--an unusual thing for him to do. "Why are you sweeping out the hut?" asked the astonished Explorer. "Oh! A cow is to sleep here," replied the man of Ankole. "You are sweeping out the hut because a cow is to sleep in it?" repeated the Explorer, who was quick to discern the humour of the situation. "Yes, Big White Chief, even so," answered the native of Ankole. "Would you sweep it out if it were a man that was to sleep in it?" "Of course not!" he replied, in surprise. 111 He was amazed when Billy inquired, "Isn't a man of more value than a cow?" "Why, no; does not a cow give milk?" "Ha! Ha! Ha!" was Billy's comment on the ludicrous dialogue, though it was far from being ludicrous to the man of Ankole. He, in all seriousness, considered a cow of more value than a man. And in certain cases, possibly, his theory was not far wrong. "I am reminded," said the Big White Chief, "of how I once paid a visit to some of the Fiji Islands in the Southern Sea. There the cow was differently regarded. The native Fijian babies had been dying off rapidly--so rapidly that it was feared the race would become extinct. The British Government sent learned men to the archipelago to study the situation. The question was: 'Why are the Fijians dying out?' The investigators soon discovered that the...