Mr. Harrison, in his “Highlands of Ethiopia,” alludes to the common belief among the Abyssinians, in a pigmy race of this nature.
MM. Arnault and Vayssière, travellers in the same country, in 1850, brought the subject before the Academy of Sciences.
In 1851, M. de Castelnau gave additional details relative to an expedition against these tailed men. “The Niam-niams,” he says, “were sleeping in the sun: the Haoussas approached, and, falling on them, massacred theirs to the last man. They had all of them tails forty centimetres long, and from two to three in diameter. This organ is smooth. Among the corpses were those of several women, who were deformed in the same manner. In all other particulars, the men were precisely like all other negroes. They are of a deep black, their teeth are polished, their bodies not tattooed. They are armed with clubs and javelins; in war they utter piercing cries. They cultivate rice, maize, and other grain. They are fine looking men, and their hair is not frizzled.”
M. d’Abbadie, another Abyssinian traveller, writing in 1852, gives the following account from the lips of an Abyssinian priest: “At the distance of fifteen days’ journey south of Herrar is a place
