Herodotus relates that in the deserts of Lybia there were people of extreme shortness of stature.

The Bible mentions that no dwarf can officiate at the altar.

Aristotle and Philostratus speak of pygmy people descended from Pygmaeus, son of Dorus.

In the seventeenth century van Helmont supposed that there were pygmies in the Canary Islands, and Abyssinia, Brazil, and Japan in the older times were repeatedly said to contain pygmy races.

Relics of what must have been a pygmy race have been found in the Hebrides, and in this country in Kentucky and Tennessee.
Dr.Schweinfurth, the distinguished African traveler, confirms the statements of Homer, Herodotus, and Aristotle that there was a race of pygmies near the source of the Nile.