All Intensive Purposes

The Pygmies

In the knowledge of the ancients, this nation of dwarfs -- measuring twenty-seven inches in height -- dwelled in the mountains beyond the utmost limits of Indian or of Ethiopia. Pliny states that they built their cabins of mud mixed with feathers and eggshells. Aristotle allots them underground dens. For the harvest of wheat they wielded axes, as though they were out to chop down a forest. Each year they were attacked by flocks of cranes whose home lay on the Russian steppe. Riding rams and goats, the Pygmies retaliated by destroying the eggs and nests of their foes. These expeditions of war kept them busy for the space of three months out of every twelve.

Pygmy was also the name of a Carthaginian god whose face was carved as a figurehead on warships in order to spread terror among the enemy.

Jorge Luis Borges, The Book Of Imaginary Beings 188 (E. P. Dutton & Co., 1970) (Norman Thomas di Giovanni, trans.).