Mr. Haliburton's theory that there are dwarfs in the Atlas—
a theory which was greeted with an acrimony of dissent which could hardly have been more severe had it been in favour of free dynamite—has received very substantial support from a letter by Mr. Harris which appears in Tuesday's Times. Mr. Harris has been travelling, in company with Mr. Cunninghamo Graham, in the interior of Morocco, and like all travellers in those parts since the pigmy controversy, he looked out for dwarfs. The Governor of a bashalik at the foot of the Atlas declared that he had a number of the "small people" in his province, but that "they did not acknowledge the Moorish Government or pay taxes." One of the dwarfs, 4 ft. high, who- happened to be a soldier, was also produced by the Governor. In another province, Mr. Harris met in the mountains "a caravan of donkeys driven by seven men, none of whom were certainly above 4 ft. 6 in. in height." He goes on to say that in all some fourteen dwarfs were met with, and he is evidently convinced that dwarf tribes do exist. At the same time, he destroys many illusions as to the dwarfs. They do not practise any strange old religion, but are Moslems. They are not re- garded as holy, but are hated, and are driven back to the moors and rocks of their mountain fastnesses whenever they try to- descend from them. Mr. Harris, finally, does not believe that these dwarfs belong to an ancient race. He regards them rather as tribes of " stunted " men,—people who have grown small by reason of hard living and poor feeding. This is, we think, more than likely. Still, it is curious that the " trog- lodyte " caves in Morocco, which Mr. Harris 'visited in 1887, and again quite recently, were clearly hollowed by a race of pigmies,—the roofs are never more than 5 ft. high.
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