Of these there were two varieties,
and on one large plant I saw fully a dozen flower-spikes. Further
back in the mountains I came across some fine species of PHALAENOPSIS.
I early made the acquaintance of the little Negritos, the aborigines of
these mountains, and during my wanderings I would often stumble across
their huts in small clearings in the forest. They never seemed to have
any villages, and I hardly ever saw more than one hut in one place,
and they were nearly always miserable bamboo hovels. As for the little
people themselves, they seemed perfectly harmless, and from the first
treated me with the greatest friendliness, and would often pay me a
visit at my hut, sometimes bringing me rice and "papayas" or a large
hornbill, which had been shot with their steel-pointed arrows. They
were quite naked except for a very small strip of cloth. Their skin
was of a very dark brown colour, their hair frizzly, and the nose
flat. They were by far the smallest race of people I had ever seen,
and they might quite properly be termed pigmies. I certainly never
came across a Negrito man over four feet six inches, if as tall,
and the women were a great deal smaller, coming as a rule only up to
the men's shoulders; the elderly women looked like small children
with old faces.
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