Before writing about my little pygmy friends,' I' should first of all like to mention a few facts'about the Congo Free State. This enormous country, reaching from the Nile to the West Coast, may practically be called one huge forest. Fortunately for its opening up, Nature has provided it with the most splendid service of water ways in the world. Twisting and twining, the mighty Congo river runs like a snake through its centre, gathering into its bed from north and south many other' large rivers like the Kasai, Ubangi, and Aruwimi (the latter of which joined by the Ituri, traverses _the 'whole of the Stanley Forest), with their sources rising close to the Nile.