"
According to Marco Polo, there have been among the monkeys, from time
to time, certain Asiatic Yankees, who did a lively business in the
manufacture of an article which would, no doubt, have found a ready
purchaser at Barnum's Museum.
"It should be known," says the veracious old Venetian, "that what is
reported respecting the dead bodies of diminutive human creatures or
pigmies, brought from India, is an idle tale; such pretended men being
manufactured in the island of Basman in the following manner. The
country produces a species of monkey of a tolerable size, and having a
countenance resembling that of a man. Those persons who make it their
business to catch them shave off the hair, leaving it only about the
chin. They then dry and preserve them with camphor and other drugs; and
having prepared them in such a mode that they have exactly the
appearance of little men, they put them into wooden boxes, and sell
them to trading people, who carry them to all parts of the world."
Not the least familiar of the aspects of the Barbaric are its actions
and situations of horror.
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