Cliap. 8.] ACCOTINT OF COUNTEIES, ETC, 405 



to them the Atlantes ; then the Mgiipani, half men, half 

 beasts, the Blemmyae^ the Gamphasautes, the Satyri, and 

 the Himantopodes. 



The Atlantes^, if we believe what is said, have lost all 

 characteristics of humanity ; for there is no mode of distin- 

 guishing each other among tliem by names, and as they look 

 upon the rising and the setting sun, they give utterance to 

 direful imprecations against it, as being deadly to them- 

 selves and their lands ; nor are they visited with dreams^, like 

 the rest of mortals. The Troglodytae make excavations in 

 the earth, which serve them for dwellings ; the flesh of ser- 

 pents is their food ; they have no articulate voice, but 

 only utter a kind of squeaking noise"* ; and thus are they 

 utterly destitute of all means of communication by language. 

 The Graramantes have no institution of marriage among 

 them, and live in promiscuous concubinage with their 

 women. The Augylse worship no deities^ but the gods of the 

 infernal regions. The Gamphasautes, who go naked, and 

 are unacquainted with war^, hold no intercourse whatever 

 with strangers. The Blemmya^ are said to have no heads, 



^ A tribe of Ethiopia, whose position varied considerably at different 

 epochs of histoxy. Their predatory and savage habits caused the most 

 extraordinary reports to be spread of their appearance and ferocity. 

 Tlie more ancient geographers bring them as far westward as the region 

 beyond the Libyan Desert, and into the vicinity of the Oases. In the 

 time however of the Antonines, when Ptolemy was composing his de- 

 scription of Africa, they appear to the south and east of Egypt, in the 

 wide and almost mxknown tract which lay between the rivers Astapus 

 and Astobores. 



2 Mela speaks of this race as situate farthest to the west. The de- 

 scription of them here given is from Herodotus, B. iv. c. 183-185, who 

 speaks of them under the name of " Atarantcs." 



3 The people who are visited by no dreams, are called Atlantes by 

 Herodotus, the same name by which Pliny calls them. He says that 

 their territory is ten days' journey from that of the Atarantes. 



* This also is borrowed from Herodotus. As some confirmation of 

 this account, it is worthy of remark, that the Kock Tibboos of the pre- 

 ecnt day, who, like the ancient Troglodytir, dwell in caves, have so 

 pecuUar a kind of speech, that it is com]iared by the people of Aujelah 

 to nothing but the whistling of birds. The TroglodytaD of Fezzan are 

 liere referred to, not those of the coasts of the Red Sea. 



5 Mela says that they look upon the Manes or spu-its of the departed 

 as their only deities. 



^ This is said, in ahnost the same words, of the Garamantes, by He- 



