Chap. I. A N T I E N T METAPHYSICS. 



49 



Thofe, who have taken the trouble to read the Third Chapter of 

 the Second Volume of the Origin and Progrefs of Language, will 

 not, I am perfuaded. think incredible the fads that I have here rela- 

 ted ; for they will find there fuch a concurrence of antient with mo- 

 dern authorities, as, I think, muft force belief upon the mod incre- 

 dulous. 



One of the fads mentioned In that Chapter is concerning the 

 Fi/Jj-eaters upon the coaft of the Arabian Gulph^ and of w^hat the 

 Antients called the Red Sea and we the Indian Ocean^ to which 

 that Gulph is joined by the Straits of BaheUMandel^ as they are 

 now called. Of thefe Fifh-eaters there were two races, one In- 

 habiting near to thofe Straits upon the African fide, the other inha- 

 biting upon the Red Sea, beyond thofe Straits, and likewife on the 

 African fide, both catching the fifli in the fime way, that is, by dikes 

 or mounds of ftones, which prevent the fifli from getting out of thofe 

 hollows and gullies, into which they are carried by the full tide, at the 

 fame time letting the w^ater pafs, fo that the filh are left dry when the 

 fea ebbs. In this fame way fome of the inhabitants of New Holland catch 

 the fiili at this day: And it is fo defcribed by Dampier,that one fliould 

 imagine he had taken his account from the antient authors who 

 fpeak of thefe Fifh-eaters in Africa * ; but whom, I am perfuaded, he 

 never faw, or perhaps never heard of. From what we hear of the 

 firft race, it is not, as I have faid, certain whether they had learned 

 to articulate or not, though I think it is highly probable they had not ; 

 but, with refped to the latter race, it is exprefsly faid that they had 

 no ufe of language, but communicated their wants by geftures only. 

 This fad I have related in the Origin and Progrefs of Language, on the 

 authority of Diodorus fingly, not knowing, at that time, that there 

 wks any other authority to be found ; but I have been lately in- 

 formed by a very learned gentleman in London, who honours 

 me with his correfpondence, that the author from whom Diodo- 

 VoL. III. G rus 



* Origin and Progrefs of Language, Vol. i. p 239. 



