Chap. V. ANTIENT METAPHYSICS. 141 



Setting afide Buff*OQ's phllofophy, to which, I believe, few of 

 my readers will give much credit, there is an argument, in point of 

 fad:, which I have heard much inhfted on, againft the exiftence of 

 thefe tall Patagonians, namely, that Capt. Wallis, who came after Mr 

 Byron, faw no men upon that coafl that were much above our fize. 



But to this the anfwer is obvious, namely, that the Patagonians 

 are a vagrant tribe, who are only fometinies upon that coaft ; and 

 the fact moft certainly is, that there are men of very different fizes 

 to be feen in that part of the world. The negative tedimony, there- 

 fore, of thofe travellers who did not fee them, proves nothing againft 

 the pofitive evidence of tliofc who did. 



1 have heard it alfo faid, that thofe, whom Capt. Wallis faw, had the 

 fame trinkets that Mr Byron had given to thofe he faw ; therefore 

 they muft be prefumed to be the fame men. But this confequence I 

 deny : For, in the firft place, I don't think it poffible that Capt. Wal- 

 lis's people could be fure they were the fame individual trinkets, 

 tTiough they might know they were of the fame kind ; 2dly, Sup- 

 pofe them to be the very fame, they might have come, in the way 

 of commerce or otherwife, to the Patagonians that Capt.Wallis faw. 



And thus, I think, I have proved, by all the evidence of which 

 a fad of Natural Hiftory, in a remote country, is capable, tliat there 

 exifts in South America a nation of men and women, much above 

 our fize, and not fingle individuals only, as Buffon fuppofes. 



It may feem extraordinary, that, in this great continent of Ame- 

 rica, which may he faid to be a new world in more than one re- 

 fped, (for it is not only newly difcovered, compared with the Con- 

 tinents of Europe, Afia, and Africa, but I am perfuaded that it is a 

 country newly peopled, compared with the countries on tTiis fide of 



the 



