Chap.XII. ANTIENT METAPHYSICS. 251 



woman that they had on board, whom they ufcd, not only in the 

 natural way, but in every other way poffible. They had tails, he 

 faid, not much lefs than the tails of horfes ; but they made no 

 ufe of fpeech. 



There is another variety of our fpecies, that, I think, much more 

 incredible, and which, I confefs, I am very unwilling to believe, 

 though Monfieur Buffon, who does not believe in the men with 

 tails, feems to give credit to it. It is this, that there are men fomc- 

 where in India, who are born with one leg much bigger than the 

 other *. This is mentioned by no antient author, and is, I think, a 

 very much greater deformity than the prolongation of the rump- 

 bone into a tail ; being fuch an incongruity and difproportion of 

 parts, as, I am perfuaded, is not to be found in any other animal. 



I am much more difpofed to believe what an Efquimeaux girl, 

 who was taken prifoner by the French, related after £he had learn- 

 ed to fpeak French, That fhe had feen a whole nation of men with 

 but one leg. The ftory is told, both by Charlevoix, in his Account 

 of Canada, and by Maillet in his Telliamede t> who adds, that 

 the girl, after having been feveral times examined and re-examined, 

 flood conftantly to the truth of the fa6t. Neither is antient authori- 

 ty here wanting ; for Strabo mentions feveral authors, whom he 

 names, that fpeak of men with one leg :f. Strabo, indeed, fays, 

 that he looks upon it as a mere fable : But I obferve that a fpirit of 

 incredulity was begun as early as the days of Strabo, not only with 

 refped to the works of Nature, but alio with refpedt to the works 

 of men in antient times ; for Juvenal, who lived in the days of 

 Domitian, rejects as a fable the failing round Mount Athos by 



I i 2^ Xerxes, 



• Buffon*s Nat. Hlft. torn. iii. p. 414. 

 t Telliamede, page 254. 



t See Origin of Language, Vol. i. p. zCB. of the Second Edition. Strabo callj 

 them Moit7x.iXni, 



