Chap. XII. ANTIENT METAPHYSICS. 253 



perfons *. And with the Bifhop and the authors quoted by Strabo, 

 agrees what Sir Walter Raleigh tells us he heard, (for he does not 

 pretend he faw it), when he was in South America. 



There are very few, if any, who do not believe that the one- 

 eyed Cyclops of Homer is a mere poetical fidion. And they give 

 as little credit to what Herodotus the hiftorian f relates of the Ari- 

 mafpians, a people of Scythia, who from that quality had their 

 name, of which he has given us the etymology in the Scythian 

 language. But, if we will believe the fame Biihop, it is a fa(3: 

 and no fidion ; for he fays that, in the lower parts of Ethiopia, 

 he faw men with only one eye in their forehead j and of them he 

 relates fuch particulars as (how that he muft have been fome time 

 among them, and could not have been miftaken in luch a remark- 

 able particular concerning their perfons J. And what temptation 

 he had to lie, either with refped: to this fad, or what is related 



above, 



* * Ecce ego jam Epifcopus Hipponlenfis erara, et cum quibufdam fervis Chrifti 



* ad -^thiopiam penexi, ut eis fandum Chfilli Evangelium praedicarem ; et vidi- 



* mus ibi multos homines ac muliercs capita non habrntes, fed ocuios ^rofTos fixos 



* in pedlore, caetera membra aequalia nobis habentes ; inter quos facerdotcs eorum 



* vidimus uxoratos ; tantae tamen abftinentiae erant, quoJ, licet uxorct facerdotes 



* omnes haberent, nunquam tamen nifi femel in anao eas tangcre vo!.:b nt, qua 



* die ab cmni facrificio abftinebant.' 5'' Aiigujlini Operunif torn. 6. Coll. 345. Edit, 

 Tarijien. 1685- Sermo ad Fratres in Eremo, 37. 



t Lib. iv. cap. 27. 



:jf * Vidirrus et in inferioribiis partibus -^thiopiae homines unum ocufum tan- 



* turn in fronte habentes; quorum facerdotes a converfationibus honiinum fuj^ic- 



* bant, ab cmni Ubidine carnis fe abftinebant, ct in (eptima, in qua diis !uis ihura 



* ofFerre dcbebant, ab cmni labe cainis fe abftint-bant ; nihil fumebant nifi 



* metretam aqu;\e per diem -, et, fie content! mantntes, dignc facrificium diis luis 



* ofTerehant.' Sti Jugujiini ibidem. Nor is this faQ, however extraordin ;rjr it may 

 feem, deflitute of more antient authority. iStrabo mfntions a people of ' > ,t kind 

 in India, Lib- xv. p. 711. But he treats it as a fable, as well as iho lio. y ol the 

 men with one leg and of thofc with eyes in their breafts. though he relates .c upon 

 the authority of Megalthenes, who was in India, and appears to me to hav'r been 

 better informed concerning India than any other antient author. And accordingly it i^ 

 ■from him that Strabo has taken the greateft part of what he relates concerning India. 



