264 ANTIENT METAPHYSICS. Book IL 



I will conclude this Chapter with two or three obfervations. 

 And, in the firft place, from what has been faid, it muft be evident 

 that there is a wonderful variety of the human fpecies, even in its 

 natural ftate, much greater than of any other animal known : And 



the 



went about, he fays, and coIIeQed money for fliowing themfelves ; (Ibidem, lib. vi. 

 Cap. 10.). And he relates other particulars of them, (Lib. x. Cap. 30. and Lib. 

 vii. Cap. 19. of the fame work). Pliny alfo fpeaks of them, without faying any 

 thing to perfuadc us that he did not believe in their exiHience, (Lib. vii. Cap. 2.). 

 And Solinus, and Aulus Gellius, fpeak of them in the fame way ; alfo Agathar- 

 chides, in his work upon the Red Sea, (p. 62. of H. Stephen's edition), who agrees 

 •with JElhn, that they were to be feen in Alexandria in his time, having been fent 

 thither from Ethiopia and the country of the Troglodytes ; and with them fome 

 Sphinxes, of the fame fliape with thofe reprefented in painting and fculpture, that 

 is, of a mixed form, partly lion and partly man. The Sphinx, he fays, is by Na- 

 ture a tame and gentle animal, and capable of being taught motion to mufic ; 

 whereas the Dog-headed Men, he fays, were exceedingly fierce, and very dif^ 

 ficult to be tamed. This author, Agatharcliides, I have elfewhere mentioned, 

 (p. 50')» where I have faid, that I did not know that fuch an author now ex- 

 ifted, till I was informed that he was ftill extant, by a friend of mine in 

 London, whom I think myfelf now at liberty to name,. Sir George Baker, 

 inTPos xnfi TTcXXuv oivrulioi «a;i«v, and who, befidcs, is a moft worthy man, and 

 one of the bed fcholars that I have known even in England. The work is en- 

 titled, Excerpts from JgatharchideSi concerning the Red Sea, by which name the 

 antients denoted the Indian Sea, of which, what we call the Red Sea, is only a 

 gulph. It is not tranflated ; and therefore is only known to the few learned. I 

 have read it over from beginning to end, and find it a mofl: curious coliedion, con- 

 cerning all the different favage nations in Africa, which were difcovered by the 

 third Ptolemy of Egypt, in the maimer I have mentioned, who appears to have 

 been a lover of knowledge, and of much greater curiofity than mofl. Kings. Some 

 of the nations he mentions are ftill to be found in Africa, particularly a nation that 

 he calls A«g»^(»<p«y»<, or CrafshopperEaterSi whom he defcribes exadlly as Sir 

 Francis Drake has defcribed them, infomuch that one fliould have thought Sir Francis 

 had copied from him- — See Sir Francis's account of them in Buffon, Vol. iii. \u 

 451. which the reader may compare with Agatharchides, (p. 57.). And he gives 

 an account of a people in Ethiopia, who hunt Elephants, and feed upon them, 

 (p. 5^.) which agrees very well with what I have heard from Mr Bruce, concern^ 

 Ing the fame peoph* 



