450 TRAVELS TO DISCOVER 



the PeiTian Gulf, almoft entirely dellitute of water, and very 

 nearly as much fo of provifions, both which caravans al- 

 ways carry with them), he attempted to enter India by the 

 very fame road with a large army, the very fame way his 

 predeceflbr Semiramis had projected 1300 years before; and 

 as her army had perifhed, fo did his to a man, without ha- 

 ing ever had it in his power to take one pepper-corn by 

 force from any part of India. 



The fame fortune attended his fon and fucceUbr Cam- 

 byfes, who, obferving the quantity of gold brought from E- 

 thiopia into Egypt, refolved to march to the fource, and 

 at once make himfelf mailer of thofe treafures by rapine r 

 which he thought came too flowly through the medium 

 of commerce. 



Cambyses's expedition into Africa is too well' known for 

 me to dwell upon it in this place. It hath obtained a cele- 

 brity by the abfurdity of the project, by the enormous cruelty 

 and havock that attended the courfe of it, and by the great 

 and very juft punifliment that clofed it in the end. It was 

 one of thofe many monflrous extravagancies which made up 

 the life of the greater! madman that ever difgraccd the annals 

 of antiquity. The bafeil mind is perhaps the moil capable 

 of avarice ; and when this paffion has taken poffeilion of the 

 human heart, it is ftrong enough to excite us to underta- 

 kings as great as any of thofe dictated by the nobleltof our 

 Virtues. 



Cambyses, amidil the commimon of the molt horrid ex- 

 cefTes during the conqueft of Egypt, was informed that, 

 from the fouth of that country, there wasconflantly brought 



a quantity 



