564 TR-AVILLS TO DISCOVK-n* ■ 



nitcl)' more tlian Inimaa : it is probabl? cbis-baw woul'tV 

 ha\c broke, r^thc;" than have bent. . 



If tiie fituation of thefe Maerobii in- Ptolemv did not 

 put it paOdifpute that they were Shangalla, we Ihoiild he- 

 litate niy;eh at the characfteriflic. of the nation ; that they 

 were lon^Uvers; none of thefe nations are fo;.Ifcarcc!Y re-- 

 member an example fair!)' vouched of a man pg.ft fixty. But 

 there is one circumflance tliat I think inight have.fajrly 

 led Herodotus into this mifta,ke; fome of the Shangalla kill 

 their f ck, weak, and aged people; there are others- thar ho- 

 notir old age, and protedt it. The Maerobii, I fuppofe, wers 

 of this lail kind, who certainly, therefore, had inapy old 

 incDi mare than the others. 



I SHALL now jufl mention one other obfervation tending 

 to illuftrate. a paflage of ancient hiflory. 



Hanno, in his Periplus, remarks^, rh'at, while failing along 

 the coaft of Africa, clofe by the flrore, and probably, near 

 the low country called Kolla, inhabited by the kind of 

 people we have been jufl defcribing, he found an univerfal 

 filence to prevail the whole day, without any appearance of 

 man or beaft : on the contrary, at night, he faw a number 

 of fires, and heard the found of mufic and dancing. This 

 has been lavighed at as a fairy tale by people who afFedf to 

 tieat Hanno's fragment as fpurious ; for my own part, I 

 will not enter into the controverfy. 



A VERY great genius, (in fome matters, perhaps, the great"- 

 eft that ever wrote, and in every thing that he writes high^ 

 ly refpedable) M. de Montcfqicu, is perfcdly fatisficd that 



tills 



