■ij8 TRAVELS TO DISCOVER 



luntarily feek a nation of man-eaters. It is nonfenfe to 

 fay, that a traveller could propofe, as Lobo did, going into- 

 a far diftant country, fuch as Abyflinia, under fo very que- 

 stionable a protection as a man-eater. 



I will not take up my own, or the reader's time, in go- 

 ing through the multitude of errors in geography to be 

 found in this book of Lobo's ; I have given the reader my opi- 

 nion of the author from the original, before T faw the tranf- 

 lation. I faid it was a heap of fables, and full of ignorance 

 and prefumption ; and I confefs myfelf disappointed that- it 

 has come from fo celebrated a hand as the tranflator, fo- 

 very little amended, if indeed it can be faid to be amended. 



at alL 



■ 



Dr Johnson, in the preface to the book, exprefTes him- 

 felf in thefe words : — " The Portuguefe traveller (Jerome Lo- 

 bo, his original) has amufed his reader with no romantic 

 abfurdities, or incredible fictions. He feems to have defcri- 

 bed things as he faw them ; to have copied nature from 

 the life; and to have confulted his fenfes, not his imagina- 

 tion. He meets with no bafilifks that deftroy with their eyes ; 

 and his. cataracts fall from the rock, without deafening 

 the neighbouring inhabitants." 



At firft reading this paflage, I confefs I thought it irony. 

 As to what regards the cataract, one of the articles Dr John- 

 fon has condefcended upon as truth, I had already fpoken, 

 while compofing thefe memoirs in Abyflinia, long before 

 this new publication faw the light ; and, upon a cool revifarl 

 of the whole that I have faid, I cannot think of receding 

 from any part of it, and therefore recommend it to the 



reader's. 



