72 THEORY OF THE EAETH. 



king or the conqueror gigantic, the subjects or the 

 conquered three or four times smaller, must have 

 given rise to the fable of the pigmies. It was in 

 some corner of one of these monuments that Aga- 

 tharchidas must have seen his carnivorous bull, 

 which, with mouth extending from ear to ear, de- 

 voured every other animal*. Certainly no natura- 

 list would admit the existence of such an animal ; 

 for nature never combines either cloven hoofs or 

 horns with teeth adapted for devouring animal 

 food. 



There may perhaps have been many other fi- 

 gures equally strange, either among such of these 

 monuments as have not been able to resist the ra- 

 vages of time, or in the temples of Ethiopia and 

 Arabia, which have been destroyed by the religi- 

 ous zeal of the Mahometans and Abyssinians. 

 The monuments of India teem with such figures ; 

 but the combinations in these are too extravagant 

 to have deceived any one. Monsters with a hun- 

 dred arms, and twenty heads all different from 

 one another, are far too absurd to be believed. 

 Nay, the inhabitants of Japan and China also 

 have their imaginary animals, which they repre- 

 sent as real, and which figure even in their religi- 

 ous books. The Mexicans had them. In short, 



* Photius, Bibl v art. 250. Agatharchid., Excerpt. hist v 

 /pap. xxxix. .^Elian, Anim xvii. 45. Plin. viii, 21. 



