82 Gleanings from the 



" The nation of the prettie Pygmies," adds Pliny, 1 

 " enjoy a truce and cefTation from armes every 

 yeare, when the cranes, who ufe to wage war 

 with them, be once departed and come into our 

 countries." Vefpafian, at the dedication of the 

 ColofTeum, prefented a fpectacle to the people of 

 a battle between cranes and a number of dwarfs 

 who imitated Pygmies. 



Aulus Gellius gives a fimilar account of Pygmies, 

 placing them in India, and making the tailed of 

 them but two feet and a quarter in height. 2 

 Hanno, in his " Periplus," places them in the Atlas 

 mountain, and ftates that they " run fafter than 

 horfes," and are Troglodytes. MefTrs. Hooker 

 and Ball, during their recent travels in the Great 

 Atlas, obferved several Troglodytic habitations. 

 Juvenal amufingly comprehends all the learning 

 of the ancient world on Pygmies in " Sat." xiii. 

 167-170, and of their army fays, "Tota cohors 

 pede non eft altior uno" (173). 



Sir Thomas Browne has no difficulty in his 

 " Vulgar Errors " (Book iv. 1 1 ) in difpofmg of 

 thefe fables after his own fafhion. Having men- 

 tioned the above pafTages, and feveral others from 

 ancient poets and writers, he concludes that what 

 was "only a pleafant figment in the fountain, 

 became a folemn ftory in the ftream, and current 



1 " Nat. Hift.," x. 24 (Holland). 



2 ix. 4, 10. Pliny aflerts that the Pygmies live among the 

 marfhes where the Nile rifes, curioufly anticipating modern 

 geographical refearch. The Troglodytes, he places on the 

 Arabian Gulf next the Ichthyophagi, " of wonderful fwiftnefs, 

 fwimming like fifh " (vi. 30, 34). 



