564 TRAVELS TO DISCOVER 



nitely more than human : it is probable this bow would 

 have broke, rather than have bent. 



If the fituation of thefe Macrobii in Ptolemy did not 

 put it paft difpute that they were Shangalla, we fhould he- 

 fitate much at the characteriftie of the nation; that they 

 were long livers ; none of thefe nations are fo; I fearcely re- 

 member an example fairly vouched of a- man paft fixty. But 

 there is one circumftance that I think might have fairly 

 led Herodotus into this miftake; fome of the Shangalla kill 

 their fi ck, weak, and aged people; there are others that ho- 

 nour old age, and protect it. The Macrobii, I fuppofe, were 

 of this laft kind, who certainly, therefore,, had many old 

 men, more than the others. 



I shall now juft mention one other obfervation tending 

 to illuilrate a pafTage of ancient hiflory. 



Hanno, in his Periplus, remarks, that, while failing along 

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

 the low country called Kolla, inhabited by the kind of 

 people we have been juft 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 laughed at as a fairy tale by people who affect to 

 treat Hanno's fragment as fpurious ; for my own part t 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 refpe&able) M. de Montefqieu, is perfectly fatisfied that 



this 



