450 TRAVELS TO DISCOVER 



the Perfian Gulf, almoft entirely deftitute of water, and very 

 nearly as much fo of provisions, both which caravans al- 

 ways carry with them), he attempted to enter India by the 

 very fame road with a large army, the very fame way his 

 predeceiTor Semiramis had projected 1300 years before; and 

 as her army had perilhed > fo did his to a man, without ha- 

 ing ever had it in his power to take one pepper-corn by 

 force from any part of India, 



The fame fortune attended his fon and fucceilbr Cam- 

 byfes, who, obferving the quantity of gold brought from E- 

 thiopia into Egypt* refolved to march to the fource, and 

 at once make himfelf mailer of thofe treafures by rapine^ 

 which he thought came, too flowly through the medium 

 of commerce. 



Cambyses's expedition into Africa is too well known for 

 me to dwell upon it in this place. It hath obtained, a cele- 

 brity by the abfurdity of the project, by the enormous cruelty, 

 and havock that attended the courfe of it, and by the great 

 and very jufl punifhment that clofed it in the end. It was 

 one of thofe many monflrous extravagancies which made up 

 the life of the greateft madman that ever difgraced the annals 

 of antiquity. The bafefc mind is perhaps the molt capable 

 of avarice ; and when this paffion has taken pofieffion of the 

 human heart, it is ftrong enough to excite us to underta- 

 kings as great as any of thofe dictated by the nobleftof our 

 virtues. 



Cambyses, amidil the commiiTion of the moft horrid ex- 

 eeiies during the conqueit of Egypt, was informed that^ 

 from the fouthof that country, there wasconftantly brought 



a quantity 



