138 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- 
ftionable a protection as a man-eater. 
I witt not take up my own, or the reader’s time, in go- 
ing through the multitude of errors in geography to be: 
found inthis book of Lobo’s; I have given the reader my opi- 
nion of the author from the original, before I faw the tranf 
lation. I faid it was a heap of fables, and full of ignorance 
and prefumption ; and I confefs myfelf difappointed that it 
has come from fo celebrated a hand as the tranflator, fo- 
very litthe amended, if indeed it can be faid to be amended 
at all. 
Dr Jounson, in the preface to the book, expreffes 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.” | 
Ar 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 fpoker, 
while compofing thefe memoirs in Abyflinia, long before 
this new publication faw the light; and, upon a cool revifal 
of the whole that I have faid, I cannot think of receding 
from any part of ut, and. therefore recommend it to the 
| : reader’s, 
