346 TRAVELS TO DISCOVER 
now, exploded; andthat they are fo is plain, becaufe, other- 
wife, the nations more to the fouthward would have adopt. _ 
ed it, as they have univerfally done another cuttom, which 
I {hall prefently {peak of. At 
an 
Circumcision, then, having no natural..caufe or, ad- 
vantage, being in itfelf repugnant to man’s nature, and ex- 
tremely painful, if not dangerous, it could never originate 
in man’s mind wantonly and out of free-will. It might 
have done fo indeed from imitation, but with Abraham it 
had a caufe, as God was to make his private family in a few 
years numerous, like the fands of the fea. This mark, which 
feparated them from.all the world, was an eafy way to fhew 
whether the promife was fulfilled or not. They were go- 
ing to take pofieflion of a land where circumcifion was not 
known, and this fhewed them their enemy diftinct from 
their own people. And it would be the grofleft abfurdity to. 
end Samfon to bring, as tokens of the flain, fo many fore- 
ikins or prepuces of the Philiftines, if, as Herodotus fays,, 
the Philflines had cut off their prepuces.a thoufand years: 
before. | 
I mus® here take notice that this cuftom, filthy and bar- 
barous as it is, has been adopted by the Abyflinians of Tigré,. 
who have always been circunicifed, from a knowledge thar 
the nations about them were not circumcifed at all. , It is 
true they do not content themfelves with the forefkin, and 
I doubt very much if this was not the cafe with the Jews 
likewife. On the contrary, in place of the forefkin they 
cut the whole away, fcrotum and all, and bring this. to 
their fuperiors, as a token they have killed an enemy. 
ALTHOUGH 
