Chap. 8.] ACCOUNT OF COUNTRIES, ETC. 
405 
to them the Atlantes ; then the JEgipani, half men, half 
beasts, the Blemmyse^ the Gamphasantes, the Satyri, and 
the Himantopodes. 
The Atlantes^, if we believe what is said, have lost all 
characteristics of humanity ; for there is no mode of distin- 
guishing each other among them by names, and as they look 
upon the rising and the setting sun, they give utterance to 
direful imprecations against it, as being deadly to them- 
selves and their lands ; nor are they visited with dreams^, like 
the rest of mortals. The Troglodytse make excavations in 
the earth, which serve them for dwellings ; the flesh of ser- 
pents is their food ; they have no articulate voice, but 
only utter a kind of squeaking noise'* ; and thus are they 
utterly destitute of all means of communication by language. 
The G-aramantes have no institution of marriage among 
them, and live in promiscuous concubinage with their 
women. The Augylse worship no deities^ but the gods of the 
infernal regions. The Gamphasantes, who go naked, and 
are unacquainted with war^, hold no intercourse whatever 
with strangers. The Blemmyse are said to have no heads, 
^ A tribe of -Ethiopia, whose position varied considerably at different 
epochs of history. Their predatory and savage habits caused the most 
extraordinary reports to be spread of their appearance and ferocity. 
The more ancient geographers bring them as far westward as the region 
beyond the Libyan Desert, and into the vicinity of the Oases. In the 
time however of the Antonines, when Ptolemy was composing his de- 
scription of Africa, they appear to the south and east of Egypt, in the 
wide and almost unknown tract which lay between the rivers Astapus 
and Astobores. 
2 Mela speaks of this race as situate farthest to the west. The de- 
scription of them here given is from Herodotus, B. iv. c. 183-185, who 
speaks of them under the name of '* Atar antes." 
3 The people who are visited by no dreams, are called Atlantes by 
Herodotus, the same name by which Pliny calls them. He says that 
their territory is ten days' journey from that of the Atarantes. 
* This also is borrowed from Herodotus. As some confirmation of 
this account, it is worthy of remark, that the Kock Tibboos of the pre- 
sent day, who, Hke the ancient Troglodytse, dwell in caves, have so 
pecuKar a kind of speech, that it is compared by the people of Aujelah 
to nothing but the whistling of birds. The Troglodytae of Fezzan are 
iiere referred to, not those of the coasts of the Bed Sea. 
* Mela says that they look upon the Manes or spirits of the departed 
as their only deities. 
^ This is said, in ahnost the same words, of the Garamantes, by He» 
