(224) 
chcf, the Diameter of the Bafis feven inches, and its 
Circumference one foot fix inches. This weighed zi 
pound, 1 3 ounces and a half, and contain’d in the hollow 
part 4 quarts and a pint, but would have held more, 
it it had not been very much broke at the large tnd. 
The Commander of an EajUindia Merchant Ship 
upon feeing them, told me, that he had feen fuch in 
the Indies on a large Bufaids Head. 1 am inclined to 
think, that they muft belong to a very large fort of 
Bulls or Cows, who are Natives of JEthiopta^ and o- 
ther of the midland Parts of Africa, Sind are mentioned 
by many of the Ancients, perhaps not without fome 
fabulous Additions, though, w^hich is flrange, very few 
of the Modern Writers take any notice of them. 
Jgatharchides a Qnidian who flouriflied about the 
CL. Olympiad^ near 100 Years before Chrifl, is the 
firft 
* This Agntharchides lived in the time of Ptolemeus Philctne- 
tor, and is mentioned by feveral of the Antients, as an Hiltonan, 
and a Phllofopher of the Sedf of the PeripateHckj. Monfieur fe 
Clerc {Hijioire de la Medecine, p. 387.) ranks him among the Phyli- 
cians of that time, though that 'was not properly his Profeifion ; 
and the reafon he gives for it is, becaufe he deferibed, in one of 
his Books, a Diftemper which had not been taken notice of by 
Eippocrates, nor any other Phyfician before him. We are indebted 
for this Particular to Plutarch (S^mpofiakelTn Lib.^Wl Quajl.c}) 
who fays, upon the Authority of Agatbarchides, that the l^ations a- 
hout the Ped Sea, amongfl many Jlrange Dijlempers, they are liable to, 
are troubled with a particular fort of Serpent s, [or iVorms,) which breed in 
■ the Lepj and Arms, where they fometinies eat their way through, fo as to 
foew their Head ; but upon touching are apt to flide back^, and creeping 
♦ between the Interjliccs of the Mufcles, occafion intolerable Infiammatims, 
Plutarch adds, that this Diftemper (which appears plainly to be the 
Guinea-Pf orm, or Fena Medeni of Arabian Writers, of which “ee niy 
Natural Hiftory oi Jamaica, Vol. I. p. 1 25 . and Vol. II. p. 190, ^16. 
and which is a Diftemfer ftill fubfiftlng, as w^ell among ihofe very 
Nations, of which Agntharchides fpeaks, as among the Negroes upon 
the Coafts of Guinea, and the Inhabitants of leveral Parrs of 
Perfia) had nor been obferved any w'here efte, neither before, nor 
ftnee the time of this Hiftorian. 
