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Africans, hearing this prediction, are faid to have concealed the tripod.

CLXXX. Next to the Machlyes live the Aufenfes. The above two nations inhabit the oppofite fides of lake Tritonis. The Machlyes fuffer their hair to grow behind the head, the Aufenfes before. They have an annual festival in honour of Minerva, in which the young women, dividing themselves into two feparate bands, engage each other with stones and clubs. These rites, they say, were inftituted by their forefathers, in veneration of her whom we call Minerva; and if any one die in confequence of wounds received in this conteft, they say that she was no virgin. Before the conclufion of the fight they obferve this cuftom: fhe who by common confent fought the best, has a Corinthian helmet placed upon her head, is clothed in Grecian armour, and carried in a chariot round the lake. How the virgins were decorated in this folemnity, before they had any knowledge of the Greeks, I am not able to fay; probably they might ufe Ægyptian arms. We may venture to affirm, that the Greeks borrowed from Ægypt the shield and the helmet. It is pretended that Minerva was the daughter of Neptune, and the divinity of the lake Tritonis; and that from fome trifling difagreement with her father fhe put herself under the protection of Jupiter, who afterwards adopted her as his daughter. The connection of this people with their women is promifcuous, not confining themselves to one, but living with the fex in brutal VOL. II. Z licentioufnefs.

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licentiousness. Every three months 74 the men
hold a public affembly, before which each woman.
who has had a strong healthy boy produces him,
and the man whom he most resembles is confidered
as his father.

CLXXXI. The Africans who inhabit the feacoaft are termed Nomades. The more inland parts of Africa, beyond thefe, abound with wild beafts; remoter ftill, is one vaft fandy defart, from the Ægyptian Thebes to the columns of Hercules 175. Penetrating this defert to the space of a ten days 32 journey, vaft pillars of falt are discovered, from the fummits of which flows a ftream of water equally cool and fweet. This district is poffeffed by the laft of thofe who inhabit the deferts beyond the centre and ruder part of Africa. The Ammonians, who poffefs the temple of the Theban Jupiter, are the people neareft from this place to Thebes, from

174 Every three months.]-This prepofterous cuftom brings to mind one, defcribed by Lobo, in his Voyage to Abyffinia, practifed by a people whom he calls the Galles, a wandering nation of Africans. If engaged in any warlike expedition, they take their wives with them, but put to death all the children who may happen to be born during the excurfion. If they fettle quietly at home, they bring up their children with proper care.-T.

$75 Columns of Hercules.]-In a former note upon the columns of Hercules, I omitted to mention that more anciently, according to Ælian, these were called the columns of Briareus. This is alfo mentioned by Ariftotle. But when Hercules had, by the destruction of various monsters, rendered effential service to mankind, they were out of honour to his memory named the columns of Hercules.-T.

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36

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which they are distant a ten days journey. There 5.
is an image of Jupiter at Thebes, as I have before.
remarked, with the head of a goat.-The Ammo-stim

nians have alfo a fountain of water, which at the
dawn of morning is warm, as the day advances it
chills, and at noon becomes exceffively cold. When
it is at the coldest point, they use it to water their
gardens: as the day declines, its coldness dimi-
nishes; at sun-set, it is again warm, and its warmth
gradually increases till midnight, when it is abfo-
lutely in a boiling ftate. After this period, as the
morning advances, it grows again progreffively
colder. This is called the fountain of the Sun 176.

CLXXXII. Paffing onward beyond the Ammonians, into the desert for ten days more, another hill of falt 77 occurs; it resembles that which is found

176 Fountain of the Sun.]-Diodorus Siculus defcribes this
fountain nearly in the fame terms with Herodotus. It is thus
described by Silius Italicus:

Stat fano vicina, novum et memorabile, lympha
Quæ nafcente die, que deficiente tepefcit,

Quæque riget medium cum Sol accendit Olympum
Atque eadem rurfus nocturnis fervet in umbris."

Herodotus does not tell us that the Ammonians venerated
this fountain; but as they called it the fountain of the Sun, it is
probable that they did. In remoter times, men almoft univer-
fally worshipped ftreams and fountains, if diftinguished by any
peculiar properties: all fountains were originally dedicated to
the fun, as to the first principle of motion.-T.

177 Hill of falt.]-I find the following defcription of the
plain of falt, in Abyffinia, in Lobo's Voyage: "These plains

Z 2

are

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found amongst the Ammonians, and has a spring of water; the place is inhabited, and called Angila, and here the Nafamones come to gather their dates.

CLXXXIII. At another ten days distance from the Angile, there is another hill of falt with water, as well as a great number of palms, which, like those before described, are exceedingly productive: this place is inhabited by the numerous nation of the Garamantes; they cover the beds of falt with earth, and then plant it. From them to the Lo-334 tophagi is a very short distance; but from these latter it is a journey of thirty days to that nation among whom is a fpecies of oxen, which walk backwards whilft they are feeding; their horns 178 are fo formed

are furrounded with high mountains, continually covered with thick clouds, which the fun draws from the lakes that are here, from which the water runs down into the plain, and is there congealed into falt. Nothing can be more curious, than to fee the channels and aqueducts that nature has formed in this hard rock, fo exact, and of fuch admirable contrivance, that they feem to be the work of men. To this place caravans of Abysfinia are continually reforting, to carry falt into all parts of the empire, which they set a great value upon, and which in their country is of the fame ufe as money."

178 Their horns.]-In the British Museum is a pair of horns fix feet fix inches and a half long, it weighs twenty-one pounds, and the hollow will contain five quarts; Lobo mentions fome in Abyffinia which would hold ten; Dallon faw fome in India ten feet long they are fometimes wrinkled, but often smooth.Pennant.

Pliny, book xi. chap. 38. has a long differtation upon the

horns

formed that they cannot do otherwise, they are before fo long, and curved in fuch a manner, that if they did not recede as they fed, they would stick in the ground; in other refpects they do not differ from other animals of the fame genus, unless we except the thickness of their fkins. Thefe Garamantes, fitting in carriages drawn by four horfes, give chace to the Ethiopian Troglodyte "79, who, of all the people in the world of whom we have ever heard, are far the swifteft of foot: their food is lizards, ferpents, and other reptiles; their language bears no resemblance to that of any other nation, for it is like the screaming of bats.

CLXXXIV. From the Garamantes, it is another ten days journey to the Atlantes, where alfo is a hill of falt with water. Of all mankind of

horns of different animals; he tells us that the cattle of the Troglodyte, hereafter mentioned, had their horns curved in fo particular manner, that when they fed they were obliged to turn their necks on one fide.-T.

179 Troglodyta.]—These people have their names from rgwydns a cave, and duw, to enter; Pliny fays they were swifter than horses; and Mela relates the circumstance of their feeding upon reptiles. I cannot omit here noticing a strange mistake of Pliny, who, speaking of these people, fays, " Syrbotas vocari gentem eam Nomadum Æthiopum fecundum flumen Aftapum ad septentrionem vergentem;" as if ad feptentrionem vergentem could poffibly be applicable to any fituation in Æthiopia. I may very properly add in this place, that one of the most entertaining and ingenious fictions that was ever invented, is the account given by Montefquieu in his Perfian Letters of the Troglodytes.-T.

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