of the earth, is inhabited by the different nations of the Libyans, that district alone excepted, in possession of the Greeks and Phoenicians. The remoter parts of Libya beyond the sea-coast, and the people who inhabit its borders, are infested by various beasts of prey; the country yet more distant is a parched and immeasurable desert. The young men left their companions, being well provided with water and with food, and first proceeded through the region which was inhabited; they next came to that which was infested by wild beasts, leaving which they directed their course westward through the desert. After a journey of many days, over a barren and sandy soil, they at length discerned some trees growing in a plain; these they approached, and seeing fruit upon them, they gathered it. Whilst they were thus employed, some men of dwarfish stature 5 came where they were, seized their persons, and carried them away. They were mutually ignorant of each Mediterranean, the northernmost of which we must of course conceive to have been that which extended along the seacoast, and was bounded on the south by Mount Atlas and other ridges; the middle one, that called the country of Dates, and the third the Greek Desert, or Sahara itself. This place is now called Salee, from Sala, the name of its river. See on the subject of this promontory, the Geograph. of Herodotus, p. 422, et seq. 52 Dwarfish stature.]-The pigmies are as old as Homer. each other's language, but the Nassamonians were conducted over many marshy grounds to a city, in which all the inhabitants were of the same diminutive appearance, and of a black colour, This city was washed by a great river, which flowed from west to east, and abounded in crocodiles*. XXXIII. Such was the conversation of Etearchus, as it was related to me; he added, as the Cyrenæans They were not confined to Æthiopia, they were believed to exist also in India. Homer thus mentions them: So when inclement winters vex the plain Mention also is made of them by Pliny and Strabo. Pomporius Mela places them in a certain part of Arabia. P. Jovius says they are found in the extremities of the northern regions. The circumstance of their hostilities with the cranes is mentioned by Oppian, in his first book of Halieutics; by Juvenal, sat. 13; by Ovid. Fast. book vi. Mr. Gibbon, properly enough, treats the whole as a contemptible fable.-T. * In the description of the Indus, Herodotus calls it the second river that produced crocodiles, meaning the Nile as the first. But here we have a third; and Hanno, who doubtless preceded him, mentions the Senegal River, though not by name, which makes of course the fourth.-Rennel. It seems no unreasonable conjecture that this might be the Niger.-T. Cyrenæans farther told me, that the Nassamonians returned to their own country, and reported the men whom they had met to be all of them magicians. The river which washed their city, according to the conjecture of Etearchus, which probability confirms, was the Nile. The Nile certainly rises in Libya, which it divides; and if it be allowable to draw conclusions from things which are well known concerning those which are uncertain and obscure, it takes a similar course with the Ister". This river, commencing at the city of Pyrene 54, among the Celta, flows through the centre of Europe 55. These Celta are 53 The Ister.]-A description of this river cannot possibly be given better than in the words of Mr. Gibbon." The European provinces of Rome were protected by the course of the Rhine and the Danube. The latter of those mighty streams, which rises at the distance of only thirty miles from the former, flows above thirteen hundred miles, for the most part to the south-east, collects the tribute of sixty navigable rivers, and is at length, through six mouths, received into the Euxine, which appears scarcely equal to such an accession of waters." 54 Pyrene.]-Many critics have supposed that Herodotus. here intended to speak of the Pyrenean mountains; but this opinion cannot possibly be supported by any plausible reasoning.-T. He means 55 Centre of Europe.]-This is not quite true. the same as when he observes, a little before, that the Nile divides Libya in the midst. But this mistake will not justify our following the example of Bouhier, who accuses Herodotus of confounding the Nile with the Niger.-Larcher. The fact is, that Herodotus believed the Niger and the Nile to be one and the same.-T. are found beyond the Columns of Hercules 55; they border on the Cynesians*, the most remote of all the nations who inhabit the western parts of Europe. At that point which is possessed by the Istrians, a Milesian colony, the Ister empties itself into the Euxine. XXXIV. The sources of the Ister, as it passes through countries well inhabited, are sufficiently notorious; but of the fountains of the Nile, washing as it does the rude and uninhabitable deserts of Libya, no one can speak with precision. All the knowledge which I have been able to procure from the most diligent and extensive enquiries, I have before communicated. Through Ægypt it directs its course towards the sea, Opposite to Egypt are the mountains of Cilicia, from whence to Sinope, on the Euxine, a good traveller may pass in five days: on the side immediately opposite to Sinope, the Ister is poured into the sea, Thus the Nile, as it traverses Libya, may properly enough be compared to the Ister. 56 Columns of Hercules.]—Africa is divided from Spain by a narrow strait of about twelve miles, through which the Atlantic flows into the Mediterranean. The Columns of Hercules, so famous among the ancients, were two mountains which seemed to have been torn asunder by some convulsion of the elements; and at the foot of the European mountain Gibraltar is now situated.-Gibbon. * It is not easy to say who these people were. They are again mentioned in Melpomene, c. 49, Ister. But on this subject I have said all that I think necessary. XXXV. Concerning Ægypt itself I shall speak more at large; it claims our admiration beyond all other countries, and the wonderful things" which it exhibits, demand a very copious description.The Ægyptians, born under a climate to which no other can be compared, possessing a river different in its nature and properties from all the rivers in the world, are themselves distinguished from the rest of mankind, by the singularity of their institutions and their manners*. In this country the women leave to the mens the management 57 Wonderful things.]-The Egyptian nation might well abound in prodigies, when even their country and soil itself was a kind of prodigy in nature.-Lord Shaftesbury. ** They seldom admitted any rite or custom that had not the sanction of their forefathers. Hence Sir John Marsham truly tells us concerning them: The Egyptians, under the notion of foreign worship, seem to have been averse to every thing which had not been transmitted by their ancestors. They therefore for the most part differed in their rites and religion from all other nations. These borrowed from them, and also adopted the rites of many different people; but the Egyptians seldom admitted of any innovation.-Bryant on Plagues of Egypt. 58 The women leave to the men, &c.]-This custom was contradictory to the manners of Greece. The employments of the two sexes prove, that in Ægypt the women had more authority than their husbands, although Herodotus |