covered the whole body with hairs, they bind themselves, using those in the place of a vestment. ...They are, moreover, apes and deformed. Their sheep, however, are equal to our lambs: their oxen and asses approach to the magnitude of our rams their horses, likewise, mules and other beasts do not outreach. Of these Pygmies, the king of the Indians, has three thousand in his train for they are very skilful archers. They are, however, most just and use the same laws as the other Indians. They hunt hares and foxes, not with dogs, but crows, kites, rooks and eagles. There is a lake among them, having the compass of eight hundred measures, containing 625 feet each, to which, as no wind blows, oil swims above: which, truly, they draw out of the middle of it with vessels, sailing through it in little ships and use it*." Ovid, in his Metamorphoses, alludes to some old story, not now to be found: "Another show'd, where the Pygmæan dame, Profaning Junos venerable name, Turn'd to an airy crane, descends from far And, with her Pygmy subjects, wages wart." * From a fragment of Ctesias, who flourished in the 337th year before the vulgar æra, in Wesselings edition of Herodotus, p. 828. † B. 6. Whose midnight revel, by a forest side, Or fountain, some belated peasant sees, Or dreams he sees; while over-head the moon Sits arbitress, and nearer to the earth Wheels her pale course; they, on their mirth and dance At once with joy and fear his heart rebounds. MILTON. LONDON: PRINTED FOR PAYNE AND FOSS, PALL-MALL; AND WILLIAM PICKERING, CHANCERY-LANE; BY THOMAS DAVISON, WHITEFRIARS. 1831 |