n chains; [132]
and this constant emigration, which, in the space of two centuries,
might have furnished armies to overrun the globe, accuses the guilt of
Europe, and the weakness of Africa.

[Footnote 125: Leo Africanus (in the Viaggi di Ramusio, tom. i. fol.
78-83) has traced a curious picture of the people and the country;
which are more minutely described in the Afrique de Marmol, tom. iii. p.
1-54.]

[Footnote 126: This uninhabitable zone was gradually reduced by the
improvements of ancient geography, from forty-five to twenty-four, or
even sixteen degrees of latitude. See a learned and judicious note of
Dr. Robertson, Hist. of America, vol. i. p. 426.]

[Footnote 127: Intra, si credere libet, vix jam homines et magis
semiferi... Blemmyes, Satyri, &c. Pomponius Mela, i. 4, p. 26, edit.
Voss. in 8vo. Pliny philosophically explains (vi. 35) the irregularities
of nature, which he had credulously admitted, (v. 8.)]

[Footnote 128: If the satyr was the Orang-outang, the great human ape,
(Buffon, Hist. Nat. tom. xiv. p. 43, &c.,) one of that species might
actually be shown alive at Alexandria, in the reign of Constantine.
Yet some difficulty will still remain about the conversation which St.
Anthony held with one of these pious savages, in the desert of Thebais.
(Jerom. in Vit. Paul. Eremit. tom. i. p. 238.)]

[Footnote 129: St. Anthony likewise met one of these monsters; whose
existence was seriously asserted by the emperor Claudius. The public
laughed; but his praefect of Egypt had the address to send an artful
preparation, the embalmed corpse of a Hippocentaur, which was preserved
almost a century afterwards in the Imperial palace. See Pliny, (Hist.
Natur. vii. 3,) and the judicious observations of Freret. (Memoires de
l'Acad. tom. vii. p. 321, &c.)]

[Footnote 130: The fable of the pygmies is as old as Homer, (Iliad. iii.
6) The pygmies of India and Aethiopia were (trispithami) twenty-seven
inches high. Every spring their cavalry (mounted on rams and goats)
marched, in battle array, to destroy the cranes' eggs, aliter (says
Pliny) futuris gregibus non resisti. Their houses were built of mud,
feathers, and egg-shells. See Pliny, (vi. 35, vii. 2,) and Strabo, (l.
ii. p. 121.)]

[Footnote 131: The third and fourth volumes of the valuable Histoire des
Voyages describe the present state of the Negroes. The nations of the
sea-coast have been polished by European commerce; and those of the
inland country have been