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 400 THE DECLINE AND FALL [Chap, xlii much increased, since the natives had only slaves and hides to offer in exchange for the corn and salt which they purchased from the subjects of Justinian. Not a vestige can be found of the art, the knowledge, or the navigation of the ancient Col- chians ; few Greeks desired or dared to pursue the footsteps of the Argonauts ; and even the marks of an Egyptian colony are lost on a nearer approach. The rite of circumcision is prac- tised only by the Mahometans of the Euxine ; and the curled hair and swarthy complexion of Africa no longer disfigure the most perfect of the human race. It is in the adjacent climates of Georgia, Mingrelia, and Circassia, that nature has placed, at least to our eyes, the model of beauty in the shape of the limbs, the colour of the skin, the symmetry of the features, and the expression of the countenance. 84 According to the destination of the two sexes, the men seem formed for action, the women for love ; and the perpetual supply of females from mount Cau- casus has purified the blood, and improved the breed, of the southern nations of Asia. The proper district of Mingrelia, a portion only of the ancient Colchos, has long sustained an ex- portation of twelve thousand slaves. The number of prisoners or criminals would be inadequate to the annual demand ; but the common people are in a state of servitude to their lords ; the exercise of fraud or rapine is unpunished in a lawless com- munity ; and the market is continually replenished by the abuse of civil and paternal authority. Such a trade, 85 which reduces the human species to the level of cattle, may tend to encourage marriage and population ; since the multitude of children en- riches their sordid and inhuman parent. But this source of impure wealth must inevitably poison the national manners, obliterate the sense of honour and virtue, and almost extinguish the instincts of nature : the Christians of Georgia and Mingrelia are the most dissolute of mankind ; and their children, who, in a tender age, are sold into foreign slavery, have already learnt 84 Buffon (Hist. Nat. torn. iii. 433-437) collects the unanimous suffrage of naturalists and travellers. If, in the time of Herodotus, they were in truth fifdyxpot s and ovrpixes (and he had observed them with care), this precious fact is an ex- ample of the influenoe of climate on a foreign colony. 85 The Mingrelian ambassador arrived at Constantinople with two hundred persons ; but he ate (sold) them day by day, till his retinue was diminished to a secretary and two valets (Tavernier, torn. i. p. 365). To purchase his mistress, a Mingrelian gentleman sold twelve priests and his wife to the Turks (Chardin, torn, i. p. 66).