Page:The Natural History of Pliny.djvu/439

 Cliap. 8.] ACCOTINT OF COUNTEIES, ETC, 405 to them the Atlantes ; then the Mgiipani, half men, half beasts, the Blemmyae^ the Gamphasautes, the Satyri, and the Himantopodes. The Atlantes^, if we believe what is said, have lost all characteristics of humanity ; for there is no mode of distin- guishing each other among tliem by names, and as they look upon the rising and the setting sun, they give utterance to direful imprecations against it, as being deadly to them- selves and their lands ; nor are they visited with dreams^, like the rest of mortals. The Troglodytae make excavations in the earth, which serve them for dwellings ; the flesh of ser- pents is their food ; they have no articulate voice, but only utter a kind of squeaking noise"* ; and thus are they utterly destitute of all means of communication by language. The Graramantes have no institution of marriage among them, and live in promiscuous concubinage with their women. The Augylse worship no deities^ but the gods of the infernal regions. The Gamphasautes, who go naked, and are unacquainted with war^, hold no intercourse whatever with strangers. The Blemmya^ are said to have no heads, ^ A tribe of Ethiopia, whose position varied considerably at different epochs of histoxy. Their predatory and savage habits caused the most extraordinary reports to be spread of their appearance and ferocity. Tlie more ancient geographers bring them as far westward as the region beyond the Libyan Desert, and into the vicinity of the Oases. In the time however of the Antonines, when Ptolemy was composing his de- scription of Africa, they appear to the south and east of Egypt, in the wide and almost mxknown tract which lay between the rivers Astapus and Astobores. 2 Mela speaks of this race as situate farthest to the west. The de- scription of them here given is from Herodotus, B. iv. c. 183-185, who speaks of them under the name of " Atarantcs." 3 The people who are visited by no dreams, are called Atlantes by Herodotus, the same name by which Pliny calls them. He says that their territory is ten days' journey from that of the Atarantes. this account, it is worthy of remark, that the Kock Tibboos of the pre- ecnt day, who, like the ancient Troglodytir, dwell in caves, have so pecuUar a kind of speech, that it is com]iared by the people of Aujelah to nothing but the whistling of birds. The TroglodytaD of Fezzan are liere referred to, not those of the coasts of the Red Sea. 5 Mela says that they look upon the Manes or spu-its of the departed as their only deities. ^ This is said, in ahnost the same words, of the Garamantes, by He-
 * This also is borrowed from Herodotus. As some confirmation of