[Footnote A:  Sam.  Bochart.  Geograph.  Sacrae, Part. 1. lib. 2. cap. 23. p.m. 142.]

[Footnote B:  Bocharti Hierozoici pars Posterior, lib.  I. cap.  II. p. 76.]

But this Fable of Men Pygmies has not only obtained amongst the Greeks and Indian Historians:  the Arabians likewise tell much such Stories of them, as the same learned Bochartus informs us.  I will give his Latin Translation of one of them, which he has printed in Arabick also:  Arabes idem (saith[A] Bochartus) referunt ex cujusdam Graeculi fide, qui Jacobo Isaaci filio, Sigariensi fertur ita narrasse. Navigabam aliquando in mari Zingitano, _& impulit me ventus in quandam Insulam_. In cujus Oppidum cum devenissem, reperi Incolas Cubitalis esse staturae, & plerosque Coclites.  Quorum multitudo in me congregata me deduxit ad Regem suum.  Fussit is, ut Captivus detinerer; & inquandam Caveae speciem conjectus sum; eos autem aliquando ad bellum instrui cum viderem, dixerunt Hostem imminere, & fore ut propediem ingrueret.  Nec multo post Gruum exercitus in eos insurrexit.  Atque ideo erant Coclites, quod eorum oculos hae confodissent.  Atque Ego, virga assumpta, in eas impetum feci, & illae avolarunt atque aufugerunt; ob quod facinus in honore fui apud illos.  This Author, it seems, represents them under the same Misfortune with the Poet, who first mentioned them, as being blind, by having their Eyes peck’d out by their cruel Enemies.  Such an Accident possibly might happen now and then, in these bloody Engagements, tho’ I wonder the Indian Historians have not taken notice of it.  However the Pygmies shewed themselves grateful to their Deliverer, in heaping Honours on him.  One would guess, for their own sakes, they could not do less than make him their Generalissimo; but our Author is modest in not declaring what they were.

[Footnote A:  Bochartus ibid. p.m. 77.]

Isaac Vossius seems to unsettle all, and endeavours utterly to ruine the whole Story:  for he tells us, If you travel all over Africa, you shall not meet with either a Crane or Pygmie:  Se mirari (saith[A] Isaac Vossius) Aristotelem, quod tam serio affirmet non esse fabellam, quae de Pygmaeis & Bello, quod cum Gruibus gerant, narrantur.  Si quis totam pervadat Africam, nullas vel Grues vel Pygmaeos inveniet.  Now one would wonder more at Vossius, that he should assert this of Aristotle, which he never said.  And since Vossius is so mistaken in what he relates of Aristotle; where he might so easily have been in the right, ’tis not improbable, but he may be out in the rest too:  For who has travelled all Africa over, that could inform him?  And why should he be so peremptory in the Negative, when he had so positive an Affirmation of Aristotle to the contrary? or if he would not