e. _That generally the Beasts are wilder
in_ Asia, _stronger in_ Europe, _and of greater variety of shapes in_
Africa; _for as the_ Proverb _saith_, Africa _always produces something
new_. _Pliny_[B] indeed ascribes it to the Heat of the _Climate,
Animalium, Hominumque effigies monstriferas, circa extremitates ejus
gigni, minime mirum, artifici ad formanda Corpora, effigiesque caelandas
mobilitate ignea_. But _Nature_ never formed a whole _Species_ of
_Monsters_; and 'tis not the _heat_ of the Country, but the warm and
fertile Imagination of these _Historians_, that has been more productive
of them, than _Africa_ it self; as will farther appear by what I shall
produce out of them, and particularly from the Relation that _Ctesias_
makes of the _Pygmies_.
[Footnote A: _Aristotle Hist. Animal_, lib. 8. cap. 28.]
[Footnote B: _Plin. Nat. Hist._ lib. 6. cap. 30. p.m. 741.]
I am the more willing to instance in _Ctesias_, because he tells his Story
roundly; he no ways minces it; his Invention is strong and fruitful; and
that you may not in the least mistrust him, he pawns his word, that all
that he writes, is certainly true: And so successful he has been, how
Romantick soever his Stories may appear, that they have been handed down
to us by a great many other Authors, and of Note too; tho' some at the
same time have looked upon them as mere Fables.
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