Meticulosum genus hominum, & garritu
Sermonem exprimens, adeo ut tam Simiae propinqui, quam Statura ac sensibus
ab justae Proceritatis homine remoti videantur_. Now there is this
Advantage in our _Hypothesis_, it will take in all the _Pygmies_, in any
part of the World; or wherever they are to be met with, without supposing,
as some have done, that 'twas the _Cranes_ that forced them to quit their
Quarters; and upon this account several Authors have described them in
different places: For unless we suppose the _Cranes_ so kind to them, as
to waft them over, how came we to find them often in Islands? But this is
more than can be reasonably expected from so great Enemies.
[Footnote A: _Paul. Jovij de Legatione Muschovitar_. lib. p.m. 489.]
I shall conclude by observing to you, that this having been the Common
Error of the Age, in believing the _Pygmies_ to be a sort of _little Men_,
and it having been handed down from so great Antiquity, what might
contribute farther to the confirming of this Mistake, might be, the
Imposture of the Navigators, who failing to Parts where these _Apes_ are,
they have embalmed their Bodies, and brought them home, and then made the
People believe that they were the _Men_ of those Countries from whence
they came.
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