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with the cranes; and however the poet might be supposed to exaggerate, Athenæus has gravely attempted to confirm this. If we attend to thefe, we must believe, that in the internal parts of A frica there are whole nations of pigmy beings, not more than a foot in ftature, who continually wage an unequal war with the birds and beafts that inhabit the plains in which they refide. Some of the ancients, however, and Strabo in particular, have fuppofed all thefe accounts to be fabulous; and have been more inclined to think this fuppofed nation of pigmies nothing more than a fpecies of apes, well known to be numerous in that part of the world. With this opinion the moderns have all concurred; and that diminutive race, which was described as human, has been long degraded into a class of animals that refemble us but very imperfectly.

The existence, therefore, of a pigmy race of mankind, being founded in error, or in fable, we can expect to find men of diminutive ftature only by accident, among men of the ordinary fize. Of thefe accidental dwarfs, every country, and almost every village, can produce numerous inftances. There was a time when these unfavoured children of nature were the peculiar favourites of the great; and no prince or nobleman thought himself completely attended unless he had a dwarf among the number of his domeftics. These poor little men were kept to be laughed at, or to raise the barbarous pleasure of their masters, by their contrafted inferiority. Even in England, as late as the times of King James I. the court was at one time furnished with a dwarf, a giant, and a jefter: these the King often took a pleasure in oppofing to each other, and often fomented quarrels among them, in order to be a concealed fpectator of their animofity. It was a particular entertainment of the courtiers at that time to fee little Jeffery, for fo the dwarf was called, ride round the lifts, expecting his antagonift, and difcovering in his actions all the marks of contemptible refolution.

VOL. LVIII.

In the reign of Charles I. a dwarf named Richard Gibfon, who was a page of the back stairs, and a favourite at court, was married to Mifs Ann Shepherd, a lady of equal height; the King honoured this fingular wedding with his prefence, and gave away the bride. On this occafion Waller composed the following lines:

Defign or chance makes others wive, But Nature did this match contrive : Eve might as well have Adam fled, As fhe deny'd her little bed To him, for whom heav'n feem'd to And meafure out this only dame.

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Thrice happy is that humble pair,
Beneath the level of all care!
Over whose heads thofe arrows fly
Of fad diftrust and jealousy ;
Secured in as high extreme,
As if the world held none but them.

To him the faireft nymphs do fhow Like moving mountains topp'd with fnow;

And ev'ry man a Polypheme

Does to his Galetea feem:

None may prefume her faith to prove;
He proffers death that proffers love.
Ah, Chloris! that kind nature thus
From all the world had fever'd us;
Creating for ourselves us two,
As love has me for only you!

Each of them measured three feet ten inches. This little pair were painted at whole length by Sir Peter Lely. They had nine children, five of which attained to maturity, and were well proportioned to the ufual ftandard of mankind. Mr Gibson's genius led him to painting, in the rudiments of which art he was inftructed by De Clein, maf ter of the tapestry works at Mortlake, and distinguished by his drawings for feveral of the cuts to Ogilby's Virgil, and Sandy's Tranflation of Ovid.

Gibfon's paintings in water-colours were well efteemed, but the copies which he made of Lely's portraits gainęd him the greatest reputation. He had the honour to be employed in teaching Queen Anne the art of drawing, and was fent for into Holland to instruct her fifter, the Princess of Orange.

To

To recompenfe the fhortnefs of their most. All this, however, being at last ftature, nature gave them an equivalent fettled, dancing followed the dinner, in length of days, for he died in the fe- and the ball was opened with a minuet venty-fifth year of his age, and his wife, by the bridegroom, whofe height was having furvived him almost twenty years, exactly three feet two inches. In the died in the year 1709, at the great age end, matters were fo contrived, that of eighty-nine. this little company, who met together in gloomy difguft, and with an unwillingness to be pleafed, being at laft familiarized to laughter, entered into the diverfion, and became extremely sprightly and entertaining.

In the year 1710, Peter, Czar of Ruffia, celebrated a marriage of dwarfs, which was attended with great parade. Upon a certain day, which he had ordered to be proclaimed feveral months before, he invited the whole body of his courtiers, and all the foreign ambaffadors, to be prefent at the marriage of a pigmy man and woman. The preparations for this wedding were not on ly very grand, but executed in a style of barbarous ridicule. He ordered, that all the dwarf men and women, within two hundred miles, fhould repair to the capital; and alfo infifted that they fhould be prefent at the ceremony. For this purpose, he supplied them with proper vehicles; but fo contrived it, that one horfe was feen carrying a dozen of them into the city at once, while the mob followed fhouting, and laughing, from behind. Some of them were at first unwilling to obey an order, which they knew was calculated to turn them into ridicule, and did not come; but he foon obliged them to obey; and, as a punishment, enjoined, that they fhould wait upon the reft at dinner. The whole company of dwarfs amounted to about feventy, beside the bride and bridegroom, who were richly adorned, and in the extremity of the fafhion. For this little company in miniature every thing was fuitably provided; a low table, fmall plates, little glaffes, and, in fhort, every thing was fo fitted, as if all things had been dwindled to their own ftandard. It was his great pleasure to fee their gravity and their pride; the contention of the women for places, and the men for fuperiority. This point he attempted to adjuft, by ordering, that the moft diminutive fhould take the lead; but this bred difputes, for none would then confent to fit fore

A dwarf of the name of Coan was exhibited in almost every part of England, for fome years. He was likewife brought upon the stage of one of the London theatres, where he was contrafted with a giant, each of whom fung for the entertainment of the audience. He died at Chelsea, March 28, 1764.

Concerning the reality of a race of giants the learned have been much divided. Ferdinand Magellan was the firft who discovered fuch a race of people, along the coast, toward the extremity of South America, in 1520. Commodore Byron touched at Patagonia, the country fpoken of by Magellan, in the year 1764, when he faw a number of horsemen riding backward and forward. The natives foon collected near the shore, to the number of five hundred, many of whom were on foot, and made figns of invitation for thofe on board to land. Byron accordingly went afhore in his twelve oared boat, having with him a party of men well armed. Thefe people are defcribed as a gigantic race, whofe height in general is not much less than feven feet. Their only clothing was the fkins of beafts thrown over their fhoulders, with hair inward: they paint themselves fo as to make a hideous appearance: but their difpofition is neither fierce nor rapacious. Each one had a circle of white round one eye, and of black round the other; and their faces were ftreaked with paint of different colours. Except the skins, most of them were naked; a few only having upon their legs a kind

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agree in affirming the exiftence of a race of giants upon these coafts; but, during another century, a much greater number agree in denying the fact, treating their predeceffors as idle fabulifts. Barbenais fpeaks of a race of giants in South America; and the Unca Garcilaffa de la Vega, in his Hiftory of Peru, is decifively on the fame fide of the question. Torquemado records the American traditions concerning a race of giants, and a deluge which happened in remote times in these parts. Magellan, Loaifa, Sarmiento, and Nodal, among the Spaniards, and Cavendish, Hawkins, and Knivet, among the English, while Sebald, Oliver de Noort,

of boot, with a fhort pointed stick faftened to each heel, which ferved as a fpur. The Commodore prefented them with fome beads and ribbands, which they received with expreffions of joy and acknowledgement. Thefe Indians had a great number of dogs. Their horfes were not large, but nimble and well broken. The Patagonians, however, were not wholly ftrangers to European commodities; for, on clofe attention to them, one woman was observed to have bracelets, either of brafs or very pale gold, upon her arms, and fome beads of blue glafs ftrung upon two long queus of hair, which being parted at the top, hung down over each fhoulder before her: he was of a moft enor- le Maire, and Spilberg, among the mous fize, and her face was, if poffible, more frightfully painted than the reft. All the inquiries, which could be made by figns, were ineffectual to gain information whence thefe beads and bracelets were obtained, as these people were incapable of comprehending the drift of the inquiry. The bridles which they ufed were made of leathern thongs; and a fmall piece of wood ferved for a bit. Their faddles refembled the pads ufed by the country people of England, The women rode aftride, and both men and women without stirrups.

There is nothing about which travellers are more divided than concerning the height of these Patagonians, M. de Bougainville, who visited another part of this coaft in the year 1767, afferts, that the Patagonians are not gigantic; and that "what makes them appear fo, is their prodigious broad fhoulders, the fize of their heads, and the thickness of all their limbs." Some time before Mr Byron made this voyage, it was the fubject of warm conteft among men of fcience in this country, whether a race of men upon the coaft of Patagonia above the common ftature did really exift: and the contradictory reports, made by occular witneffes, concerning this fact, tended great ly to perplex the queftion. It appears that, during one hundred years, almoft all navigators, of whatever country,

Dutch, together with fome French voyagers, all bear teftimony to the fact, that the inhabitants of Patagonia were of a gigantic height: on the contrary, Winter, the Dutch Admiral Hermite, Froger, in de Gennes' Narrative, and Sir John Narborough, deny it. reconcile thefe different opinions, we have only to fuppofe that the country is inhabited by diftinct races of men, one of which is a fize beyond the ordinary pitch, the other not gigantic, though perhaps tall and remarkably large limbed, and that each poffefs parts of the country feparate and remote from the other. That fome giants inhabit these regions can now no longer be doubted; fince the concurrent teftimony of late English navigators, particularly Commodore Byron, Captains Wallis and Carteret, gentlemen of unqueftionable veracity, the two latter of whom are still living, establish the fact, from their not only having feen and converfed with thefe people, but even meafured them. Mr Clarke, who failed with Commodore Byron, and who in the laft voyage of discovery succeeded, on the death of Captain Cook, to the command of the two fhips, addreffed à paper to the Secretary of the Royal Society, which was read in 1766, and fully teftified the gigantic height of the Patagonians. To thefe teftimonies, 5 0 2

Mr

Mr Pennant, actuated by that zeal for fcience which diftinguishes him on all occafions, has been enabled to add an other, which is that of Father Falkener, a Jefuit, but a native of England, who was alive a few years fince, and whom Mr Pennant vifited for the exprefs purpofe of gaining certain information concerning the Patagonians, as he had been fent on a miffion into their country about the year 1742. The father (who was very communicative, and about feventy years of age when he imparted his information to our inquirer,) affert ed, that the tallest which he measured, in the fame manner that Mr Byron did, was feven feet'eight inches high; the common height of the men was fix feet, and there were numbers who were fhorter the tallest woman did not exceed fix feet. The particulars of this converfation Mr Pennant communicated in a letter addreffed to the honourable Daines Barrington, which has fince been printed at a private prefs, but only a few copies taken off to gratify the author's friends.

made Buffon alter his opinion, but he would have still maintained, that it was only an accidental variety of the individual, not any difference of the race."

At Trinity College, Dublin, in the anatomical room there, is the skeleton, between feven and eight feet high, of one Magrath, who was born near Cloyne. This man was carried through various parts of Europe, and exhibited as the prodigious Irish giant; but fuch was his early imbecility, both of body and mind, that he died of old age in his twentieth year.

The account of this prodigy is given by a very fenfible writer, and is as follows. In his infancy he became an orphan, and was provided for by the famous Berkley, then Bishop of Cloyne. This, fubtile doctor, who denied the existence of matter, was as inquifitive in his phyfical researches as he was whimfical in his metaphyfical fpeculations: when I tell you he had wellnigh put an end to his own existence by experimenting what are the fenfaNotwithstanding the concurring tef- tions of a perfon dying on the gallows, timony concerning the height of the you will be the more ready to forgive Patagonians, M. de Buffon does not him for his treatment of this poor oradmit the existence of a race of giants, phan. The Bishop had a strange fancy which Lord Monboddo ftrenuously con- to know whether it was not in the powtends for; in doing which, he relates er of art to increase the human ftature, that M. de Guyot, captain of a French and this unhappy infant appeared to him fhip trading to the South Sea, brought a fit fubject for trial. He made his ef from the coaft of Patagonia, a fkeleton of one of thefe giants, which measured between twelve and thirteen feet, purpofing to bring it to Europe; but happening to be overtaken by a violent ftorm, and having the Spanish Arch bishop of Lima on board, the ecclefiaf tic declared, that the ftorm was caufed by the bones of the Pagan then on board, and infifted in having the skeleron thrown into the fea. His Lordfhip adds, "The Archbishop died foon after, and was thrown overboard in his I could have wifhed that he had been thrown overboard 'fooner, and then the bones of the Patagonian would have arrived fafe in France, though I ám perfuaded they would not have

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fay according to his pre-conceived theory, whatever it might be; and the confequence was, that he became seven feet high in his fixteenth year.

In the fame letter follows an account of another skeleton which is preferved in the college, of one Clark, a native of Cork, who was called "the offified man." Early in life his joints ftiffened, his locomotive powers were loft, and his very jaws grew together; fo that it became neceffary for his fuftenance to pour liquids into his mouth by means of a hole perforated through his teeth. He lived in this ftate feveral years, leaning against a wall, till at length the very organs of life were converted into bone.

AÇ.

ACCOUNT OF THE ARMY AND ESTABLISHMENT OF
TIPPOO SULTAUN;

WITH A DESCRIPTION OF HIS PERSON, AND AN ACCOUNT OF BANGALORE.

THE following Paper was written valry that are well mounted, from whom during the last War with Tippoo Sul- he a points his Buckfeys, and officers taun, by a Lieutenant Ewan Bufhby, for commands and places of truft; they who served with the Bengal detachment are armed as they pleafe, chiefly with all the campaign. It contains an ac- fabres, and are not fubject to any particount of Tippoo's army, and a fhort cular difcipline. fketch of Bangalore..

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Elephants for the heavy artil lery

Ditto for the general fervice of his household and army, but only part of them trained to ufe

Camels

Total

18,000

The corps of Asbar, or regular cavalry, and alfo the cavalry attached to the brigades, are called Tuffungeley, or Carbineers; their arms being only a carbine and piftols. They are exercif70,000 ed both on foot and horfeback, and attend chiefly to the use of their firearms; Tippoo being of opinion, that the English will be most effectually oppofed by thofe arms to which, he says, they owe their conquefts in India. Moft of them, however, provide themselves with fwords.

60,000

1,100

7,000

156,100

The Moormen of rank diflike serving in the regular cavalry, so that the four 20 Duftas of Bela Admy, formed after their own manner, and armed as the men chofe themselves, are in all refpects Tippoo's best cavalry.

700

In all cavalry a Femadar is allowed to every twenty-two men. The officers 7.201 of higher rank are Tripdars, or captains; Refaldars, or commandants of 400 fquadrons; and Buckhys, who are in 300 general the commandants of corps. The The bullocks for the artillery and horfes that are the property of Tipother fervices are in great numbers, poo are kept and fed at the immedistreng and of a large fize, bred in his ate charge of the Cirkar or government, and not by any fixed allowance given to the officer or troopers.

Mules for carrying treasure

country.

Tippoo, about two years ago, eftablished a corps of 500 camels, called Shuter Afber, with two men on each camel armed with blunderbuffes. Most of the camels died last year on the other coast, and it is imagined he has reduced the corps.

The cavalry in which the horfes are the property of Tippoo, is in general called Tawela, or stable horses. The corps in which the men and horfes are hired by the month, including the Bayed, or marauding horfe, are in general called Sair, or hired horfe.

The corps of Bela Admy, or Gentlemen, is the only part of Tippoo's ca

The pay of the Bela Admy differs according to the family and merits of the trooper.

The pay of a trooper in the Albar, and in the regular cavalry attached to the brigades, exclufive of his horfe, is eleven rupees per month, besides his cloathing.

*

The Sair, or hired horfe, are paid for by agreement with the chiefs who command them, and according to the quality of the men and horses.

* The rupee is a filver coin, worth about 2s. 6d. Sterling. The

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