[Footnote B: Garcilasso de la Vega Royal Comment, of Peru.]
[Footnote C: Juvenal Satyr. 13 vers. 167.]
Besides, were the Condors to be taken for the Cranes, it would utterly spoil the Pygmæomachia; for where the Match is so very unequal, 'tis impossible for the Pygmies to make the least shew of a fight. Ludolphus puts as great hardships on them, to fight these Condors, as Vossius did, in making them fight Elephants, but not with equal Success; for Vossius's Pygmies made great Slaughters of the Elephants; but Ludolphus his Cranes sweep away the Pygmies, as easily as an Owl would a Mouse, and eat them up into the bargain; now I never heard the Cranes were so cruel and barbarous to their Enemies, tho' there are some Nations in the World that are reported to do so.
Moreover, these Condor's I find are very rare to be met with; and when they are, they often appear single or but a few. Now Homer's, and the Cranes of the Ancients, are always represented in Flocks. Thus Oppian[A] as I find him translated into Latin Verse:
Et velut Æthiopum veniunt, Nilique fluenta
Turmalim Palamedis Aves, celsoeque per altum
Aera labentes fugiunt Athlanta nivosum,
Pygmæos imbelle Genus, parvumque saligant,
Non perturbato procedunt ordine densæ
Instructis volucres obscurant aëra Turmis.
To imagine these Grues a single Gigantick Bird, would much lessen the Beauty of Homer's Simile, and would not have served his turn; and there are none who have borrowed Homer's fancy, but have thought so. I will only farther instance in Baptista Mantuan:
Pygmæi breve vulgus, iners Plelecula, quando
Convenere Grues longis in prælia rostris,
Sublato clamore fremunt, dumque agmine magno
Hostibus occurrit, tellus tremit Indica, clamant
Littora, arenarum nimbis absconditur aër;
Omnis & involvit Pulvis solemque, Polumque,
Et Genus hoc Hominum naturâ imbelle, quietum,
Mite, facit Mavors pugnax, immane Cruentum.
[Footnote: A Oppian lib. I. de Piscibus.]
Having now considered and examined the various Opinions of these learned Men concerning this Pygmaeomachia; and represented the Reasons they give for maintaining their Conjectures; I shall beg leave to subjoyn my own: and if what at present I offer, may seem more probable, or account for this Story with more likelyhood, than what hath hitherto been advanced, I shall not think my time altogether misspent: But if this will not do, I shall never trouble my head more about them, nor think my self any ways concerned to write on this Argument again. And I had not done it now, but upon the occasion of Dissecting this Orang-Outang, or wild Man, which being a Native of Africa, and brought from Angola, tho' first taken higher up in the Country, as I was informed by the Relation given me; and observing so great a Resemblance, both in the outward shape, and, what surprized me more, in the Structure likewise of the inward Parts, to a Man; this Thought was easily suggested to me, That very probably this Animal, or some other such of the same Species, might give the first rise and occasion to the Stories of the Pygmies. What has been the [Greek: proton pheudos], and rendered this Story so difficult to be believed, I find hath been the Opinion that has generally obtained, that these Pygmies were really a Race of little Men. And tho' they are only Brutes, yet being at first call'd wild Men, no doubt from the Resemblance they bear to Men; there have not been wanting those especially amongst the Ancients, who have invented a hundred ridiculous Stories concerning them; and have attributed those things to them, were they to be believed in what they say, that necessarily conclude them real Men.
To sum up therefore what I have already discoursed, I think I have proved, that the Pygmies were not an Humane Species or Men. And tho' Homer, who first mentioned them, calls them [Greek: andres pygmaioi], yet we need not understand by this Expression any thing more than Apes: And tho' his Geranomachia hath been look'd upon by most only as a Poetical Fiction; yet by assigning what might be the true Cause of this Quarrel between the Cranes and Pygmies, and by divesting it of the many fabulous Relations that the Indian Historians, and others, have loaded it with, I have endeavoured to render it a true, at least a probable Story. I have instanced in Ctesias and the Indian Historians, as the Authors and Inventors of the many Fables we have had concerning them: Particularly, I have Examined those Relations, where Speech or Language is attributed to them; and shewn, that there is no reason to believe that they ever spake any Language at all. But these Indian Historians having related so many extravagant Romances of the Pygmies, as to render their whole History suspected, nay to be utterly denied, that there were ever any such Creatures as Pygmies in Nature, both by Strabo of old, and most of our learned men of late, I have endeavoured to assert the Truth of their being, from a Text in Aristotle; which being so positive in affirming their Existence, creates a difficulty, that can no ways be got over by such as are of the contrary Opinion. This Text I have vindicated from the false Interpretations and Glosses of several Great Men, who had their Minds so prepossessed and prejudiced with the Notion of Men Pygmies, that they often would quote it, and misapply it, tho' it contain'd nothing that any ways favoured their Opinion; but the contrary rather, that they were Brutes, and not Men.