346 TRAVELS TO DISCOVER
now, exploded ; and that they are fo is plain, becaufe, other- wife, the nations more to the fouthward would have adopt- ed it, as they have univerfally done another cuitom, which* I mall prefently fpeak. of.
Circumcision, then, having no natural caufe or ad- vantage, being in itfelf repugnant to man's nature, and ex- tremely painful, if not dangerous, it could never originate in man's mind wantonly and out of free-will. It might have done fo indeed from imitation, but with Abraham it had a caufe, as God was to make his private family in a few years numerous, like the fands of the fea. This mark, which feparated them from all the world, was an eafy way to fhew whether the promife was fulfilled or not. They were go- ing to take poffemon of a land where circumcifion was not known, and this mewed them their enemy diflincl from their own people. And it would be the groffeft abfurdity to fend Samfon to bring, as tokens of the flain, fo many fore- fkins or prepuces of the Philiftines, if } as Herodotus fays, the Philiitines had cut off their prepuces a thoufand years, before.
I must here take notice that this cuftora, filthy and bar- barous as it is, has been adopted by the Abyffinians of Tigre, who have always been circumcifed, from a knowledge that the nations about them were not circumcifed at all. It is true they do not content themfelves with the forefkin, and I doubt very much if this was not the cafe with the Jews iikewife. On the contrary, in place of the forefkin they cut the whole away, fcrotum and all, and bring this to- their fuperiors, as a token they have killed an enemy.
Although
