THE SOURCE OF THE NILE. 347
Although it then appears that the nations which had Egypt between Abraham and them, that is, were to the fouthward, did not follow the Egyptians in the rite of cir- cumcifion, yet in another, of excifion, they all concurred. Strabo* fays, the Egyptians circumcifed both men and wo- men, like the Jews. I will not pretend to fay that any fuch operation ever did obtain among the Jewifh women, as fcripture is filent upon it ; and indeed it is nowhere ever pretended to have been a religious rite, but to be introdu- ced from neceffity, to avoid a deformity which nature has fubje&ed particular people to, in particular climates and countries.
We perceive among the brutes, that nature, creating the animal with the fame limbs or members all the world o- ver, does yet indulge itfelf in a variety, in the proportion of fuch limbs or members. Some are remarkable for the fize of their heads, fome for the breadth and bignefs of the tail, fome for the length of their legs, and fome for the fize of their horns. There is a diftria in Abyffinia, within the per- petual rains, where cows, of no greater fize than ours, have horns, each of which would contain as much water as the ordinary water-pail ufed in England does ; and I remem- ber on the frontiers of bennaar, near the river Dender, to have feen a herd of manv hundred cows, everyone of which had the apparent conftruction of their parts almofl fimilar with that of the bull ; fo that, for a coniiderable time, I was perfuaded that thefe were oxen, their udders being very fmall, until I had feen them milked.
v. iii. X x 2 This
- Lib. xviL p» 950.
