[Footnote 160: I am aware how tender is the question of
circumcision. Yet I will affirm, 1. That the Aethiopians
have a physical reason for the circumcision of males, and
even of females, (Recherches Philosophiques sur les
Americains, tom. ii.) 2. That it was practised in Aethiopia
long before the introduction of Judaism or Christianity,
Herodot. l. ii. c. 104. Marsham, Canon. Chron. p. 72, 73.)
"Infantes circumcidunt ob consuetudinemn, non ob Judaismum,"
says Gregory the Abyssinian priest, (apud Fabric. Lux
Christiana, p. 720.) Yet in the heat of dispute, the
Portuguese were sometimes branded with the name of
uncircumcised, (La Croze, p. 90. Ludolph. Hist. and
Comment. l. iii. c. l.)]