The origin of the fabled giants has led to marvellous disquisitions. Many fathers of the church, amongst whom we may quote St. Cyprian, St. Ambrosius, St. Chrosostom, St. Cyrillius, Tactantius, Tertullian, and several others, gravely maintain that giants were the favoured offsprings of holy maidens and angels. This may seem an impious conclusion, since the gigantic monsters of sacred history were any thing but angelic; for the Canaaneans, the Moabites, and the sons of Anak, descended from giants, (compared with whom the Israelites seemed as grasshoppers,) were most ferocious, and their land devoured its inhabitants; (though Neuman gives a different signification to the scriptural passage, which according to his paraphrase merely meant "that the number of inhabitants was so great, that they eat up all the land;") Og, king of Bashan, whose country was delivered into the hands of Israel, had an iron bedstead nine cubits in length and four cubits in breadth; and Goliath, the reproach of Israel, was six cubits and a span (which according to Cumberland makes eleven feet English) in stature. It is therefore difficult to imagine why so many saints considered giants as an angelic progeny. To the present day, however, we find various races distinguished by their elevated stature. Humboldt says, that the Guayaquilists measure six feet and a half, and the Payaguas are equally tall, while the Caribbees of Cumana are distinguished by their almost gigantic size from all the other nations he had met with in the New World. Hearne saw in the cold regions north of Canada individuals of six feet four inches. The Patagonians, or Tehuels, were stated by Pigafitta and the Spanish early navigators as measuring seven feet four inches; and although it appears that this account is exaggerated, more recent travellers, amongst whom we may name Bougainville, Commodore Byron, Captain Wallis, Carteret, and Falkner, affirm that their height ranges from six to seven feet. From the best authenticated observations, it appears that the tallest persons on respectable record, did not, according to Haller, exceed nine feet. A young man from Huntingdonshire was exhibited in London, and measured about eight feet at the age of seventeen; he was, as usual, born of the ordinary size, but began to grow most rapidly; his sister was of great height, and all his family were remarkably tall.