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298
THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
[OCTOBER, 1881.
4. He notices the fountain" which is filled every year with liquid gold, out of which are annually drawn a hundred earthen pitchers filled with the metal. The pitchers must be earthen since the gold when drawn becomes solid, and to get it out the containing vessel must needs be broken in pieces. The fountain is of a square shape, eleven cubits in circumfer. ence, and a fathom in depth. Each pitcherful of gold weighs a talent. He notices also the iron found at the bottom of this fountain, adding that he had in his own possession two swords made from this iron, one given to him by the king of Persia," and the other by Parysa tis, the mother of that same king. This iron, he says, if fixed in the earth, averts clouds and hail and thunderstorms, and he avers that he had himself twice seen the iron do this, the king on both occasions performing the experiment."
5. We learn further that the dogs of India are of very great size, so that they fight even with the lion ;-' that there are certain high mountains having mines which yield the sardine-stone, and onyxes, and other seal stones ;" that the heat is excessive, and that the sun appears in India to be ten times larger than in other countries; and that many of the inhabitants are suffocated to death by the heat. Of the sea in India, he says, that it is not less than the sea in Hellas ; its surface however for four finger-breadths downward is hot, so that fish cannot live that go near the heated surface, but must confine themselves always to the depths below.
6. He states that the river Indus flows through the level country, and through between
the mountains, and that what is called the Indian reed grows along its course, this being so thick that two men could scarcely encompass its stem with their arms, and of a height to equal the mast of a merchant ship of the heaviest burden." Some are of a greater size even than this, though some are of less, as might be expected when the mountain it grows on is of vast range. The reeds are distinguished by sex, some being male, others female. The male reed has no pith, and is exceedingly strong, but the female has a pith."
7. He describes an animal called the marti khora," found in India. Its face is like a man'sit is about as big as a lion, and in colour red like cinnabar. It has three rows of teeth-ears like the human-eyes of a pale blue like the human and a tail like that of the land scorpion, armed with a sting and more than a cubit long." It has besides stings on each side of its tail, and, liku the scorpion, is armed with an additional sting on the crown of its head, wherewith it stings any one who goes near it, the wound in all cases proving mortal. If attacked from a distance it defends itself both in front and in rear-in front with its tail, by up-lifting it and darting out the stings, like shafts shot from a bow, and in rear by straightening it out. It can strike to the distance of a hundred feet, and no creature can survive the wound it inflicts save only the elephant. The stings are about a foot in length, and not thicker than the finest thread. The name martikhora" means in Greek dv@parropáyos (i.e. man-eater), and it is so called because it carries off men and devours them, though it no doubt preys upon other animals as well. In fighting it uses not only its stings but also its
19 Conf. Philostrat. Vit. Apoll. III, 45.
13 The Munich MS. 287, makes this a separate fountain : έστι δε έτερα κρίνη (read κρήνη) ήτις εξάγει σίδηρον. Conf. Philost. Vit. Apol. III, 45. 1. Artaxerxes Mnemon.
Baehr thinks that Ktësias here refers to the magnet, the properties of which were not at that time so well known 88 now.
16 Conf. Ælian. Nat. An. IV, 19; VIII, 1, 9; and Frag. vi, below.
11 Compare what Ælian (Frag. vi.) says of the dogs of the Kynamolgoi ; compare also Strabo, quoting Megasthenes XV, p. 1029, and the account in Curtius (de Reb. Alex. IX, 1, 81) of an Indien dog attacking a lion.
* These mountains have been variously identified with Taurus, with Imaus, with Paropamises, and with the moun. tains of Great and Little Bukharia, which stretch through Tibet, and Kaimir, but Count Weltheim takes them to be the Bals Ghats near Bharoch. The Periplus states that onyxes and other precious stones were found in Ozene (now Uijain) and thence sent to Barygaza (Bbardch) for export. The well known Khambay stones come from neighbouring district.
19 Strabo III, p. 202, contests this. 20 Conf. Frag. vii, below.
21 Lit. of 10,000 talents : or puplauopov (Lobeck, ad. Phyrn. p. 602) 60,000 amphore. Conf. Frag. vii.
13 Cf. Theophrastos, Plant. Histor. IV, ii, where he states that the male reed is solid, and the female, hollow. Cf. also Pliny, Hist. Nat. XVI, 36. Sprengel identifies this reed of Kt@sias with the Bambusa and Calamus Rotang of Linnaeus. The same reed is mentioned by Herodotus (III, 98). 23 See Frags. viii-xi, below.
pelo rápxovorav nxeos. Baehr rightly amends the reading here to peitov vrápxov av, which refers the measure to the sting instead of to the tail.
** Tychsen says-This is the Persian es from mard, a man and Khorden to eat: khor, the eater, is an abbreviated form of the participle khordeh, which is still in use... if the final be viewed as a component part of the Persian word, we have only to substitute the participial form is mardikhori, (abbreviated from wirdikhorán) as Reland has already done (p. 223), and we obtain precisely the same signification. Conf. Frags. viiisi; also Philostratus, Vit. A poul. IV, 45.
