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300
THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
[OCTOBER, 1881.
thus thickly enveloped their whole body, they bind it round them with a zone, and so make it serve for a garment. Their privates are thick, and so large that they depend even to their ancles. They are moreover snubnosed, and otherwise ill-favoured. Their sheep are of the size of our lambs, and their oxen and asses rather smaller than our rams, which again are as big as their horses and mules and other cattle. Of the Pygmies three thousand men attend the king of the Indians, on account of their great skill in archery. They are eminently just, and have the same laws as the Indians. They hunt hares and foxes not with dogs but with ravens and kites and crows and vultures. In their country is a lake eight hundred stadia in circumference, which produces an oil like our own. If the wind be not blowing, this oil floats upon the surface, and the Pygmies going upon the lake in little boats collect it from amidst the waters in small tubs for household use." They use algo oil of sôsamum and nut oil, but the lake-oil" is the best. The lake has also fish.
12. There is much silver in their part of the country, and the silver-mines though not deep are deeper than those in Baktria. Gold also is a product of India. It is not found in rivers and washed from the sands like the gold of the river Paktôlos, but is found on those many high-towering mountains which are inhabited by the Griffin 8, a race of fourfooted birds, about as large as wolves, having legs and claws like those of the lion, and covered all over the body with black feathers except only on the breast where they are red. On account of those birds the gold with which the mountains abound is difficult to be got.
13. The sheep and the goats of the Indians"? are bigger than asses, and generally produce young by four and by six at a time. The tails grow to such a size that those of the dams must be cut off before the rams can get at them. India does not however produce the pig, either the
tame sort or the wild." Palm-trees and their dates are in India" thrice the size of those in Babylon, and we learn that there is a certain river flowing with honey out of a rock, like the one we have in our own country.
14. The justice of the Indiang, their devotion to their king and their contempt of death are themes on which he loves to expatiate. He notices a fountain having this peculiarity, that when any one draws water from it, the water coagulates like cheese, and should you then detach from the solid lump a piece weighing about three obols, and having triturated this, put the powder into common water, he to whom you give this potion blabs out whatever he has done, for he becomes delirious, and raves like a madman all that day. The king avails himself of this property whert he wishes to discover the guilt or innocence of accused persons. Whoever incriminates himself when undergoing the ordeal is sentenced to starve himself to death, while he who does not confess to any crime is acquitted.*
15. The Indians are not afflicted with headache, or toothache, or ophthalmia, nor have they mouthsores or ulcers in any part of their body. The age to which they live is 120, 130, and 150 years, though the very old live to 200."
16. In their country is a serpent a span long, in appearance like the most beautiful purple with a head perfectly white but without any teeth." The creature is caught on those very hot mountains whose mines yield the sardine-stone. It does not ating, but on whatever part of the body it casts its vomit, that place invariably putrifies. If suspended by the tail, it emits two kinds of poison, one like amber which oozes from it while living, and the other black, which oozes from its carcase. Should about a sesame-seed's bulk of the former be administered to any one, he dies the instant he swallows it, for his brain runs out through his nostrils. If the black sort be given it induces consumption, but operates
* See Frag. xii, c. 41 See Frag. xiii below.
2 Conf. Frag. xxvi. " See Salmas, Everc. Plin. p. 1033; Sprengel, Histor, Botan. vol. I, p. 79; Reynier de l'Economie publique des Perses, p. 283. ** Antigon, c, 165, in Frag. xxvii, below.
5 On metals in India, see Heeren, Asiat. Nat. vol. II, p. 268.
* T'put, in Persian w giriften, means to gripe or seize and un girif corresponds well enough with your
See Frag. xiv, below, where a fuller account of the gryphons is given.
* See Frag. xii, below.
" See Frag. xv, below; also Frag. xxix, D. Swine, wild and tame, are common enough now in India.
* Conf. Palladius De Brachmm. p. 4.
60 Regarding the Babylonian palms, vid. Herodot. I, 193 ; and Diodor. II, 53.
5 Antigonus Caryst. Histor. Mirab. C. 160; Sotion, Q. 17: Strabo, XVI, iv, 20.
Conf. Frag. xv, G. 63 Arrian, Ind. 15, 12, and Frag. xxii, C.
See Frag. xvii.
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