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OCTOBER, 1881.]
THE INDIKA OF KTÉSIAS.
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are wild asses as large as horses, some being even larger." Their head is of a dark red colour, their eyes blue, and the rest of their body white. They have a horn on their foryhead, a cubit in length (the filings of this horn, if given in a potion, are an antidote to poisonous drugs]. This horn for about two palmbreadths upwards from the base is of the purest white, where it tapers to a sharp point of a flaming crimson, and, in the middle, is black." These horns are made into drinking cups, and such as drink from them are attacked neither by convulsions nor by the sacred disease (epilepsy). Nay, they are not even affected by poisons, if either before or after swallowing them they drink from these cups wine, water, or anything else. While other asses moreover, whether wild or tame, and indeed all other solid-hoofed animals have neither huckle-bones," nor gall in the liver, these one-horned asses" have both. Their huckle-bone is the most beautiful of all I have ever seen, and is, in appearance and size, like that of the ox. It is as heavy as lead, and of the colour of cinnabar? both on the surface, and all thronghout. It is exceedingly fleet and strong, and no creatore that pursues it, not even the horse, can overtake it.
26. On first starting it scampers off somewhat leisurely, but the longer it runs, it gallops faster and faster till the pace becomes most furious. These animals therefore can only be caught at one particular time--that is when they lead out their little foals to the pastures in which they roam. They are then hemmed in on all sides by a vast number of hunters mounted on horseback, and being unwilling to escape while leaving their young to perish, stand their ground and fight, and by butting with their horns and kicking and biting kill many horses and men. But they are in the end taken, pierced to death with arrows and
spears, for to take them alive is in no way possible. Their flesh being bitter" is unfit for food, and they are hunted merely for the sake of their horns and their huckle-bones.'
27. He states that there is bred in the Indian river a worm" like in appearance to that which is found in the fig, but seven cubits more or less in length, while its thickness is such that a boy ten years old could hardly clasp it within the circuit of his arms. These worms have two teeth-an upper and a lower, with which they seize and devour their prey. In the daytime they remain in the mud at tbe bottom of the river, but at night they come ashore, and should they fall in with any prey as a cow or a camel, they seize it with their teeth, and having dragged it to the river, there devour it. For catehing this worm a large hook is employed, to which a kid or a lamb is fastened by chains of iron. The worm being landed, the captors hang up its carcase, and placing vessels underneath it leave it thus for thirty days. All this time oil drops from it, as much being got as would fill ten Attic kotylai. At the end of the thirty days they throw away the worm, and preserving the oil they take it to the king of the Indians, and to him alone, for no subject is allowed to get a drop of it. This oil (like fire) sets everything ablaze over which it is poured and it consumes not alone wood but even animals. The flames can be quenched only by throwing over them a great quantity of clay, and that of a thick consistency.so
28. But again there are certain trees in India as tall as the cedar or the cypress, having leaves like those of the date palm, only somewhat broader, but having no shoots sprouting from the stems. They produce a flower like the male laurel, but no fruit. In the Indian language they are called karpion, but in Greek pupopóda (unguent-rosess). These trees are scarce.
11 Seo Frag. XXV.
Frag, of the wild as may be compared with his socount " Conf. Bruce's account (Travels, vol. V, p. 93) who of the Kartizon, Ind. Ant., vol. VI, p. 128. describes its surface as of a reddish-brown.
" See 1, and Frag. xxvi. *'Aotpayálovs, conf. Aristot. Hist. An. II, 2, 9.
*0 Cf. Frag. xxvi, where Ælinn gives fuller particulars. ** Tychsen thinks the rhinoceros is here meant, but the A somewhat similar creature is mentioned by Palladius colour and other details do not quite agree with that I (de Brachman. 10) as belonging to the Ganges. He calls animal. Heeren, As. Nat. vol. II, pp. 864 ff.
it the Odontotyrranos. 15 That is, vermilion.
51 Bache thinks this may be the Chetak (Pandan 10 This is what Bruce relates of the rhinoceros.-Travels, odoratisima), Kaida, or Kyura. Regarding the word kar. vol. V, pp. 97 and 105.
pion Dr. Caldwell in the Introduction to his Dravidian " Bruce says it has a disagreenble musky flavour. Grammar thus writes : The earliest Dravidian word in
** Cf. Frag. xxv, and the account of the unicorn Groek of which we know the date is káparov, Ktesias's namo in Kosmas Indikopl. ; conf. also Aristotle, de Part. An. for cinnainon, Herodctas describes cinnamon as the III, 2, and Hist. Anim. II, 1; and also Philostrat. Kápoea, which we, after the Phoenicians, call Kuvvácuor. Vit. Apoll. III, 2 and 3. Ælian's account in the above Liddell and Scott say "this word bears a curious likenes
