Page:Ancient India as described by Megasthenês and Arrian.djvu/101

 82 Megasthends calUhem M a n d i,^ and reckon tHe number of their villages at tliree hundred. The females bear children at the age of seven, and are old women at forty.* Fragm. XXX.B. Solin. 52. 26-30. Near a mountain which is called Nulo there live men whose feet are turned backwards and have eight toes on each foot. Megasthenis writes that on different mountains in India there are tribes of men with dog- shaped heads, armed with claws, clothed with skins, who speak not in the accents of human language, but only bark, and have fierce grinning jaws. [In Ktesias we read that in some parts the females bear offspring but once, and that the children are white-haired from their birth, &c.] Those who live near the source of the Ganges, requiring nothing in the shape of food, subsist on the odour of wild apples, and when they go on a long journey they carry these with them for safety of their life, which they can support by inhaling their perfume. Should they inhale very foul air, death is inevitable. Fragm. XXXI. Plutarch, de facie in oYhe lunoe. (0pp. ed. Beisk, torn. ix. p. 701.) Of the race of men without mouths, ^ For how could one find growing there that % Possibly we should read Pftndai, unless perhaps Megaathen^s referred to the inhabitants of Mount M a n- dar a. • Conf. Fragm. L. 1, LI. t Conf. Fragm. XXIX. 6, XXX. 8. Digitized by Google