Page:Ancient India as described by Megasthenês and Arrian.djvu/115

 96 This they sell to any trader they meet with|| while it is still in the state of ore, for the art of fusing metals is unknown to them.^ FftAGM. XL. Arr. Ind, XV..5.7. (See the tmnslatioii of Arrian's Indika.) [Fragm. XL. B.] Dio Chrysost. Or. 35,— p. 436, Morell. Of Ants which dig for gold, (Of. Fragm. XXXIV. and XL.) They get the gold from ants. These creatures are larger than foxes, bnt are in other respects like the ants of our own country. They dig holes in the earth like other ants. The heap which they throw up consists of gold the purest and brightest in all the world. The mounds are piled up close to each other in regular order like hillocks of gold dust, whereby all the plain is made effulgent. It is difficult, therefore, to look towards the sun, and many who have at- tempted to do this have thereby destroyed their eyesight. The people who are next neighbours to the ants, with a view to plunder these heaps, cross the intervening desert, which is of no great extent, mounted on wagons to which they have yoked their swiftest horses. They arrive at noon, a time when the ants have gone underground, and at II T© Tvx^vTi Totv c/Li7r<$po>p. If the different reading Tov Tvx6vTos Tols e/iTTopoif bo adopted, the rendering is, " They dispose of it to merchants at any price." f Cf. Herod. III. 102-105 ; Arrian, Anab. V.4. 7 ; -ffilian, Hist Arwm, III. 4; Clem. Alex. VcBd. II. p. 207; Tzetz. Chil. XII. 330-340 ; Plin. Hist. Nat. XI. 36, XXXIII. 21 ; . Propert. III. 13. 5 j Pomp. Mel. VII. 2 ; Isidor. Orig. XII. 3 ; Albert Mag. De Animal. T. VI. p. 678, ex subdititiis Alexandri epistolis; Anonym. De Monstris ct BelluiSt 269, ed. Berger de Xivroy ; Philostratus, Vit. Apollon. VI. 1 ; and Heliodorus, ^th. X. 26, p. 495 ; also Gildemcister, Script. Arab, de reh. Ind. p. 220-221, and 120; Busbequius, Lega* tionis TurcicoB Epist. IV. pp. 144, or Thaunua XXIV. 7, p. 809.— Schwanbeck, p. 72. Digitized by Google