Page:History of India Vol 9.djvu/62

 36 ACCOUNT OF INDIA BY STKABO said before, that a horse and an elephant are the prop- erty of kings alone. This writer says that he saw skins of the myrmekes, or ants, which dig up gold, and that they are like the skins of leopards. Megasthenes, however, speaking of the myrmekes, says that among the Derdai (Dards), a populous nation of the Indians, living toward the east and among the mountains, there was a mountain plain of about three thousand stadia in circumference; that under this plain there were mines containing gold, which the myrmekes, in size not less than foxes, dig up. These animals are excessively fleet, and subsist on what they catch. In winter they dig holes and pile up the earth in heaps, like moles, at the mouths of the open- ings. The gold-dust which these creatures obtain re- quires little refining. The people of the neighbourhood go after it stealthily with beasts of burden, for if this is done openly, the myrmekes fight furiously, pursuing those that run away, and if they catch them, kill them as well as the beasts. In order to prevent discovery, therefore, they put pieces of the flesh of wild beasts in different places, and when the myrmekes are dispersed in various directions, the men take away the gold-dust and dispose of it in its rude state at any price to mer- chants, for they are not acquainted with the mode of smelting it. Having mentioned what Megasthenes and other writers relate of the hunters and the beasts of prey, we shall add the following particulars. Nearchos is surprised at the multitude as well as