Page:Roman History of Ammianus Marcellinus.djvu/368



10. Then after proceeding fourteen miles further we came to a certain spot where the soil is fertilized by the abundance of water. But as the Persians had learnt that we should advance by this road, they removed the dams, and allowed the waters to flood the country.

11. The ground being thereby, for a great distance, reduced to the state of a marsh, the emperor gave the soldiers the next day for rest, and advancing in front himself, constructed a number of little bridges of bladders, and coracles made of skins, and rafts of palm-tree timber, and thus led his army across, though not without difficulty.

12.  In this region many of the fields are planted with vineyards and various kinds of fruit trees; and palm-trees grow there over a great extent of country, reaching as far as Mesene and the ocean, forming great groves. And wherever any one goes he sees continual stocks and suckers of palms, from the fruit of which abundance of honey and wine is made, and the palms themselves are said to be divided into male and female, and it is added that the two sexes can be easily distinguished.

13. They say further that the female trees produce fruit when impregnated by the seeds of the male trees, and even that they feel delight in their mutual love: and that this is clearly shown by the fact that they lean towards one another, and cannot be bent back even by strong winds—and if by any unusual accident a female tree is not impregnated by the male seed, it produces nothing but imperfect fruit, and if they cannot find out with what male tree any female tree is in love, they smear the trunk of some tree with the oil which proceeds from her, and then some other tree naturally conceives a fondness for the odour; and these proofs create some belief in the story of their copulation.

1.4. The army then, having sated itself with these fruits, passed by several islands, and instead of the scarcity which they apprehended, the fear arose that they would become too fat. At last, after having been attacked by an ambuscade of the enemy's archers, but having avenged themselves well, they came to a spot where the larger portion of the Euphrates is divided into a number of small streams.