Page:The Periplus of the Erythræan Sea.djvu/146

 rest of the body is of a purple color; except the tail, which is azure, with long feathers intermingled of a roseate hue; the throat is adorned with a crest, and the head with a tuft of feathers.... It is sacred to the sun.... When old it builds a nest of cinnamon and sprigs of incense, which it fills with perfumes, and then lays its body upon them to die. From its bones and marrow there spring a small worm, which changes into a little bird; the first thing it does is to perform the obsequies of its predecessor, and to carry the nest entire to the City of the Sun near Panchaia, and there deposit it upon the altar of that divinity. The revolution of the great year is completed with the life of this bird, and a new cycle comes round with the same characteristics as the former one, in the seasons and appearance of the stars."

Seyffarth has supposed this to refer to the passage of Mercury every 625 years, and Glaser connects the legend with the hawk-faced Egyptian god Horus (Khor). Compare Job XXIX, 18: "Then I said, I shall die in my nest, and I shall multiply my days as the Phoenix" (Khor or Khol). The bird came from an Arabian land, hence his name from the people thereof; just as the Greeks gave the same name phoinix to the date-palm, native in that land; which may be assumed to have been the southern shore of the Persian Gulf, whence convulsions of nature, climatic or political changes, drove its inhabitants in opposite directions, carrying their culture with them and duplicating Persian Gulf place-names continuously in the Mediterranean and Erythraean Seas. (See the introduction Ueber die Völker und Sprachen Afrikas in Lepsius' Nubische Grammatik; Glaser, Punt und die Südarabischen Reich, and the reports of the Austrian South Arabian Expedition.)

30. Great lizards, of which the flesh is eaten.—These are probably Varanus niloticus, family Varanidae, order Lacertilia, native throughout the African region, and attaining a length of more than five feet. Another species, V. salvator, while somewhat larger, seems to be native only in India and farther east. The flesh of all the Varanidae, although offensive to the smell, is eaten by the natives, and considered equal to that of fowls. The name Varanus is from the Arabic Ouaran, lizard; which by a mistaken resemblance to the English "warn" has been rendered into a popular Latin name, Monitor. (Cambridge Natural History, VIII, 542–5.)

30. Tortoise.—It is uncertain what species are meant. The tortoise-shell of commerce is from Chelone imbricata, family Chelonidae, the so-called "hawks-bill" turtle, found in all tropical waters, but seldom reaching a length of more than thirty inches. This is a "true