Greek Texts & Translations

ing to Onesicritus, four hundred horsemen might take shelter at mid-day beneath the shade of a single tree.

Aristobulus mentions another tree, not large, bearing great pods, like the bean, ten fingers in length, full of honey, ^note and says that those who eat it do not easily escape with life. But the accounts of all these writers about the size of the trees have been exceeded by those who assert that there has been seen, beyond the Hyarotis, ^note a tree which casts a shade at noon of five stadia.

Aristobulus says of the wool-bearing trees, that the flower pod contains a kernel, which is taken out, and the remainder is combed like wool. 22

In the country of Musicanus there grows, he says, spontaneously grain resembling wheat, and a vine that produces wine, whereas other authors affirm that there is no wine in India. Hence, according to Anacharsis, they had no pipes, nor any musical instruments, except cymbals, drums, and crotala, which were used by jugglers.

Both Aristobulus and other writers relate that India produces many medicinal plants and roots, both of a salutary and noxious quality, and plants yielding a variety of colours. He adds, that, by a law, any person discovering a deadly substance is punished with death unless he also discover an antidote; in case he discovers an antidote, he is rewarded by the king.

Southern India, like Arabia and Ethiopia, produces cinnamon, nard, and other aromatics. It resembles these countries as regards the effect of the sun's rays, but it surpasses them in having a copious supply of water, whence the atmosphere is humid, and on this account more conducive to fertility and fecundity; and this applies to the earth and to the water, hence those animals which inhabit both one and the other are of a larger size than are found in other countries. The Nile contributes to fecundity more than other rivers, and among other animals of large bulk, produces the amphibious kind. The Egyptian women also sometimes have four children at a birth, and Aristotle says that one woman had seven children at one birth. ^note He calls the Nile most fecundating and nutritive, on