Thalia   

bear burthens very much better.
As the Greeks are well acquainted with the shape of the camel, I
shall not trouble to describe it; but I shall mention what seems to
have escaped their notice. The camel has in its hind legs four
thigh-bones and four knee-joints.
When the Indians therefore have thus equipped themselves they
set off in quest of the gold, calculating the time so that they may be
engaged in seizing it during the most sultry part of the day, when the
ants hide themselves to escape the heat. The sun in those parts shines
fiercest in the morning, not, as elsewhere, at noonday; the greatest
heat is from the time when he has reached a certain height, until
the hour at which the market closes. During this space he burns much
more furiously than at midday in Greece, so that the men there are
said at that time to drench themselves with water. At noon his heat is
much the same in India as in other countries, after which, as the
day declines, the warmth is only equal to that of the morning sun
elsewhere. Towards evening the coolness increases, till about sunset
it becomes very cold.
When the Indians reach the place where the gold is, they fill
their bags with the sand, and ride away at their best speed: the ants,
however, scenting them, as the Persians say, rush forth in pursuit.
Now these animals are, they declare, so swift, that there is nothing
in the world like them: if it were not, therefore, that the Indians
get a start while the ants are mustering, not a single gold-gatherer
could escape. During the flight the male camels, which are not so
fleet as the females, grow tired, and begin to drag, first one, and
then the other; but the females recollect the young which they have
left behind, and never give way or flag. Such, according to the
Persians, is the manner in which the Indians get the greater part of
their gold; some is dug out of the earth, but of this the supply is
more scanty.
It seems as if the extreme regions of the earth were blessed by
nature with the most excellent productions, just in the same way
that Greece enjoys a climate more excellently tempered than any
other country. In India, which, as I observed lately, is the
furthest region of the inhabited world towards the east, all the
four-footed beasts and the birds are very much bigger than those found
elsewhere, except only the horses, which are surpassed by the Median
breed called the Nisaean. Gold too is produced there in vast
abundance, some dug from the earth, some washed down by the rivers,
some carried off in the mode which I have but now described. And
further, there are trees which grow wild there, the fruit whereof is a
wool exceeding in beauty and goodness that of sheep. The natives
make their clothes of this tree-wool.
Arabia is the last of inhabited lands towards the south, and it is
the only country which produces frankincense, myrrh, cassia, cinnamon,
and ledanum. The Arabians do not get any of these, except the myrrh,
without trouble. The frankincense they procure by means of the gum
styrax, which the Greeks obtain from the Phoenicians; this they
burn, and thereby obtain the spice. For the trees which bear the
frankincense are guarded by winged serpents, small in size, and of
varied colours, whereof vast numbers hang about every tree. They are
of the same kind as the serpents that invade Egypt; and there is
nothing but the smoke of the styrax which will drive them from the
trees.
The Arabians say that the whole world would swarm with these
serpents, if they were not kept in check in the way in which I know
that vipers are. Of a truth Divine Providence does appear to be, as
indeed one might expect beforehand, a wise contriver. For timid
animals which are a prey to others are all made to produce young
abundantly, that so the species may not be entirely eaten up and lost;
while savage and noxious creatures are made very unfruitful. The hare,
for instance, which is hunted alike by beasts, birds, and men,
breeds so abundantly as even to superfetate, a thing which is true