360 PLrST"S NATURAL HISTOKT. [Book IX. 



long : here also are found crav-fish'- four cubits in length, and 

 in the river Ganges there are to be seen eels three hundred ^^ 

 feet long. But at sea it is more especially about the time of 

 the solstices that these monsters are to be seen. For then 

 it is that in these regions the whirlwind comes sweeping on, 

 the rains de^c-end. the hurricane comes rushing down, hurled 

 from the mountain heights, while the sea is stirred up from the 

 very bottom, and the monsters are driven from their depths 

 and rolled upwards on the crest of the billow. At other times 

 again, there are such vast multitudes of tunnies met with, that 

 the fleet of Alexander the Great was able to make head against 

 them only by facing them in order of battle, just as it would 

 have done an enemy's fleet. Had the ships not done this, 

 but proceeded in a straggling manner, they could not possibly 

 have made their escape. Xo noises, no sounds, no blows had 

 any efi^ec-t on these fish ; by nothing short of the clash of battle 

 were they to be terrified, and by nothing less than their utter 

 destruction were they overpowered. 



There is a lai'ge peninsula in the Eed Sea^ known by the 

 name of Cadara :^- as it projects into the deep it forms a vast 

 guif^ which it took the fleet of King Ptolemy ^^ twelve whole 

 days and nights to traverse by dint of rowing, for not a breath 

 of wind was to be perceived. In the recesses of this be- 

 calmed spot more particularly, the sea-monsters attain so vast 

 a size that they are quite unable to move. The comman- 

 ders of the fleets of Alexander the Great have related that 

 the Gedrosi,^* who dwell upon the banks of the river Ara- 



hodj. Hardouin says that it was a fish of the cetaceous kind, found in the 

 Indian stas, which, in his time, was known by some as the '• vivella," with 

 a lon^ bony muzzle serrated on either side, evidently meaning the saw- 

 fish. Pristis was a faTourite name given by the Eomans to their ships. 

 In the boat-race described by Virgil in the /F.neid, B. v., one of the boats 

 is so called. 



-'- Cnvier remarks, that he himself had often seen the " langouste," or 

 large lobster, as much as four feet in length, and the •• homard." usually a 

 smaller kind, of an equal size. The length, however, given by Pliny 

 would make six or eight feet, according to the length of the cubit. 



1- Cuvier says, that it is an exaggeration by travellers, which there is 

 nothing in nature at all to justify. Probably, however, some animals of 

 the genus boa, or python, or large water-snakes may have given rise to 

 the story. 



^ On the southern coast of Arabia. ^^ Ptolemy PhiladelphtLs. 



^* See B. vi. c. 23, 2-5. Strabo, in his fifteenth Book, teils the same story 

 of the Ichthyophagi, situate between the CannanL and the Oritur. Dale- 



