BOOK VII.] History of Nature. 1 79 



about that Cave out of which that Wind is said to issue, 

 which place they call Gesclithron, the Arimaspi are reported 

 to dwell, who, as we have said, 1 are distinguished by having 

 One Eye in the midst of their Forehead, and who are in 

 constant War about the Mines with the Griffins, 2 a flying 

 kind of Wild Beasts, which used to fetch Gold out of the 

 Veins of those Mines ; which savage Beasts (as many Authors 

 have recorded, and particularly Herodotus and Aristeas the 

 Proconnesian, two Writers of greatest Name) strive as 

 eagerly to keep the Gold as the Arimaspi to snatch it from 

 them. Above those other Scythians called Anthropophagi, 

 there is a Country named Abarimon, within a certain 

 extensive Valley of the Mountain Imaus, in which are 

 Wild Men, wandering about among brute Beasts, and 

 having their Feet directed backward behind the Calves 

 of their Legs, but able to run very swiftly. This kind 

 of Men cannot live in any other Climate than their own, 

 which is the reason that they cannot be conveyed to the 

 Kings that border upon them ; nor could they be brought 

 to Alexander the Great, as Beton hath reported, who was 

 the Surveyor of the Journeys of that Prince. The former 

 Anthropophagi whom we have placed in the North, Ten 

 Days' Journey above the River Borysthenes, are accustomed 

 to drink out of the Skulls of Men, and to wear the Skins 

 with the Hair for Mantles before their Breasts, according 

 to Isigonus the Nicean. The same Writer affirmeth, that 

 in Albania there are produced certain Individuals who have 

 the Sight of their Eyes of a bluish-grey Colour, who from 

 their Childhood are grey-headed, and can see better by 

 Night than by Day. He reporteth also that Ten Days' 

 Journey above the Borysthenes, there are the Sauromatse, 

 who never eat but once in Three Days. Crates of Per- 

 gamus saith, that in Hellespont about Pariuni there was 

 a kind of Men, whom he nameth Ophiogenes, who, if one 

 were stung by a Serpent, with touching only will ease it; 

 and if they lay their Hand upon the Wound, are able to 



1 Lib. iv. 12, and lib. vi. 17. 



* The griffins are again mentioned, book x. chap. 49. Wern. Club. 



