BOOK II. xcvi. 209-xcviii. 211 



Cutilia whicli is never to be seen in the same place 

 by day and by night, the islands in Lydia named 

 the Reed Islands which are not only driven by the 

 winds, but can be punted in any direction at pleasure 

 with poles, and so served to rescue a number of the 

 citizens in the Mithridatic war. There are also small 

 islands at Nymphaeum " called the Dancing Islands, 

 because they move to the foot-beats of persons 

 keeping time with the chanting of a choral song. On 

 the great lake of Tarquinii in Italy two islands 

 float about carrying woods, their outhne as the winds 

 drive them forward now forming the shape of a 

 triangle and now of a circle, but never a square. 



XC\^II. Paphos possesses a famous shrine o( foeaimrth 

 Venus on a certain court in which rain does not fall, """*'^"- 

 and the same in the case round an image of Minerva 

 at the town of Nea in the Troad ; in the same town 

 also saci-ifices left over do not go bad. XCVIII. Near 

 the town of Harpasa in Asia stands a jagged rock 

 that can be moved with one finger, but that also 

 resists a push made with the whole body. On the 

 peninsula of Tauri in the state of Parasinum there is 

 some earth which heals all Mounds. But in the 

 neighbourhood of Assos in the Troad a stone is 

 produced that causes all bodies to waste away ; 

 it is called the Flesh-eater. There are two moun- 

 tains near the river Indus, the nature of one of which 

 is to hold all iron and that of the other to reject it; 

 consequently if a man has nails in his shoes, on one 

 of the mountains at each step he is unable to tear 

 his foot away from the ground and on the other he 

 cannot set it down on the ground. It is recorded 

 that at Locri and Croton there has never been a 

 plague or earthquake, and that in Lycia an earth- 



341 



