BOOK VII. II. 21-24 



are of such height that sonietimes a single section 

 between two knots will niake a canoe that will carry 

 ihree people. Itisknown that many of the inhabitants 

 are more tlian seven feet six inches high, never spit, do 

 not suffer from headache or toothache or pain in the 

 eyes, and very rarely have a pain in any other part 

 of the body — so hardy are they made by the temper- 

 ate heat of the sun ; and that the sages of their race, 

 whom they call Gymnosophists, stay standing from 

 sunrise to sunset, gazing at the sun with eyes un- 

 mo\ing, and contiime all dav long standing first on 

 one foot and then on the other in the glowing sand. 

 Megasthenes states that on the moimtain named 

 Nulus there are people with their feet turned back- 

 wards and with eight toes on each foot, while on 

 many of the mountains there is a tribe of human 

 beings with dogs' heads, who wear a covering of wild 

 bea>ts' skins, whose spcech is a bark and who hve 

 on the produce of hunting and fowling, for which they 

 use their nails as weapons ; he says that they 

 numbered more than 120,000 when he pubhshed his 

 work. Ctesias writes that also among a certain 

 race of India the women bear chiklren only once in 

 their hfe-time, and the children begin to turn grey 

 directly after birtli ; he also describes a tribe of men 

 called the Monocoh" who have only one leg, and who 

 move in jumps with surprising speed ; the same are 

 called the Umbrella-foot tribe, because in the hotter 

 weather they he on thcir backs on the ground and 

 protect themselves with the shadow of their feet ; 

 and that they are not far away from the Cave- 

 dwellers ; and again westward from these there are 

 some people without necks, having their eyes in 

 their shouklcrs. There are also satyrs* in the 



521 



