BOOK VII. II. 24-26 



mountains in the east of India (it is called the 

 district of the Catarcludi) ; this is an extremely 

 swift animal, sometimes going on all fours and some- 

 times standing upright as they run, Uke human 

 beings ; because of their specd only the old ones 

 or the sick are caught. Tauron gives the name of 

 Choromandae to a forest tribe that has no speech but 

 a horrible scream, hairy bodics, keen grey eyes and 

 the teeth of a dog. Eudoxus savs that in the south 

 of India men have feet eighteen inches long and the 

 women such small feet that they are called Sparrow- 

 feet. Megasthenes tells of a race among the Nomads 

 of India that has only holes in the place of nostrils, 

 hke snakes, and bandy-legged ; they are called the 

 Sciritae. At the extreme boundary of India to the 

 East, near the source of the Ganges, he puts the Astomi 

 tribe, that has no mouth and a body hairy all over; 

 thev dress in cottonwool and Uve only on the air they 

 breathe and the scent they inhale through their 

 nostrils ; thcy have no food or drink except the difFer- 

 ent odours of the roots and flowers and wild apples, 

 which they carry with them on their longer journeys 

 so as not to lack a supply of scent ; he says they can 

 easily be kiUed by a rather stronger odour than 

 usual. Beyond these in the most outl^nng mountain 

 region we are told of the Three-span men and Pygmies, 

 who do not exceed three spans, i.e. twenty-seven 

 inches, in height ; the cUmate is healthy and always 

 spring-Uke, as it is protected on tlie north by a range 

 of mountains ; this tribe Homer " has also recorded 

 as being beset by cranes. It is reported that in 

 springtime their entire band, mountcd on the backs 

 of rams and she-goats and armed with arrows, goes 

 in a body down to the sea and eats the cranes' eggs 



523 



