BOOK IX. II. 7-iv. lo 



out on to the land in that country and after grazing 

 on the roots of bushes return ; and there are some with 

 the heads of horses, asses and bulls that eat up the 

 crops. 



III. The largest animals in the Indian Ocean are 

 the shark and the whale ; the largest in the Bay of 

 Biscay is the sperm-whale, which rears up Hke a 

 vast pillar higher than a ship's rigging and belches 

 out a sort of deluge ; the largest in the Gulf of Cadiz 

 is the tree-polypus, which spreads out such vast 

 branches that it is beheved never to have entered the 

 Straits of Gibraltar because of this. The creatures 

 called Wheels from their resemblance to a wheel 

 also put in an appearance, these radiating in four 

 spokes, with their nave terminating in two eyes, one 

 on each side. 



IV. An embassy from Lisbon sent for the pui-pose Tritons, 

 reported to the Emperor Tiberius that a Triton had aquatic "" 

 been seen and heard playing on a shell in a certain monstert. 

 cave, and that he had the well-known shape. The 

 description of the Nereids also is not incorrect, except 



that their body is bristling with hair even in the 

 parts where they have human shape ; for a Nereid 

 has been seen on the same coast, whose mournful 

 song moreover when dying has been heard a long 

 way off by the coast-dwellers ; also the Governor of 

 Gaul wrote to the late lamented Augustus that a large 

 number of dead Nereids were to be seen on the shore. 

 I have distinguished members of the Order of Knight- 

 hood as authorities for the statement that a man of the 

 sea has been seen by them in the Gulf of Cadiz, with 

 complete resemblance to a human being in every 

 part of his body, and that he chmbs on board ships 

 during the hours of the night and the side of the 



169 



