300 Jeurnal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal. [August, 1912. 
that the natives would not discover to him the remedies they 
used against the evil.! 
It is worth remarking that, according to Pliny, these reme- 
dies were chiefly resorted to in distant journeys: that they 
proved beneficial, according to Strabo, ‘‘ especially in a camp.” 
Unless we greatly mistake, we have here an allusion to mer- 
chant caravans, or to military expeditions, wending their way 
across the Himalayan passes. 
Raverty draws attention to the fact that the Buddhist pil- 
grims Hwui Seng and Sung Yun, who visited the Karakoruin 
Range in 518 a.D., speak of the Th’sung Ling or Onion Moun- 
tains, whence he infers that the range took its name from the 
use of onions against breath-seizure. 
We believe that the earliest known allusion to the use of 
‘wild apples’’ [fruits ? onions ?], roots and flowers against 
height-sickness belongs to Megasthenes. The fact that some 
hill-tribes used in their travels fruits of which they inhaled the 
perfume. lest ‘‘ the foul air should kill them,’’ seems then to 
have led to the idea that they subsisted on nothing else. 
‘They ate nothing and drank nothing.’’ From this to the 
pear credible enough that some of those wild men ‘* who had no 
mouths” were actually brought to the Court of Chandragupta 
at Pataliputra, and that they were found to be tame! 
Plutarch uses an amusing argument to pooh-pooh the story 
of the Astomoi. ‘‘ For, how could one find growing there that 
‘Indian root which Megasthenes says, a race of men who 
‘ neither eat nor drink, and in fact have no mouths, set on fire 
‘* and burn like incense, in order to sustain their existence with 
**its odorous fumes, unless it received moisture from the 
“* moon.’ * 
Strabo, Plutarch and others were mistaken when they 
thought that the fabulous stories of Megasthenes were the in- 
ventions of his imaginative brain. They were traditions cur- 
rent among the Aryan Indians, by which ‘‘ they gave a very 
‘* pointed expression to their proud sense of their own superi- 


1 Cf. Puri, op. cit., xvii—xix. Both Marco della Tomba and 
Desideri, especially the latter, give very sensible explanations of the 
causes of this unhealthiness of the Tarai. . 
2 Cf. As. ng., 1895, p. 95. 
* Cf. SchwanBeck, Fragm. xxxt; McCrinpiE, Ancient India as 
described by Megasthenes op. cit., pp. 82-3. I have not been able 
find out whether natives of the Himalayas do set fire to herbs against. 
breath-seizure. 
