Chap. 3.] 
MARYELLOUS BIRTHS. 
135 
twenty days* journey from the ocean. These people are called 
Menismini ; they live on the milk of the animal which we call 
cynocephalus/ and rear large flocks of these creatures, taking 
care to kill the males, except such as they may preserve for the 
purpose of breeding. In the deserts of Africa, men are fre- 
quently seen to all appearance, and then vanish in an instant.^ 
IS'ature, in her ingenuity, has created all these marvels in the 
human race, with others of a similar nature, as so many amuse- 
raents to herself, though they appear miraculous to us. But 
who is there that can enumerate all the things that she brings 
to pass each day, I may almost say each hour ? As a striking 
evidence of her power, let it be sufficient for me to have cited 
whole nations in the list of her prodigies. 
Let us now proceed to mention some other particulars con- 
nected with Man, the truth of which is universally admitted. 
CHAP. 3. — MAEVELLOUS BIETHS. 
(3.) That three children are sometimes produced at one birth, is 
a well-known fact ; the case, for instance, of the Horatii and 
the Curiatii. Where a greater number of children than this is 
produced at one birth, it is looked upon as portentous, except, 
indeed, in Egypt, where the water of the river Mle, which is 
used for drink, is a promoter of fecundity.^ Very recently, 
towards the close of the reign of the Emperor Augustus, now 
deified, a certain woman of the lower orders, at Ostia, whose 
name was Eausta, brought into the world, at one birth, two 
male children and two females, a presage, no doubt, of the fa- 
mine which shortly after took place. "We find it stated, also, 
that in Peloponnesus, a woman was delivered of five*^ chil- 
dren at a birth four successive times, and that the greater part 
of all these children survived. Trogus informs us, that in 
* Or dog's-headed ape, the baboon : see B. vL c. 35, and Note 70, 
p. 130. 
5 Perhaps these appearances may be referred to effects of what is termed 
mirage," a phenomenon which is described by travellers in different parts 
of the torrid zone. — B. And in the temperate regions as well ; Switzer- 
land and the Hartz mountains, for instance. 
6 Columella, B. viii. c. 8, speaks of the fecundity of the Egyptians, but 
without ascribing any particular cause for it. — B. 
" Quinos.'* The old reading was " binos," " two " children only ^ 
but Aristotle, in reference, no doubt, to the same circumstance, says, Hist. 
