360 
PLINY' S NATUEAL HISTOllY. 
[Book IX. 
long : here also are found cray-fish^^ four cubits in length, and 
in the riyer Ganges there are to be seen eels three hundred 
feet long. But at sea it is more especially about the time of 
the solstices that these monsters are to be seen. Eor then 
it is that in these regions the whirlwind comes sweeping on, 
the rains descend, the hurricane comes rushing down, hurled 
from the mountain heights, while the sea is stirred up from the 
yery bottom, and the monsters are driven from their depths 
and rolled upwards on the crest of the billow. At other times 
again, there are such yast multitudes of tunnies met with, that 
the fleet of Alexander the Great was able to make head against 
them only by facing them in order of battle, just as it would 
have done an enemy's fleet. Had the ships not done this, 
but proceeded in a straggling manner, they could not possibly 
have made their escape. 'No noises, no sounds, no blows had 
any elfect on these fish ; by nothing short of the clash of battle 
were they to be terrified, and by nothing less than their utter 
destruction were they overpowered. 
There is a large peninsula in the Bed Be.a^ known by the 
name of Cadara as it projects into the deep it forms a vast 
gulf, which it took the fleet of King Ptolemy twelve whole 
days and nights to traverse by dint of rowing, for not a breath 
of wind was to be perceived. In the recesses of this be- 
calmed spot more particularly, the sea-monsters attain so vast 
a size that they are quite unable to move. The comman- 
ders of the fleets of Alexander the Great have related that 
the Gedrosi,^* who dwell upon the banks of the river Ara- 
body. Hardouin says that it was a fish of the cetaceous kind, found in the 
Indian seas, which, in his time, was knoAvnby some as the " vivella," with 
a long bony muzzle serrated on either side, evidently meaning the saw- 
fish. Pristis was a favourite name given by the Romans to their ships. 
In the boat-race described by Virgil in the JEneid, B. v., one of the boats 
is so called. 
1^ Cuvier remarks, that he himself had often seen the " langouste," or 
large lobster, as much as four feet in length, and the " homard," usually a 
smaller kind, of an equal size. The length, however, given by Pliny 
would make six or eight feet, according to the length of the cubit. 
11 Cuvier says, that it is an exaggeration by travellers, which there is 
nothing in nature at all to justify. Probably, liiowever, some animals of 
the genus boa, or python, or large water-snakes may have given rise to 
the story. 
12 On the southern coast of Arabia. i^ Ptolemy Philadelphus. 
1* See B. vi. c. 23, 25. Strabo, in his fifteenth Book, tells the same story 
of the Ichthyophagi, situate between the Carmani and the Oritae. .Dale- 
