Читать книгу The Natural History of Pliny (Vol. 1-6) - Pliny the Elder - Страница 199

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If we pass through the interior of Africa in a southerly direction, beyond the Gætuli, after having traversed the intervening deserts, we shall find, first of all the Liby-Egyptians3470, and then the country where the Leucæthiopians3471 dwell. Beyond3472 these are the Nigritæ3473, nations of Æthiopia, so called from the river Nigris3474, which has been previously mentioned, the Gymnetes3475, surnamed Pharusii, and, on the very margin of the ocean, the Perorsi3476, whom we have already spoken of as lying on the boundaries of Mauritania. After passing all these peoples, there are vast deserts towards the east until we come to the Garamantes, the Augylæ, and the Troglodytæ; the opinion of those being exceedingly well founded who place two Æthiopias beyond the deserts of Africa, and more particularly that expressed by Homer3477, who tells us that the Æthiopians are divided into two nations, those of the east and those of the west. The river Nigris has the same characteristics as the Nile; it produces the calamus, the papyrus, and just the same animals, and it rises at the same seasons of the year. Its source is between the Tarrælian Æthiopians and the Œcalicæ. Magium, the city of the latter people, has been placed by some writers amid the deserts, and, next to them the Atlantes; then the Ægipani, half men, half beasts, the Blemmyæ3478, the Gamphasantes, the Satyri, and the Himantopodes.

The Atlantes3479, if we believe what is said, have lost all characteristics of humanity; for there is no mode of distinguishing each other among them by names, and as they look upon the rising and the setting sun, they give utterance to direful imprecations against it, as being deadly to themselves and their lands; nor are they visited with dreams3480, like the rest of mortals. The Troglodytæ make excavations in the earth, which serve them for dwellings; the flesh of serpents is their food; they have no articulate voice, but only utter a kind of squeaking noise3481; and thus are they utterly destitute of all means of communication by language. The Garamantes have no institution of marriage among them, and live in promiscuous concubinage with their women. The Augylæ worship no deities3482 but the gods of the infernal regions. The Gamphasantes, who go naked, and are unacquainted with war3483, hold no intercourse whatever with strangers. The Blemmyæ are said to have no heads, their mouths and eyes being seated in their breasts. The Satyri3484, beyond their figure, have nothing in common with the manners of the human race, and the form of the Ægipani3485 is such as is commonly represented in paintings. The Himantopodes3486 are a race of people with feet resembling thongs, upon which they move along by nature with a serpentine, crawling kind of gait. The Pharusii, descended from the ancient Persians, are said to have been the companions of Hercules when on his expedition to the Hesperides. Beyond the above, I have met with nothing relative to Africa3487 worthy of mention.