The histories of Herodotus;

no-US] ARABIA 195
very like bats, and they screech fearfully, and are exceedingly
fierce. These they keep off from their eyes, and so
gather the cassia. The cinnamon they collect in a still more
wonderful manner. Where it grows and what land produces
it, they are unable to tell ; except that some, giving a probable
account, say that it grows in those countries in which
Bacchus was nursed. And they say that large birds bring
those rolls of bark, which we, from the Phoenicians, call cinnamon,
the birds bring them for their nests, which are built
with clay, against precipitous mountains, where there is no
access for man. The Arabians, to surmount this difficulty,
have invented the following artifice : Having cut up into large
pieces the limbs of dead oxen, and asses, and other beasts
of burden, they carry them to these spots, and having laid
them near the nests, they retire to a distance. But the birds
flying down carry up the limbs of the beasts to their nests,
which not being strong enough to support the weight, break
and fall to the ground. Then the men, coming up, in this
manner gather the cinnamon, and being gathered by them
it reaches other countries. But the ledanum, which the Arabians
call ladanum, is still more wonderful than this; for
though it comes from a most stinking place, it is itself most
fragrant. For it is found sticking like gum to the beards of
he-goats, which collect it from the wood. It is useful for many
ointments, and the Arabians burn it very generally as a perfume.
It may suffice to have said thus much of these perfumes
; and there breathes from Arabia, as it were, a divine
odour. They have two kinds of sheep worthy of admiration,
which are seen nowhere else. One kind has large tails, not
less than three cubits in length, which, if suffered to trail, would
ulcerate, by the tails rubbing on the ground. But every shepherd
knows enough of the carpenter's art to prevent this, for
they make little carts and fasten them under the tails, binding
the tail of each separate sheep to a separate cart. The other
kind of sheep have broad tails, even to a cubit in breadth.
Where the meridian declines toward the setting sun, 1 the Ethiopian
territory reaches, being the extreme part of the habitable
world. It produces much gold, huge elephants, wild trees of
all kinds, ebony, and men of large stature, very handsome, and
long-lived.
These, then, are the extremities of Asia and Libya. Concerning
the western extremities of Europe I am unable to
speak with certainty, for I do not admit that there is a river,
called by barbarians Eridanus, which discharges itself into
1 That is, "southwest."