herodotus

sides of mountains, which man can find no means of scaling. Withregard to this then the Arabians practise the following contrivance:--they divide up the limbs of the oxen and asses that die and of theirother beasts of burden, into pieces as large as convenient, and conveythem to these places, and when they have laid them down not far fromthe nests, they withdraw to a distance from them: and the birds flydown and carry the limbs[100] of the beasts of burden off to theirnests; and these are not able to bear them, but break down and fall tothe earth; and the men come up to them and collect the cinnamon. Thuscinnamon is collected and comes from this nation to the othercountries of the world. 112. Gum-mastich however, which the Arabianscall /ladanon/, comes in a still more extraordinary manner; for thoughit is the most sweet-scented of all things, it comes in the most evilscentedthing, since it is found in the beards of he-goats, producedthere like resin from wood: this is of use for the making of manyperfumes, and the Arabians use it more than anything else as incense.113. Let what we have said suffice with regard to spices; and from theland of Arabia there blows a scent of them most marvellously sweet.They have also two kinds of sheep which are worthy of admiration andare not found in any other land: the one kind has the tail long, notless than three cubits in length; and if one should allow these todrag these after them, they would have sores[101] from their tailsbeing worn away against the ground; but as it is, every one of theshepherds knows enough of carpentering to make little cars, which theytie under the tails, fastening the tail of each animal to a separatelittle car. The other kind of sheep has the tail broad, even as muchas a cubit in breadth.114. As one passes beyond the place of the midday, the Ethiopian landis that which extends furthest of all inhabited lands towards thesunset. This produces both gold in abundance and huge elephants andtrees of all kinds growing wild and ebony, and men who are of all menthe tallest, the most beautiful and the most long-lived.115. These are the extremities in Asia and in Libya; but as to theextremities of Europe towards the West, I am not able to speak withcertainty: for neither do I accept the tale that there is a rivercalled in Barbarian tongue Eridanos, flowing into the sea which liestowards the North Wind, whence it is said that amber comes; nor do Iknow of the real existence of "Tin Islands"[102] from which tin[103]comes to us: for first the name Eridanos itself declares that it isHellenic and that it does not belong to a Barbarian speech, but wasinvented by some poet; and secondly I am not able to hear from any onewho has been an eye-witness, though I took pains to discover this,that there is a sea on the other side of Europe. However that may be,tin and amber certainly come to us from the extremity of Europe. 116.