For That Is
The Number Of Months Which Are Found By Reckoning To Be Spent In Going
From Elephantine To These "Deserters":
And the river runs from the
West and the setting of the sun.
But what comes after that point no
one can clearly say; for this land is desert by reason of the burning
heat. This much however I heard from men of Kyrene, who told me that
they had been to the Oracle of Ammon, and had come to speech with
Etearchos king of the Ammonians: and it happened that after speaking
of other matters they fell to discourse about the Nile and how no one
knew the sources of it; and Etearchos said that once there came to him
men of the Nasamonians (this is a Libyan race which dwells in the
Syrtis, and also in the land to the East of the Syrtis reaching to no
great distance), and when the Nasamonians came and were asked by him
whether they were able to tell him anything more than he knew about
the desert parts of Libya, they said that there had been among them
certain sons of chief men, who were of unruly disposition; and these
when they grew up to be men had devised various other extravagant
things and also they had told off by lot five of themselves to go to
see the desert parts of Libya and to try whether they could discover
more than those who had previously explored furthest: for in those
parts of Libya which are by the Northern Sea, beginning from Egypt and
going as far as the headland of Soloeis, which is the extreme point of
Libya, Libyans (and of them many races) extend along the whole coast,
except so much as the Hellenes and Phenicians hold; but in the upper
parts, which lie above the sea-coast and above those people whose land
comes down to the sea, Libya is full of wild beasts; and in the parts
above the land of wild beasts it is full of sand, terribly waterless
and utterly desert. These young men then (said they), being sent out
by their companions well furnished with supplies of water and
provisions, went first through the inhabited country, and after they
had passed through this they came to the country of wild beasts, and
after this they passed through the desert, making their journey
towards the West Wind; and having passed through a great tract of sand
in many days, they saw at last trees growing in a level place; and
having come up to them, they were beginning to pluck the fruit which
was upon the trees: but as they began to pluck it, there came upon
them small men, of less stature than men of the common size, and these
seized them and carried them away; and neither could the Nasamonians
understand anything of their speech nor could those who were carrying
them off understand anything of the speech of the Nasamonians; and
they led them (so it was said) through very great swamps, and after
passing through these they came to a city in which all the men were in
size like those who carried them off and in colour of skin black; and
by the city ran a great river, which ran from the West towards the
sunrising, and in it were seen crocodiles.
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