The Country, For The Most Part, Is So
Desolate, That The Natives Have No Addition To Their Fish But Dates:
In
some few places a small quantity of grain is sown; and there bread is their
viand of luxury, and fish stands in the rank of bread.
The generality of
the people live in cabins, small and stifling: the better sort only have
houses constructed with the bones of whales, for whales are frequently
thrown upon the coast; and, when the flesh is rotted off, they take the
bones, making planks and doors of such as are flat, and beams or rafters of
the ribs or jaw-bones; and many of these monsters are found fifty yards in
length." Strabo confirms the report of Arrian, and adds, that "the
vertebrae, or socket bones, of the back, are formed into mortars, in which
they pound their fish, and mix it up into a paste, with the addition of a
little meal." - (Vincent's Nearchus, p. 265.)
Dr. Vincent, in this passage, does not seem to be aware that no whale was
ever found nearly so long as fifty yards, and that half that length is the
more common size of the largest whales, even in seas more suitable to their
nature and growth. That the animal which Nearchus himself saw was a whale,
there can be little doubt: while he was off Kyiza, the seamen were
extremely surprised, and not a little alarmed, at perceiving the sea
agitated and thrown up, as Arrian expresses it, as if it were forcibly
lifted up by a whirlwind.
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