THE TROCHILUS.
This is the nature of the crocodile:—During the four coldest months it eats nothing, and though it has four feet, it is amphibious. It lays its eggs on land, and there hatches them. It spends the greater part of the day on the dry ground, but the whole night in the river; for the water is then warmer than the air and dew. Of all living things with which we are acquainted, this, from the least beginning, grows to be the largest. For it lays eggs little larger than those of a goose, and the young is at first in proportion to the egg; but when grown up it reaches to the length of seventeen cubits (25½ feet), and even more. It has the eyes of a pig, large teeth, and projecting tusks: it is the only animal that has no tongue: it does not move the lower jaw, but is the only animal that brings down its upper jaw to the under one. It has strong claws, and a skin covered with scales, that cannot be broken on the back. It is blind in the water, but very quick-sighted on land; and because it lives for the most part in the water, its mouth is filled with leeches. All other birds and beasts avoid him, but he is at peace with the trochilus, because he receives benefit from that bird. For when the crocodile gets out of the water on land, and then opens its jaws, which it does most commonly toward the west, the trochilus enters its mouth and swallows the leeches: the crocodile is so well pleased with this service that it never hurts the trochilus. With some of the Egyptians crocodiles are sacred; with others not, but they treat them as enemies. Those who dwell about Thebes, and Lake Mœris consider them to be very sacred; and they each of them train up a crocodile, which is taught to be quite tame; and put crystal and gold ear-rings into their ears, and bracelets on their fore paws; they give them appointed and sacred food, and treat them as well as possible while alive, and when dead they embalm them, and bury them in sacred vaults. But the people who dwell about the city of Elephantine eat them, not considering them sacred. They are not called crocodiles by the Egyptians, but "champsæ"; the Ionians gave them the name of crocodiles, because they thought they resembled lizards, which are also so called, and which are found in the hedges of their country. The modes of taking the crocodile are many and various, but I shall only describe that which seems to me most worthy of relation. When the fisherman has baited a hook with the chine of a pig, he lets it down into the middle of the river, and holding a young live pig on the brink of the river, beats it; the crocodile, hearing the noise, goes in its direction, and meeting with the chine, swallows it, and the men draw it to land; when it is drawn out on shore, the sportsman first of all plasters its eyes with mud, after which he manages it very easily; but until he has done this, he has a great deal of trouble. The hippopotamus is esteemed sacred in the district of Papremis, but not so by the rest of the Egyptians. It is a quadruped, cloven-footed, with the hoofs of an ox, snub-nosed, has the mane of a horse, projecting tusks, and the tail and neigh of a horse. In size he is equal to a very large ox: his hide is so thick that spear-handles are made of it when dry. Otters are also met with in the river, which are deemed sacred; and amongst fish, they consider that which is called the lepidotus, and the eel, sacred; these they say are sacred to the Nile; and among birds, the vulpanser.
SPEARING THE CROCODILE.
There is also another sacred bird, called the phœnix, which I have never seen except in a picture; for it makes its appearance amongst them only once in five hundred years, as the Heliopolitans affirm: they say that it comes on the death of its sire. If he is like the picture, he is of the following size and description: the plumage of his wings is partly golden-colored, and partly red; in outline and size he is like an eagle. They tell this incredible story about him:—They say that he comes from Arabia, and brings the body of his father, enclosed in myrrh, to the temple of the sun, and there buries him in the temple. He brings him in this manner: first he moulds an egg of myrrh as large as he thinks himself able to carry; then he tries to carry it, and when he has made the experiment, he hollows out the egg, puts his parent into it, and stops up with some more myrrh the hole through which he introduced the body, so when his father is put inside, the weight is the same as before; then he carries him to the temple of the sun in Egypt.
In the neighborhood of Thebes there are sacred serpents not at all hurtful to men: they are diminutive in size, and carry two horns that grow on the top of the head. When these serpents die they bury them in the temple of Jupiter, for they say they are sacred to that God. There is a place in Arabia, situated very near the city of Buto, to which I went, on hearing of some winged serpents; there I saw bones and spines of serpents in such quantities as it would be impossible to describe: there were heaps upon heaps, some large, some smaller, scattered in a narrow pass between two mountains, which leads into a spacious plain, contiguous to the plain of Egypt: it is reported that at the beginning of spring, winged serpents fly from Arabia toward Egypt; but that ibises, a sort of bird, meet them at the pass, and do not allow the serpents to go by, but kill them: for this service the Arabians say that the ibis is highly reverenced by the Egyptians; and the Egyptians acknowledge it. The ibis is all over a deep black; it has the legs of a crane, its beak is much curved, and it is about the size of the crex. Such is the form of the black ones, that fight with the serpents. But those that are best known, for there are two species, are bare on the head and the whole neck, have white plumage, except on the head, the throat, and the tips of the wings and extremity of the tail; in all these parts they are of a deep black; in their legs and beak they are like the other kind. The form of the serpent is like that of the water-snake; but he has wings without feathers, and as like as possible to the wings of a bat. This must suffice for the description of sacred animals.
Of the Egyptians, those who inhabit that part of Egypt which is sown with corn, cultivate the memory of past events more than any other people, and are the best-informed men I ever met. Their manner of life is this: They purge themselves every month for three days successively, seeking to preserve health by emetics and clysters, for they suppose that all diseases to which men are subject proceed from the food they use. And indeed in other respects the Egyptians, next to the Libyans, are the most healthy people in the world, as I think, on account of the seasons, because they are not liable to change; for men are most subject to disease at periods of change, and above all others at the change of the seasons. They feed on bread made into loaves of spelt, which they call cyllestis; and they use wine made of barley, for they have no vines in that country. Some fish they dry in the sun and eat raw, others salted with brine; and of birds they eat quail, ducks, and smaller birds raw, salting them first. All other things, whether birds or fishes, that they have, except such as are accounted sacred, they eat either roasted or boiled. At their convivial banquets, among the wealthy classes, when they have finished supper, a man carries round in a coffin the image of a dead body carved in wood, made as perfect a counterfeit as possible in color and workmanship, and in size generally about one or two cubits in length; and showing this to each of the company, he says: "Look upon this, then drink and enjoy yourself; for when dead you will be like this."
They observe their ancient customs and acquire no new ones. Among other memorable customs they have just one song called "Linus," which is sung in Phœnicia, Cyprus, and elsewhere; in different nations it bears a different name, but it agrees almost exactly with the same which the Greeks sing, under the name of Linus. So that among the many wonderful things in Egypt, the greatest wonder of all is where they got this Linus; for they seem to have sung it from time immemorial. The "Linus" in the Egyptian language is called Maneros; and the Egyptians say that he was the only son of the first king of Egypt, and that happening to die prematurely, he was honored by the Egyptians in this mourning dirge, the first and only song they have. In the following particular the Egyptians resemble the Lacedæmonians only among all the Greeks: the young men, when they meet their elders, give way and turn aside; and rise from their seats when they approach. But, unlike any nation of the Greeks, instead of addressing one another in the streets, they salute by letting the hand fall down as far as the knee. They wear linen tunics fringed round the legs, which they call calasiris, and over these they throw white woollen mantles; woollen clothes, however, are not carried into the temples, nor are they buried with them, as this is accounted profane—agreeing in this respect with the worshippers of Orpheus and Bacchus, who are Egyptians and Pythagoreans: for they consider it profane for one who is initiated in these mysteries to be buried in woollen garments for some religious reason or other. The Egyptians have discovered more prodigies than all the rest of the world. They have amongst them oracles of Hercules, Apollo, Minerva, Diana, Mars, and Jupiter; but that which they honor above all others is the oracle of Latona in the city of Buto. The art of medicine is divided amongst them into specialties, each physician applying himself to one disease only. All places abound in physicians, some for the eyes, others for the head, others for the teeth, others for cutaneous diseases, and others still for internal disorders.
Their manner of mourning and burying is as follows: When a man of any consideration dies, all the women of that family besmear their heads and faces with mud, leave the body in the house, and wander about the city, beating themselves, having their clothes girt up, their neck and breast exposed, and all their relations accompany them. The men, too, beat themselves in the same way. When they have done this, they carry out the body to be embalmed. There are persons who are specially appointed for this purpose; when the dead body is brought to them, they show to the bearers wooden models of corpses, skilfully painted to illustrate the various methods of embalming. They first show the most expensive manner of embalming; then the second, which is inferior and less expensive; and lastly, the third and cheapest. The relations stipulate which style they prefer, agree on the price, and depart. To embalm a body in the most expensive manner, they first draw out the brains through the nostrils with an iron hook, perfecting the operation by the infusion of drugs. Then with a sharp Ethiopian stone they make an incision in the side, and take out all the bowels; and having cleansed the abdomen and rinsed it with palm-wine, they next sprinkle it with pounded perfumes. Then they fill the belly with pure myrrh pounded, and cassia, and other perfumes, frankincense excepted, and sew it up again; this done, they steep it in natrum, leaving it under for seventy days; a longer time than which it is not lawful to steep it. At the expiration of the seventy days they wash the corpse, and wrap the whole body in bandages of flaxen cloth, smearing it with gum, which the Egyptians commonly use instead of glue. After this the relations take the body back again, make a wooden case in the shape of a man, enclose the body in it, and store it in a sepulchral chamber, setting it upright against the wall. For those who, to avoid great expense, desire the middle way, they prepare in the following manner. Charging syringes with oil made from cedar, they fill the abdomen of the corpse without making any incision or taking out the bowels, but inject it at the fundament; and having prevented the injection from escaping, they steep the body in natrum for the prescribed number of days, on the last of which they let out from the abdomen the oil of cedar which has such power that it brings away the intestines and vitals in a state of dissolution; the natrum dissolves the flesh, and nothing of the body remains but the skin and the bones. The operation is then complete. The third method of embalming, which is used only for the poorer sort, consists in thoroughly rinsing the abdomen in syrmæa, and steeping it with natrum for the seventy days. Should any person, whether Egyptian or stranger, be found to have been seized by a crocodile, or drowned in the river, to whatever city the body may be carried, the inhabitants are by law compelled to have the body embalmed, and adorned in the handsomest manner, and buried in the sacred vaults. Nor is it lawful for any one else, whether relations or friends, to touch him; but the priests of the Nile bury the corpse with their own hands, as being something more than human.
They avoid using Grecian customs; and, in a word, the customs of all other people whatsoever.