This, however, of all their usages is most to be admired, that they bring up all children that are born. They circumcise the males, and spay the females, as is the custom also among the Jews, who are of Egyptian origin, as I said when I was treating of them.[922]
According to Aristobulus, no fishes ascend the Nile from the sea, except the cestreus, the thrissa, and dolphins, on account of the crocodiles; the dolphin, because it can get the better of the crocodile; the cestreus, because it is accompanied by the chœri along the bank, in consequence of some physical affinity subsisting between them. The crocodiles abstain from doing any hurt to the chœri, because they are of a round shape, and have spines on their heads, which are dangerous to them. The cestreus runs up the river in spring, when in spawn; and descends a little before the setting of the pleiad, in great numbers, when about to cast it, at which time they are taken in shoals, by falling into inclosures (made for catching them). Such also, we may conjecture, is the reason why the thrissa is found there.
So much then on the subject of Egypt.
CHAPTER III.
1. We shall next describe Africa, which is the remaining portion of the whole description of the earth.
We have before said much respecting it; but at present I shall further describe what suits my purpose, and add what has not been previously mentioned.[923]
The writers who have divided the habitable world according to continents, divide it unequally. But a threefold division denotes a division into three equal parts. Africa, however, wants so much of being a third part of the habitable world, that, even if it were united to Europe, it would not be equal to Asia; perhaps it is even less than Europe; in resources it is very much inferior, for a great part of the inland and maritime country is desert. It is spotted over with small habitable parts, which are scattered about, and mostly belonging to nomade tribes. Besides the desert state of the country, its being a nursery of wild beasts is a hindrance to settlement in parts which could be inhabited. It comprises also a large part of the torrid zone.
All the sea-coast in our quarter, situated between the Nile and the Pillars, particularly that which belonged to the Carthaginians, is fertile and inhabited. And even in this tract, some spots destitute of water intervene, as those about the Syrtes, the Marmaridæ, and the Catabathmus.
The shape of Africa is that of a right-angled triangle, if we imagine its figure to be drawn on a plane surface. Its base is the coast opposite to us, extending from Egypt and the Nile to Mauretania and the Pillars; at right angles to this is a side formed by the Nile to Ethiopia, which side we continue to the ocean; the hypothenuse of the right angle is the whole tract of sea-coast lying between Ethiopia and Mauretania.