Key to Easy Latin Stories for beginners/Part III/VII
VII.LIBYA.
A curious kind of oxen.
125.In Libya there live men who are called the Garamantes. In their land there are oxen which are said to graze while walking backwards. Now they do this because they have horns with a forward curve, on which account they graze walking backwards; for they cannot graze while walking forward, since their horns strike against the ground before they can advance. They differ in nothing from other oxen except in this very respect, and in the thickness and hardness of their hides.
The cave-dwellers.
126.The same Garamantes pursue the Ethiopian Troglodytae in four-horse chariots. Now they are called Troglodytae because they live in caves; for a cave is called. ‘troglus.’ For these Troglodytae are the swiftest of foot of all men of whom we have ever heard. Now the Troglodytae live on snakes, and lizards, and reptiles of that kind; but they use a language like to no other, but shriek like owls.