Page:Ancient India as described by Megasthenês and Arrian.djvu/76

57 Fragm. XIII. t iElian, Hist. Anim. XVII. 39. Conf . Fragm. XII. 2. Of hidian A^es, In the country of the P r a x i i,§ who are an Indian people, Megasthenes says there are apes not inferior in size to the largest dogs. They I Peagm. XIII. B. iElian, Hist Anim. XVI. 10. Oflndmn Apes. Among the P r a s i i in India there is found, they say, a species of apes of human-like intelligence, and which are to appearance about the size of Hurkanian dogs. Nature has furnished them with forelocks, which one ignorant of the reality would take to be artificial. Their chin, like that of a satyr, turns upward, and their tail is like the potent one of the lion. Their body is white all over except the face and the tip of the tail, which are of a reddish colour. They are very intelligent, and naturally tame. They are bred in the woods, where also they Uve, subsist- ing on the fruits which they find growing wild on the hills. They resort in great numbers to the suburbs of L a t a g e, an Indian city, where they eat rice which has been laid down for them by the king's orders. In fact, every day a ready-prepared meal is set out for their use. It is said that when they have satisfied their appetite they retire in an orderly manner to their haunts in the woods, without injuring a single .thing that comes in their way. § The PrAchyas {i.e. Easterns) are called by Strabo, Arrian, and Pliny Ilpocrtoi, Pra^ii ; by Plutarch {Alex. 62) Upaitrioi, a name often used by ^lian also ; by Nikolaiis Damas. (ap. Stob. Floril. 37, 38) Upavtrioi ; by Diodorus (xvii. 93) Bprja-ioi; by Ourtius (IX. 2, 3) Pha/rrasii ; by Justin (xii. 8, 9) Proesides. Megasthenes attempted to approximate more closely to the Sanskpt PrAckyafior here he uses JIpa^iaKos. And it appears that Upd^ioi should be substituted for Upda-Loi in Stephan. Bjrzant., since it comes between the words Upd^iKos and npaa-. — Schwanbeck, p. 82, not. 6. Digitized by Google