VI. This then must be regarded as a digression, so that too much credence may not be given to the stories which certain persons have related about the Indians beyond the Hyphasis; for those who served under Alexander are reasonably trustworthy up to the Hyphasis. For Megasthenes tells us this also about an Indian river; its name is Silas, it flows from a spring of the same name as the river through the territory of the Sileans, the people also named both from river and spring; its water has the following peculiarity; nothing is supported by it, nothing can swim in it or float upon it, but everything goes straight to the bottom; so far is this water thinner and more aery than any other. In the summer there is rain through India; especially on the mountains, Parapamisus and Hemodus and the Imaus, and from them the rivers run great and turbulent. The plains of India also receive rain in summer, and much part of them becomes swamp; in fact Alexander's army retired from the river Acesines in midsummer, when the river had overflowed on to the plains; from these, therefore, one can gauge the flooding of the Nile, since probably the mountains of Ethiopia receive rain in summer, and from them the Nile is swollen and overflows its banks on to the land of Egypt the Nile therefore also runs turbid this time of the year, as it probably would not be from melting snow; nor yet if its stream was dammed up by the seasonal winds which blow during the summer; and besides, the mountains of Ethiopia are probably not snowcovered, on account of the heat. But that they receive rain as India does is not outside the bounds of probability; since in other respects India is not unlike Ethiopia, and the Indian rivers have crocodiles like the Ethiopian and Egyptian Nile; and some of the Indian rivers have fish and other large water animals like those of the Nile, save the river-horse: though Onesicritus states that they do have the river-horse also. The appearance of the inhabitants, too, is not so far different in India and Ethiopia; the southern Indians resemble the Ethiopians a good deal, and, are black of countenance, and their hair black also, only they are not as snub-nosed or so woolly-haired as the Ethiopians; but the northern Indians are most like the Egyptians in appearance. VII. Megasthenes states that there are one hundred and eighteen Indian tribes. That there are many, I agree with Megasthenes; but I cannot conjecture how he learnt and recorded the exact number, when he never visited any great part of India, and since these different races have not much intercourse one with another. The Indians, he says, were originally nomads, as are the non-agricultural Scythians, who wandering in their waggons inhabit now one and now another part of Scythia; not dwelling in cities and not reverencing any temples of the gods; just so the Indians also had no cities and built no temples; but were clothed with the skins of animals slain in the chase, and for food ate the bark of trees; these trees were called in the Indian tongue Tala, and there grew upon them, just as on the tops of palm trees, what look like clews of wool. They also used as food what game they had captured, eating it raw, before, at least, Dionysus came into India. But when Dionysus had come, and become master of India, he founded cities, and gave laws for these cities, and became to the Indians the bestower of wine, as to the Greeks, and taught them to sow their land, giving them seed. It may be that Triptolemus, when he was sent out by Demeter to sow the entire earth, did not come this way; or perhaps before Triptolemus this Dionysus whoever he was came to India and gave the Indians seeds of domesticated plants; then Dionysus first yoked oxen to the plough and made most of the Indians agriculturists instead of wanderers, and armed them also with the arms of warfare. Further, Dionysus taught them to reverence other gods, but especially, of course, himself, with clashings of cymbals and beating of drums and dancing in the Satyric fashion, the dance called among Greeks the 'cordax'; and taught them to wear long hair in honour of the god, and instructed them in the wearing of the conical cap and the anointings with perfumes; so that the Indians came out even against Alexander to battle with the sound of cymbals and drums. VIII. When departing from India, after making all these arrangements, he made Spatembas king of the land, one of his Companions, being most expert in Bacchic rites; when Spatembas died, Budyas his son reigned in his stead; the father was King of India fifty-two years, and the son twenty years; and his son, again, came to the throne, one Cradeuas; and his descendants for the most part received the kingdom in succession, son succeeding father; if the succession failed, then the kings were appointed for some pre-eminence. But Heracles, whom tradition states to have arrived as far as India, was called by the Indians themselves 'Indigenous.' This Heracles was chiefly honoured by the Surasenians, an Indian tribe, among whom are two great cities, Methora and Cleisobora, and the navigable river Iobares flows through their territory. Megasthenes also says that the garb which this Heracles wore was like that of the Theban Heracles, as also the Indians themselves record; he also had many sons in his country, for this Heracles too wedded many wives; he had only one daughter, called Pandaea; as also the country in which she was born, and to rule which Heracles educated her, was called Pandaea after the girl; here she possessed five hundred elephants given by her father, four thousand horsemen, and as many as a hundred and thirty thousand foot-soldiers. This also some writers relate about Heracles; he traversed all the earth and sea, and when he had rid the earth of evil monsters he found in the sea a jewel much affected by women. And thus, even to our day, those who bring exports from India to our country purchase these jewels at great price and export them, and all Greeks in old time, and Romans now who are rich and prosperous, are more eager to buy the sea pearl, as it is called in the Indian tongue for that Heracles, the jewel appearing to him charming, collected from all the sea to India this kind of pearl, to adorn his daughter. And Megasthenes says that this oyster is taken with nets; that it is a native of the sea, many oysters being together, like bees; and that the pearl oysters have a king or queen, as bees do. Should anyone by chance capture the king, he can easily surround the rest of the oysters; but should the king slip through, then the others cannot be taken; and of those that are taken, the Indians let their flesh rot, but use the skeleton as an ornament. For among the Indians this pearl sometimes is worth three times its weight in solid gold, which is itself dug up in India. IX. In this country where Heracles' daughter was queen, the girls are marriageable at seven years, and the men do not live longer than forty years. About this there is a story among the Indians, that Heracles, to whom when in mature years this daughter was born, realizing that his own end was near, and knowing of no worthy husband to whom he might bestow his daughter, himself became her husband when she was seven, so that Indian kings, their children, were left behind. Heracles made her then marriageable, and hence all the royal race of Pandaea arose, with the same privilege from Heracles. But I think, even if Heracles was able to accomplish anything so absurd, he could have lengthened his own life, so as to mate with the girl when of maturer years. But really if this about the age of the girls in this district is true, it seems to me to tend the same way as the men's age, since the oldest of them die at forty years. For when old age comes on so much sooner and death with age, maturity will reasonably be earlier, in proportion to the end; so that at thirty the men might be on the threshold of old age, and at twenty, men in their prime, and manhood at about fifteen, so that the women might reasonably be marriageable at seven. For that the fruits ripen earlier in this country than elsewhere, and perish earlier, this Megasthenes himself tells us. From Dionysus to Sandracottus the Indians counted a hundred and fifty-three kings, over six thousand and forty-two years, and during this time thrice [Movements were made] for liberty . . . this for three hundred years; the other for a hundred and twenty years; the Indians say that Dionysus was fifteen generations earlier than Heracles; but no one else ever invaded India, not even Cyrus son of Cambyses, though he made an expedition against the Scythians, and in all other ways was the most energetic of the kings in Asia; but Alexander came and conquered by force of arms all the countries he entered; and would have conquered the whole world had his army been willing. But no Indian ever went outside his own country on a warlike expedition, so righteous were they. X. This also is related; that Indians do not put up memorials to the dead; but they regard their virtues as sufficient memorials for the departed, and the songs which they sing at their funerals. As for the cities of India, one could not record their number accurately by reason of their multitude; but those of them which are near rivers or near the sea, they build of wood; for if they were built of brick, they could not last long because of the rain, and also because their rivers overflow their banks and fill the plains with water. But such cities as are built on high and lofty places, they make of brick and clay. The greatest of the Indian cities is called Palimbothra, in the district of the Prasians, at the confluence of the Erannoboas and the Ganges; the Ganges, greatest of all rivers; the Erannoboas may be the third of the Indian rivers, itself greater than the rivers of other countries; but it yields precedence to the Ganges, when it pours into it its tributary stream. 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